SWITZERLAND'S ECONOMIC PLIGHT.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3148, 18 December 1922, Page 7

SWITZERLAND'S ECONOMIC PLIGHT.

In a paper of extraordinary directness, force and brevity, the leading article in the Swiss Review for June. Colonel P. Pfuud, former Chief Instructor in Military Engineering, gives a clear picture of his country's share in the world's suffering. The supremo calamity is the reduction of income from loss of foreign visitors, from 500,000,000 francs to 80,000,000. Exports have fallen from 3,250.000,000 francs in 1020 to 1,750.000,000 in 1921, with a balance of trade against it by reason of half a billion larger imports. Three hundred thousand francs a day are being spent in Governmental allowance* to the unemployed. '"'lt is evident that, at this rate, we shall in due time reach the bottom of the well, despite our line national fortune of 42 billion." The next sentence, "The exchange is not the only cause of stagnation m our foreign relations," must refer to oondiditions in neighbor lands, since Switzerland, alone of all countries, actually holds U.S. currency at a discountthough only of 3 per cent. [| mmmi Those in Government employ (which includes the railroads), providers of food, Speculators generally, are pros porous, and eo contented, though they, too. should see in the proposal of a confiscatory levy on wealth, a near future in which they will share the downfall of the bourgeoisie generally. The farmers are voluntarily lowering the war prices, and are ready for union with the bourgeois generally to resist the socialistic terror. There are openi advocates of Bolshevism, and a much larger section of Socialists "wish to socialise, to put under State control, regulate everything, leaving no private individual initiative." '1 hough a minority, as in all truly democratic States,* they have had successes through better organisation. With soldierly frankness, errors are confessed which have been committed on the author's own side: notably, unfair treatment of skilled workers on piece work, which has driven them into the Labor Unions to fight for nigU day's wages and short hours tor a I. Many of the working men can yet bo regained from the radicals, if only to act in a special party of their own lor common interests. "Materialism, the race for wealth, egotism, have invaded all classes. Preaching will not elevate the general moral level. A hungry man has no ears. We require strong measures to restore normal conditions. _ The author's first proposal is an issue of 250,000,000 francs in bank notes, whichwill not endanger the present financial equilibrium, of this sum is to pay off the State debt, and permit the distribution of the present burdensome taxation over a long series of vear. The remainder is to be devoted equally to subsidising the factories now idle, and to such public wonks, a,s the improvement of the channels in the Rhine and Rhone. Proposal II is "the opening of the frontier"—not to free immigration, ot which there is quite too much .already, but to food stuffs, raw materials etc., without the present vexatious taxes and restrictions. Third conies the repeal of the eiglithour law, which, as many workmen already see, benefits no one, restricts personal liberty, and cripples production. ~ . ... Fourthly, the railroads and port offices aro to be leased to private enterprise, which will make them more economical, cheaper, and better, and, also half the Government officials are to be dismissed, while the pay of the survivors should be increased 20 per cent Many, however, can be transferrod, with ten days' special training, to the charge of equipment or to direct labor in the new public works. This last suggestion surely seems worthy ol a life-long trainer of engineers. There is one characteristic exception to this sweeping reduction : "The personnel of the military department should be reduced as well as the others; but the resultant savings should be returned to the military budget, so as to assure the means for raising'the army to the utmost efficiency. The army is l the l people's highest school, the bulwark of the government ,the safeguard of national independence. We shall have more urgent need of it than is generalv believed." The soldierly writer, it is clear, does not lean trustingly on the special pledge upon which Switzerland consented to enter the League of Nations, namely, that no soldier even of the friendliest bag should over set foot upon her soil, and no Swiss contingent should be, asked to leave their own territory for any purpose whatever. In closing, the writer welcomes the most destructive criticism), well content if ;k lithe of his proposals shall meet' with final acceptance. Let the men of enlightenment, the savants, the professors, come down into the arena, as several of them have done already. The instant for action has arrived. Let us get busy! Though not here emphasised in the closing words, the edge of the trenchant appeal is the warning of an approaching death struggle between Bolshevistic, or at least, radical socialism —and democracy. It is clearly indicated, also, that large sections of tho bourgeoisie are already financially ruined, hopeless and, where still capable of doing so, immigrating from tho country, while their places are idled twice over by the most undesirable ol immigrants. " We are given no statistics to pass judgment upon the accuracy of these gloomy views, and. indeed, a slight improvement at tho time of writing is cautiously conceded.