VOICE of the NATIONS

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 264, 3 August 1929, Page 19

VOICE of the NATIONS

SAYINGS AND WRITINGS |:: :: OF THE TIMES :: ::

Industrial Relationship. “In a comparative estimate of the advantages held by each of the great industrial countries in an age of intensive world competition, probably no single factor of strength or weakness should be allowed to outweigh the relations between employers and workpeople. If, as we firmly believe, those relations are in this country grounded in reason and mutual respect to a degree for which we can search elsewhere in vain either in the'old world or the new, then on a long view there is no cause to despair of the competitive future of British industry.”—“The Bound Table.” Says Mr. Lloyd George:

“The very hour the Ministry decides to become a Socialist _ Administration its career ends, for it has no authority from the nation to embark upon Socialistic experiments. It could only then be kept in power by Tory votes or Tory indulgence. It will be an interesting Parliament, but there will be no more edifying spectacle than that of a Socialist Government engaged in strengthening and perpetuating the economic system their party is pledged to destroy.”—Mr, Lloyd George. *

Something to Think About. “Consider the position of the Labour Party In the last election,” writes Mr. Norman Angell, M.P., in “Foreign Affairs.” “It had one daily paper, and that in London. Not a single provincial daily. For every Labour stater ment that reached the average voter he must have been reached byja hundred anti-Labour ones. Add ,to this the fact that both Conservative and Liberal Parties spent enormous sums on posters and placards; the disproportion in the display on hoardings, etc., must have been, taking the country as a whole, nearly as great as in the Press. Yet, despite this enormous preponderance of printed matter favouring the Conservative and Liberal Parties, it was the Labour Party which registered by far the greatest increase of votes. ' It was said of the Liberal landslide of the 1906 election, ‘all the papers were on one side and all the votes on the other.” Something near to that would seem to fit the present phenomenon. It would, of course, be altogether unwarranted to conclude that the newspaper can in no circumstance have considerable effect on public opinion. We know from the history of the last twenty years that at certain times of crisis—and life and death crisis—it has supreme power. But there are situations, plainly, in which it loses that power and something else operates as the determining factor of persuasion.”

Imperial Migration. “The cheek which is noticeable in the emigration figures is due partly to the restraining effects of the schemes of social and industrial insurance launched in this country since the end of the War. A Departmental Committee appointed by Mr. Amery in 1925 to consider the effect of such schemes on migration has reported that these various schemes of social insurance have helped to lower the numbers who have been attracted by the life of independence offered to them in the Dominions of our Empire. This Committee has made several suggestions, the chief of which are that schemes of social insurance should be standardised throughout the Empire. In view of the great importance of the ' subject and of the need for the British Government to take all possible measures for the promotion of Empire Trade, it is to be hoped that the new Government wir give early attention to this subject, and that it will be ready to put definite proposals before the next meeting of the Prime Ministers of the Empire in 1930.” —Mr. John B. C. Kershaw, in the “Fortnightly Review.”

A Horde of Parasites. “Behind the special problem of overpopulation in Britain there is another tendency, even more far-reaching and destructive. It is probable that a majority of the population are now in receipt of State-relief, in free education, doles, pensions, and what not. We are creating a vast parasitic class wholly or partially supported by the industry of the remainder. This is not socialism, though socialistic arguments may be used to justify it; it is more like the doles to the populace of Rome which exhausted the Imperial exchequer. It is a millstone round the neck of British trade and enterprise, under which we seem likely to sink. And no political party would dare to touch it with a little finger, except to make it worse. The opinion is growing that politics is an extrememly expensive game. . . The grandmother of parliaments seems to be in her dotage.”—Dean Inge.

South Africa’s Clear Course. “The choice before South Africa is clear enough,” says the "Manchester Guardian.” “The backveld farmer has always beoi tempted to assume that the native was and should be a chattel, doomed to draw water and hew wood for his white master. General Hertzog’s appeal has not put the matter as plainly as that, but he has appealed to that deep, instinctive prejudice. It is not a purely .South African issue. South Africa is in any case a selfgoverning community, and her salvation lies in her own hands. But the problem before her arises acutely also in East Africa. So far the white man has not been notably successful in his relationships with the African. His decision to-day is whether he shall throughout East and South Africa pursue a policy which denies fundamental human liberties to the black races or whether he shall use his greater intelligence and power to give to the black a status of self-respect and independence. But, however difficult. the effort to create a community of races instead of a white dominion is the only hopeful one. It may be that General Hertzog himself knows this He has been amply warned by enlightened opinion in his own pountry,’*

What a Church is Not. “A church is not a political party, nor a convenient social club, nor yet a contrivance for keeping exploded superstitions in cold storage.”—Dr. S. Parkes Cadman. Failure—and Success.

“There are in the literary life more swift and resounding successes than in any other form of activity, but there are also more dumb and nervewracked failures; many, many tragedies of anxiety, want, and illness; much standing to the guns in the face of hopeless odds, much falling into ■captivity. The successes are cried along the hilltops, the failures hide silent in the valleys. In this calling we are proud that the ill-fortunate do not advertise their wants.”— Mr. John Galsworthy, O.M.

“A Great Succession.” “General Dawes comes to take his place in a great succession. This country has for long been very fortunate in its American Ambassadors. We believe he will add a new lustre to the famous list. In courage and knowledge, in native force of character and intelligence, he is second to none who have adorned it. And he has an unrivalled opportunity. The world stands at the parting of the two ways, which lead respectively to perpetual peace, or to a distant but inevitable Armageddon.” — “Daily Chronicle.”

To-morrow in South Africa. “The native question dominates the whole future of the Union. If it is not treated on wise lines, it will create a most dangerous situation. The attitude of Genera! Hertzog and his supporters is easily understandable by anyone who realises the conditions which prevail in South Africa, and how the Dutch element’, the descendants of the early settlers, who had terrible experiences of native ferocity, must naturally be liable to regard them. But, possibly, the result of the election may strengthen the movement, advocated by General Smuts, for calling a general conference on the native question, with a view to its settlement on rational lines.”—“Liverpool Post.”

Canada’s “Wanteds.” “Our thoughts turn chiefly to Mr. Thomas and his -newly-made job of ‘curing unemployment.’ He has plans to shorten the working life of the workman by pensioning him off at the age of 60, and so bringing the young unemployed into wage-earning at the other end of the scale. This expedient may do something, but it can make only a moderate impression on the hard core of a million unemployed. The fact will remain that Britain has more working folk than her industry can hope to absorb. Hence the timeliness from the British point of view of the bold scheme which has again been laid before the Canadian Parliament for the development of the Peace River country.—“ Canadian Gazette.”

Statistics. “Probably the most popular statistics in this country are those relating to cricket, football, and racing results, and if evidence were needed of the utility of the statistical method in all departments of corporate life, it could be found by reference to the amount of space accorded in various sections of our newspapers to matters of this kind.” says the “Midland Bank Review.” “Indeed, the science of statistics possesses, probably in a peculiar degree, the quality of being essential to every other branch of science, physical or social; it is equally important in medicine, engineering, geology, and economics. The increasing utilisation of the science in the more popular fields of knowledge, however, is no indication of juvenility. On the contrary, it has been working ever since man became human. Despite its age, however, it is only comparatively lately that statistics has become of very general interest. Nowadays politicians use—or misuse—statistics even on the public platform; the present-day craze for ‘records’ is a phase of the same development.”

Electoral Reform. “Everyone admits,” says the “Scotsman,” “that our system of Parliamentary representation has become anomalous with the growth of a third party in the .State; but outside the Liberal Party there is no enthusiasm for reform. Socialists and Unionists are equally prepared to take their chance at the polls, believing that the swing of the pendulum will give them their opportunity in time, whereas a change in the electoral system might result in a never-ending succession of minority Governments. It is a difficult problem, and is not likely to be solved in the present Parliament.” Hang Together—or Separately? “An entente cordiale between Liberalism and Conservatism cannot be manufactured. It must grow,” says Mr. J. L. Garvin, in the “Observer.” “If it comes at all, it can only rise out of a definite situation —out of a real crisis not foreseen. Some impediments are stubborn; some persons intractable. Tlie Government will have to define its attitude on electoral reform; Mr. Baldwin will have to say whether he agrees with the Government. That will be a moment ‘significant of much,’ as Carlyle used to say. Liberalism alone has stood, and stands, between this country and full Socialism. The blindness of conventional Conservatism on this head astonishes us more than any other form of its recent fatuity. In the end these two older parties—as the further inevitable rise of the Socialist vote will prove to both of them—must ‘hang together or hang separately.’ Liberalism never has got, and never will get, any more real consideration from Socialism than the boaconstrictor shows to the rabbit. Labour, with its natural and unswerving ambition for an independent majority at the next time of asking, desires the destruction and disappearance of Lib—slism.”