WORLD AFFAIRS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 101, 1 May 1930, Page 6

WORLD AFFAIRS.

A WEEKLY REVIEW, (By BYSTANDER.) Though Gandhi has not been successful eithei in securing for himself the much-desired "crowi: of martyrdom," or rousing-the people of India tc actual insurrection, he is giving the authorities s good deal of trouble, and in spite of his "noviolence" principles he lias already been the direcl cause of bloodshed. The arrest of Pandit Nehru President of the Indian National Congress, seem* to have precipitated a riot at Delhi, while the imprisonment of the Mayor of Calcutta foi encouraging sedition has evoked some disorders ii Bengal. At Cliittagong, the second port in Bengal the telegraph office was burned down by a body ei "raiders," and troops were sent to keep ordei after at least one British soldier had been killed On the other side of India, at Karachi anc Peshawar, there have been sporadic outbreaks oJ riot and assassination. As a consequence of the disturbed condition of the country the Viceroy has revived the Indian Press Act of 1910 in a mon rigorous form. This Act, which gives the authorities wide powers to suppress all nativt newspapers using violent and seditious languagt and encouraging revolution, was hotly criticised at Home as well as in India, and it was repealec in 1922. But there is no doubt that the vernacular Press in India is a constant menace to the public peace, and the revival of this legislation is a cleaj indication of the gravity of the present crisis. Then and Now. Yet the situation to-day is by no means as serious there as it was ten years ago. At thai time, as Mr. Ashmead Bartlett, who is now at Delhi, has pointed out, India was exhausted and disorganised by the World war, there was serious troublo on the North-West frontier with the Afghans and the hill tribes, and the Hindus had been reinforced in their campaign against tin British Raj, by the Mohammedans, who wen bitterly hostile to Britain because of the Allied threat to deprive the Turks of Constantinople ant expel them from Europe. But to-day the positior is altogether different. The frontier is now quiet the Khilafat agitation died down when Turkisl rule was restored at Stamboul, Gandhi hiinsel; soon repudiated the incendiary violence of the A 1 brothers, and the great mass of the Moslen population liavo come to realise that Britain is their only sure defence against the fanaticism o: their Hindu neighbours. Last week an influentia Mohammedan, speaking at an All India Moslen Conference at Bombay, denounced the Gandh movement, declared that the Moslems would neve] countcnance it, and appealed to his co-religionists to "present a united front" against the advancing forces of revolution. With 70,000,000 Moslems ranged on the side of the British Raj, Gandhi's efforts may cause a little local disorder, or ever involve some loss of life, but they are foredoomed to futility and failure. "Industrial Depression." The world is becoming fairly well accustomed to this head-line. Most people apparently take il for granted that this sort of thing may be expected to happen anywhere at any time, anc so relievo themselves of the responsibility oi troubling seriously about it. The consequence ic that very few have any idea of the actual facts covered by this familiar phrase. Just now botl: the wool industry and the cotton industry arc "depressed' at Home, and a few figures may lielj to "point the moral and adorn the tale." Nol long ago a Royal Commission was set up tc consider the position of the wool industry suggested a reduction in wages. The unions refused, and 100,000 operatives ceased work. It~u now asserted that 70 per cent of the industry is at a standstill, and the "workless workers" arc losing £250,000 a week in wages. In the cottor industry things seem even worse. According tc the "New Statesman," the country fails to realise that "its most important industrial centre is rotting and that in a few years —say five at tin most—Lancashire may be one vast graveyard of derelict buildings." This may sound to some ears simply the rhetoric of melodrama. But it is i fact that one of the best-equipped cotton mills in Burnley, ready for starting work, was sole recently for £4275, though it could not be buill and fitted up to-day for £80,000, In Burnley alone over 20,000 looms have been scrapped since the "rot" set in, and in Kelson, another cottor town close at hand, five firms owning 18,000 loomc ivent out of existence last year. Throughout the :otton district the tale is the same, and though possibly the "New Statesman" exaggerates when it asserts that unless something is done imm'eliately to stem the tide "the cotton trade is loomed," these ominous words may help us tc understand what the present "industrial depression" means at Home.

"The Head that Wears the Crown." The lot of the average king is proverbially Tineasy, but his position must be much more embarrassing than usual when he finds that <i Dictator whom he has tolerated has been deposed and that lie is left unprotected to face the storm of odium aroused by his Minister's tyranny. If ever the King of Italy gets rid of Mussolini he will discover for himself what Alfonso of Spain feels just now. When Primo de Rivera vacated his .post, and it was clear that the Monarchy had virtually abdicated the autocratic power which he had helped it to-wield, anti-royalists of every shade and party—Liberals, Socialists and Anarchists alike—turned furiously upon the unfortunate king. Not content with criticising him and blaming him for Rivera's excesses, they are now denouncing liim for "breaking his coronation oath" by putting up with the Rivera despotism, and they arc openly discussing the possibilities of a revolution and the emergence of a republic. Riots have broken out at Barcelona, as always happens at a political crisis, and if once the Catalans arc fully aroused Alfonso may speedily be forced to share the hospitality of Paris with many another royal exile. A Strange Companionship. It is not wise to take £00 literally the vituperation lavished by political opponents on each other in the course of heated debate. When Mr. Lloyd George was explaining to the House of Commons that any sign of a desire to placate the "left wingers," or any manifestation of Socialist sympathies by Mr. Mac Donald, would "toll his knell on a funeral bell," few people can have expected that in a few weeks the Liberal leader would be taking tea with the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his wife, and promising to speak from the same platform with Mr. Snowden. However, there is this much to be said for this dramatic "quick change," that Mr. Lloyd George has been anxious all along to find some practicable excuse for "burying the hatchet" and joining hands with official Labour, so long as Labour does not turn absolutely "red"; and the chance has come with the revival of the fiscal controversy. Whether Mr. Baldwin's decision to raise the question of food taxes again was a tactical, blunder or not, it was a splendid opportunity for Mr. Lloyd George. For it enabled him. to assure Mr. Mac Donald and the world at large that he would forget the past and ally himself once more with Labour to defend the sanctity of Free Trade. And so Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Snowden, having partaken of "free trade luncheons" together, are now in active training for that promised "conference after Easter," at which "business men, ' trade unions and economists" arc to co-operate in waving the Cobdenite flag once more before the 1 dazzled eyes of the Tariff Reformers. - :