THE WORLD CRISIS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 215, 11 September 1931, Page 10

THE WORLD CRISIS.

ITS POLITICAL OUTCOME.

PEOPLE BLAMING RULERS.

PROSPECTS OF COMMUNISM,

The effect which the present economic crisis will have on the political life of this decade was discussed by the Rev. W. G. Monckton before the niembere of the Lyceum Club yesterday at a luncheon talk. Mrs. J. C. Dickenson, actingpresident, briefly introduced the speaker, who said the one feature which distinguished this crisis from others was that it was. world-wide. All forms of government and all political creeds had been hard-hit.' The United States, which was the home of individualism, and Soviet Russia, the home of Communism, were equally hard-hit. Political creeds were changing. Liberals in England, descendants of the Corn Law agitation, could be found proposing tariffs, and Coneervatives could be found wondering if there was not something to say for the other side. A well-known Socialist writer in Germany had abandoned his creed, and 6aid that he did not think Socialism would prove a remedy.- Stalin had departed from pure Com munisrn, for he had said that in. the future .the worker would have to be paid for hie work in accordance with its value. : Stalin wanted to create a class of brain workers, and said that it wae a great pity that Russia drove out the intellectual ..worker, and that they must bring them back by offering inducements. He was quoted as saying that they must pursue the policy of the velvet glove, and give up that of j the mailed fist. . Two Great Dangers. Very few people foresaw the present crisis,; but one of them was Dr. Sowarts, of Berlin, who issued a warning to bankers in 1929 that a : crisis was coining. He was disregarded, in spite of hie prominent position, because it was a very prosperous year and the producers were receiving high prices. Now thab the crisis has arrived all over the world, the people are blaming the Governments. Thus the King of Spain was blamed for the fall of the peseta. No one knew then why the peeeta fell, and no One knew to-day, but like all Latine they staged a revolution. All the South American countries, where revolution was a popular pastime, had also been in revolt, and now the Governments in all countries had confessed themselves unable to deal with the position.

Mr. Monckton said the crisis did not consist in whether we received 2/ less and paid more in tax, but in the two fn-eat dangers which it might bring about. The first was the spread of Communism, which was all the greater because people did not note its coming, and the other was the danger of war. Stalin and Trotsky parted because they differed in policy. Stalin's policy wae to let the people do what they liked, but to make a success of Russia, industrially and agriculturally, and let the world see the success and thus show the capitalists that the Soviet system was more successful than theirs. In the United States there were six million unemployed, and with an average, family of five that gave .30 millions adversely affected, a quarter of the whole population. Unemployment was steadily, growing. When people could not get work, and wandered in the streets hungry and cold and homeless, they were apt to aelc if the Russian system were not better than the one under which they suffered. ■ . . ■ Barrier to Communism. The great agrarian belt in Europe, which extended from the frontiers of Russia through Poland to North Germany and the Elbe, was the great bulwark against Communism, but it waft hard hit and was crumbling to deoay. Yet, on the other hand, pure Communism had failed in Russia, and in the FiveYear Plan, Stalin has confessed this himself. Communism was not likely to gain a hold with people who wanted a little land for themselves, like the farmers of the agrarian , belt. The greatest danger was the danger 6f war. The pact between Germany and France, made, by Stresemahn and Briand, might be replaced by one between Germany and Italy, and that would endanger the peace of Europe. Dr. Sowarts said in London that in his country people were starving and the agricultural classes hard hit. The middle classes had lost their savings, three times over—during the war, again during the inflation, and now by the depression. The capital value of the Chemical Trust had dropped from 200 millions to 45 millions, and shares in private banks had fallen to 2 per cent of the pre-war value. Mr. Monckton ended by saying that Europe was looking to England for a lead, not so much ■ because of the financial ability of the English, but because they possessed qualities which other nations respected. We must begin by co-operation with each other. There must be more co-operation between neighbours and between settlements. What the workers felt was not so much their poverty as the fact that there was often a lack of brotherlinese, and that others were enjoying the good things they had worked to make possible, yet were prevented from obtaining. What was really wanted was - the spirit cf Christianity. That was the great underlying feature which' was needed amongst Uβ. Mr. Monckfcim ■"'oncluded with a beautiful rendering of Clough's poem, "Say not the struggle nought availeth."