THE CURE FOR BOLSHEVISM.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 307, 27 December 1924, Page 19

THE CURE FOR BOLSHEVISM.

USE OF THE MOTOR CAR. j •■The wide and, indeed, almost universal use of tie motor car has proved for the I'nitrd States the antidote for Bolshevism." This is the impression which Lord Ashfield, chairman of the Underground Railways, has brought hack from America, from which country he recently returned to Encland. '*The motor car," he eald, in developing his theory, "has afforded the working people in the cities an opportunity 01 renctiing tho country, spending their leisure hours away from their ordinary surroundings, along with their families and their friends. It gives them something to which to look forward when their day's work is finished, and poos a lons way towards preventing discontent and unrest creeping in. "It appears to mc that the problem of to-day is not bo much a question of improving working conditions during the hours of employment. Thi3 is a matter which has a tendency to solve itself. The great problem is to afford the working people opportunities for usefully and pleasantly occupying their eight hours of leisure. "If this Is done the other two eights out of the twenty-four will take care of themselves. "Nearly everyone owns a car, and it is the ambition of everyone else to drive one. It is the common'experience to find almost every main road in the States has what appears to be an endless procession of cars upon it. Nearly all of them are driven by their owners. "In Detroit, the home of the motor csr industry, where each home seems to have its car. the automobile is so extraordinarily cheap that a second-hand one can be bought for as low as flO. "Wages are remarkably high all over America. Unemployment is very low indeed. In fact, it may be said to be almost non-existent at the present time. Workers Welcome Machinery. "American workmen not only do not saving devices, they ccc in them the promise of larger -wages, and know that the employer encourages the workman to earn the largest possible wage for himself. This is particularly noticeable in the rallwny service. Locomotives pull trains of prodigious length, and this is one reason wliy it is possible for the railways to pay wages which would be well nigh Impossible in Britain. "Things are possible In a new and rapidly growing country which are much more difficult to secure in a country where growth is slow and change by no means so easy to bring about. "Apart from the temporary check to business, which always occurs at election times, everywhere I travelled, and I travelled extensively, I saw evidence of a great faith in the future of the country, and this was specially Illustrated by the immense amount of 'building of aU kinds which was going on everywhere."