UNREST AT HOME.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 218, 15 September 1925, Page 9

UNREST AT HOME.

i__- ___s———;— AUCKXANDER'S IMPRESSIONS CONTINENT PROSPERING.

Returning yesterday from a sixmonths' trip abroad, Mr. J. F. W. Dickson, solicitor, of Auckland, said he was glad to be home again. England was a good place to be out of. A graphic account of the prevailing industrial unrest in the Old Land was given by Mr. Dickson, who predicted ah.upheaval if trade did not change for the better next spring: , ' When Mr. Dickson left Auckland in March last, he made a stay of some weeks in Australia, going on with his mother and sister to the Continent, where he visited -Naples, Florence, Milan, Rome and Paris. In Rome. Mr. Dickson saw all the sights, the guide taking him through the four Holy Doors. He also went to Switzerland, where he was much impressed with the scenery and alpine wonders. Italy is doing well commercially, Mr. Dickson asserts. The factories can only accept orders for delivery eight months ahead. In France, it is just the same. The working people have set to with a will, and there is no squabbling over hours. The small farmer, the backbone of France, works like a Trojan, and as a result the country is prospering. France can well afford to pay her war debts, said Mr. Dickson. Things are different in England, where. with over a million unemployed, the moral of the people is being destroyed by the dole, which was introduced in order to save a revolution. The position is desperate as regards the coal industry, said Mr. Dickson. Owners cannot pay their way, and the miners cannot live on less than they are being paid—about £2 per week. Longer hours have been suggested as the remedy. Mr. Dickson says that politically the* "Red Fed." element is so strong in Labour circles that the tail is wagging the dog. There is a distinctively Bolshevik element in the Labour party. Mr. Ramsay Mac Donald was fighting for the leadership of his own party.

Mr. Dickson said Liberalism was by no means dead in England. The position Was that there were large numbers of people who could not sympathise with the Conservatives, yet they were antiLabour; and for that reason there was a strong demand for Liberalism: The balance has swung back in favour of the Liberal party, since there was a sane strata politically that could trust neither extreme to steer the ship of State out of her present perilous position. Glasgow was more or less the seat of Bolshevism, said Mr. Dickson. On going to the north of Ireland, Mr. Dickson found that conditions were difficult. They would be pleased in that part of the country if England controlled their finances. In the South, they had no money, and there was much dissatisfaction.