NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 50, 22 November 1932, Page 8

NOTES OF THE DAY

Every adult would wish the boy to have his chance and everyone, therefore, will regard sympathetically the “Back to Prosperity Month which is being inaugurated this week in an endeavour to settle boys in employment. There are 500 of them out of work whom it is hoped to place. Something will no doubt be done by direct appeals to possible employers. Their decision can be influenced and, indeed, made a justifiable one if those who cannot by any stretch engage a boy do their part by wise spending. As the Prime Minister says, the buyer is the real employer of labour. Therefore those who are trying to find jobs for boys have shrewdly decided that the best way is to start a movement to increase the total volume of trade in the city. Until the local factories have more contracts, until retailers turnovers are increased, and until this added business is reflected in offices and other trading units, it is manifestly impossible for additional hands to be taken on and regular work. ensured. Those who cannot help the boys directly can therefore help indirectly by the wise spending that stimulates trade and employment. * * * *

Theory, talk, and propaganda have been largely the inspiration of Russian Communism. It is based on fanaticism.. In practical application, however the results have been disappointing. The operation of the Communist machine has involved the creation of an army of bureaucratic officials, to the number of eight millions, to supervise it. The axe, we are told, is about to descend upon from ten to twenty per cent, of them. Experience of handling the Russian peasantry by bureaucratic methods has demonstrated that there has been too much exhortation and too little organisation. The result has been hostility on the one hand and official corruption and laxity on the other. The same, apparently, has been the case in the Soviet manufacturing industries. Broadly speaking, the result of Socialistic enterprises in government is always the same. The army of bureaucratic officials is swelled to inordinate proportions, the cost of administration increases, and in the end the head becomes too large for the body.

It will be noted in a cable message published to-day that President Hoover feels that some concession in respect of the War debt payments is due to Great Britain “because that country originally settled on the basis of the debtor most able to pay, and is now regarded as being in a much less favourable economic position than France or any other important debtor nation.” This set of opinion in favour of Britain is said to be manifest in Congress as well, and may be taken as an appreciation of the manner in which Britain in the past has faced up to her commitments to America. That she might have driven a harder bargain cannot be denied. Having made her bargain, however, Britain has stuck to it, and only stern necessity has compelled her now to ask for consideration. It would be strange indeed if any creditor, national or individual, could fail to be impressed by such evidence of willingness to pay as has been shown by Great Britain to the United States.