HOMELAND REVISITED

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 3, 5 January 1922, Page 6

HOMELAND REVISITED

VIEWS OF SIR ROBERT STOUT

THE INDUSTRIAL OUTLOOK

SITUATION IN IRELAND,

(rROH our own corrkpohmimt.) SYDNEY, 29th December. Passengers for Wellington by the Maaania to-morrow are Sir Robert Stout, Chief Justice of New Zealand, and Lady Stout, who reached Sydney f™1?" England yesterday by the Wiltshire.' „"' Sir llc-bert Stout took the opportunity, while in England, to represent NewiZaf-1- -■ land at the historic gathering at Oxford . .of representative figures iv university life in the Empire, and also took part in proceedingf'oi the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The general impression of the atmosphere,- no' to speak, in which these distinguished jurists ilaii with all the ramifications of the law of many iands, ig quite a wrong one, jfc seems. One of the deepest impressions whifh it left on Sir Robert was its democratic simplicity, alike,! in procedure and! in ita setting. ~ "The Judicial Committee," he remarked to an interviewer yesterday, "a» the final Court for the Dominions, and for certain cases in England also, is certainly the most democratic Court in the world as far as appearances are concerned. - Picture four or five men, without, "any robes and in their ordinary" clothes, sitting round a table in what-is simply a big library room. There are no police, men or officer* 'n uniform, and a complete absence generally of any ©f that cstentotion or display which might in the mind's eye be associated with this ffreat .body. There are two messengers to bring in any necessary books, but that is all. Its simplicity of surroundings is in fit keeping with its procedure, which, m the simplest in the world. In the Court in which I sat were Lord Haldane, Lord Philhmore, Lord Parmoor, Lord Garsou, and myself. Viscount Cave and others were also busy in other Courts, two of whteh were sifting at once-on Indian cases. In all, ten members of the committee were sitting at the tame time—fiv 6 in each room. When I left there were still 36 cases on th« li»V including some Australian cases." THE' UNEMPLOYED PROBLEM. Sir Robert was questioned in regard Is the industrial outlook in England, and he emphaiiud the seriousness of the unemployed problem there. The general feeling, as far as he could learn, wasHhafc the people intended to do their best to, improve the position. The people seemed ,to. be hopeful, brat, Sir Robert added, they needed to work hard and to be careful in not wasting their means. The effect of the great coal strike, for illustration, was still perceptible,, and. would be felt for some time to come. It meant, he added, that • the products of the minei had. been reduced more than one-half. While, in short, Britain's production of coal had been going down, the production in the United State* had been going rapidly up. He thought that to export the coal from the British mines was simply to destroy British capital that could not be replaced. .' England^ added Sir Robert, had no water power, except by the utilisation of the tides in the south-west, and there was also, the point stressed by the Coal Commission which sat 12 or 13 years ago, and which pointed out' that the whole of the English coal that could be mined for.industrial use would cease, in 400 or 500 years, and that Scotland's coal would end in about 150 years. Scotland, no doubt, had more water power than England, and could use electricity. Ireland, too, had a considerable water power. England should conserve her coal. To sell it outside of England to her industrial competitors was not. he thought, good policy. Recalling the effects of the coal strike, and referring to the stoppage of all kinds of industry on account^of the nonproduction of the coal, he said the upheaval even prevented fishing trawlers from going to the herring fisheries in the' north. EXPENSIVE HABITS. "The people," he added, "got into expensive habits during the war, when, of course, everything was high. And you cannot expect industrial life to be promoted if that ii the, feeling. They will have to make much sacrifice if England is to get back to normal. The world wasted millions, billions, of money. How is it to be replaced? We cannot get on without capital. The state of Russia ought to be a warning to us. Compared with my' previous visit, however, in 1909, I saw very great improvement* in all the towns I visited. They were cleaner and better kept, the death-rate har fallen very considerably, and more attention is being paid to gardens and parks and the beautifying ■of towns. - What impressed me generally was the greater regard for the aesthetics;" Ac an observer of event* at Home, Sir Robert Stout was questioned regarding the Irish position. "The British people," he said frankly, "are always forgivyig; they are always anxious for conciliation. That i« the British attitude. But it had been sair 1 that the Irish' people were lucky that they had to deal with tho British nation, and that if they had had to deal with Germany ■or -other nations in Europe they would have found it a different matter. I have no doubt that Mr. Collins and his colleagues are earnestly anxious that a spirit of peace and of brotherhood should pervail, but my own personal opinion is that it will probably be some time before we see that spirit manifest in Ireland. The pity is that there could not have been some arrangement in regard to Home Ruie in Gladstone's time. At the same time we have no right to say that Ulster should be forced out of the union. Ireland will no doubt be hard hit materially ac a result of the unhappy event* there, for hundreds of thousands of tourists and holiday-makers who would otherwise have visited Ireland have not included it in their tours." UNITY OF THE EMPIRE. The interviewer recalled to Sir Robert Stout a speech which he made at the Royal Colonial Institute, and in which he expressed the opinion that with Imperial Federation it would be necessary to have a written constitution, which would reduce the Dominions to the level of the States . within the American Federation. "The way," he said, "to bring peace and brotherhood as between England and her colonies is not, as I pointed out, topase statutes, but to love one another. The British people are not - fond of federation. That is proved by what I said here at the inauguration of the Federation of Australia. I said it would not be long before you had an attack on State rights. A", lot of people now want the State Parliaments abolished." At.the University Conference at Oxford, Sir Robert Stout was chairman of the committee which dealt with finance. The conference, he said, must have good results, for it enabled university teachers from all parts of the Empire to meet and to discuss many matters' and problems of common 'nteresi. Sir Robert Stout was disinclined to discuss the future of the British Labour Party on the ground that he had.'nofc been in England long enough or often enough to make a close study of it. He had, however, been impressed by some of the Labour men .in the House of Commons—Mr. Clynes; Mr. Henderson, and | several others. . /