WORLD AFFAIRS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 66, 19 March 1931, Page 6

WORLD AFFAIRS.

A WEEKLY REVIEW. (By BYSTANDER.) I doubt if any European State is exhibiting to-day more persistent and menacing signs of impending revolution and dissolution than the Commonwealth across the Tasman' Sea. * This does not mean that, in my opinion, the social and economic and political order of things, as now established in Australia, is doomed to sudden and catastrophic destruction. But for the moment I cannot conceive a more gloomy outlook than the Australian people have to face, more especially in New South Wales. There is nothing seriously wrong with Australia as a country, for its wonderful natural resources exploited on sound political and economic lines will soon restore financial equilibrium, if the politicians will give the country a chance. But neither at Canberra nor at Sydney is Australia getting a fair chance for reconstruction and recovery to-day. The Australian Chaos. The condition of things in New South Wales, produced by Mr. Lang's return to power, seems to me, in a phrase sanctified by the mid-Victorian novelists and journalists, to " beggar description." Both the Northern District and the Riverina, the two most productive areas in the State, are demanding the right to secede, so as to secure political independence and to evade the disgrace of repudiation. But Mr. Lang and his friends are threatening to treat either the claim for independence or the decision to reject his policy as a challenge to civil war, and they are talking with characteristic recklessness of armed conflict and bloodshed as the inevitable outcome of the crisis. Nor are these dangers confined to New South Wales. Last month a Sydney newspaper declared that "Mr. Lang has sown the seeds of the disruption of the Commonwealth, for if he. gets his way at Sydney and repudiates the financial and political obligations of New South Wales to Australia the other States will rebel." Scylla and Charybdis. '

Yet in one respect Mr. Lang may claim a small I measure of sympathy even from his most resolute opponents. For he has clearly not yet induced himself to go so far or so fast as the "left 'wingers" of his motley following would desire. The extremists lately organised a deputation to Canberra demanding that Mr. Scullin should declare " a state of national emergency" which would justify the use of force to put down all organised opposition to Labour's will. Moreover, the irrepressible Jock Garden, has formulated a series of proposals on behalf of the trade unions which are intended to force Mr. Lang's hand and prevent him from "procrastinating" further. Finally, the Bill to amend the Arbitration system proposes to place in absolute control of the wages system for a term of years a judge who has already committed himself irrevocably to Labour's standpoint. Even supposing that Mr. Lang should preserve sufficient sanity to attempt resistance to this flowing tide of " proletarianism," he would find himself in a position no safer or more dignified than Mr. Scullin's seat at Canberra to-day. As to that most unfortunate man, he is experiencing the trials and tribulations that must beset everybody who is not courageous and resolute enough to follow the line he has marked out for himself without attempting to propitiate or to compromise. If Mr. Scullin had stuck tenaciously to the policy that he outlined in London before his return, and had not truckled to Mr. Theodore, he would have retained the confidence of the Australian people, and could have commanded enough sifpport to keep him in power in defiance of the extremists. As matters <irc now, Mr. Scullin's chances of survival arc remote in the extreme. Australia has now reached a point midway between the Scylla of revolutionary violence and the Charybdis of reaction—and who can foretell the end?

A Business Trip. The visit of the Prince of Wales and Prince George to South America promises to produce important practical and material results. The plan for a British Empire Trade Exhibition to be opened at Buenos Ayres by the Heir Apparent grew quite naturally out of Lord d'Abern'on's very "successful trade mission to the Argentine a year ago, and so far the idea seems to have received every possible encouragement, not only from the Latin Americans but from the United States. It would not have been extraordinary if American merchants and financiers had regarded this organised invasion of the South American markets by British goods as an encroachment on their own preserves. But 011 the contrary the Americans appear to have fallen in with the scheme quite good-humouredly, and it has been left, for the Germans, who have been trying for fifty years to secure regular customers in South America, to sound a warning note, and to suggest that their own government " should make some official gesture to assist German trade." Meantime, the great show has been opened to the accompaniment of "all the pomp and glory of an international event," and the message sent by King George should go far to make that function a complete success. As usual, the Prince of Wales has made himself extremely popular with his hosts, and political as well as commercial relations between Britain and the Argentine will doubtless be improved thereby. ( Great Events and Trivial Causes. A few months ago two enterprising Australian adventurers found their way to the little State of Andorra, which nestles in a remote recess of the Eastern Pyrenees, 011 the border line between France and Spain. They intended, in the true Australian spirit, to run some sweepstake after the fashion of the Irish Free State, and the natives of Andorra—"good natural, hard' working mountaineers, Catalan in stock and speech" — rose to the bait at once. Andorra, it may be observed, is a tiny State 15 miles across, 175 square miles in area, and containing about 5000 people. Its history goes back to the ninth century, when Charlemagne gave it independence. But under the feudal system it was controlled by two suzerains, the Count of Foix, and the Spanish Bishop of Urgel, who have always appointed in turn the judges presiding, over the Andorra Courts. The Counts of Foix resigned their suzerainty to the Kings of Navarre, and when Henry of Navarre became King of France, in the sixteenth century, France took over one half of the suzerain power. But the Bishops of Urgel have maintained their authority in unbroken succession from the thirteenth century up to this present year of grace, and as the people are all " devout Roman Catholics" they have always deferred to the views of their spiritual rulers. But now M. Doumergue, on behalf of France and the Bishop of Urgel, representing the Church of Bome, have refused to permit the two aforesaid Australian sweep agents to carry out their projected "gamble," and the good folk of Andorra are roused to wrath and rebellion. By what right, they ask, do the French President and the Spanish Bishop claim to control the "free" people of Andorra? So intense is the excitement, and so keen the resentment of these hardy mountaineers that they have declared themselves independent and are defying the legal lords and masters whose prerogatives have not been disputed for more than seven iVituries. And all this because a Spanish Bishop and a French President have refused to allow Australian sweep tickets to be sold under the shadow of the Pyrenees!