VOICE OF THE WORLD

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 123, 27 May 1933, Page 18

VOICE OF THE WORLD

"When the question is raised whether a particular piece of exWhen in Doubt pendituro will make it — Expand, necessary to increase taxation it Is not enough merely to compare tho prospective money yield of the proposed investment with the interest payable on the money borrowed to finance it," says Professor Pigou, of King's College, Cambridge, in a letter to "Tho Times." "It is necessary also to bring into account the savings that are made in unemployment benefit. Thus, if a new ship costs £.1,000,000, and because of tho new employment directly and indirectly created in building it, the net cost of unemployment relief is diminished by, say, £200,000, the prospective return on that ship should, from the point of view of the community as a whole, bo j balanced against the-interest, not on a million, but on & 800,000. In different circumstances the savings on unemployment benefit due to new enter-| prise will be different. If, by indirect psychological reactions, confidence is i

stimulated and a culminativo movement towards expansion started, they may be enormous. These arc matters of speculation. But there is enough of certainty for one definite conclusion. If an enterprise is likely to fall short by only a little of being directly remunerative to the investor, it is sure to be remunerative in a substantial degree to the community as a whole. When in doubt, therefore, do not suspend judgment; above all, do not contract. When in doubt, expand."

"Wo have been obsessed for too long with the idea that the Business Man's business man is an exLimitations, pert in finance and economics. He is not," said Dr. Blunt, Bishop of Bradford. "The average business man knows enough to run his own business well or badly, but in regard to general economic theories he is often a great deal moro ignorant than many a working man. Many of our business men do not see how serious the issue is. Perhaps their minds are too much occupied in trying to keep -their businesses above water. If business men do not see it, still less do the female parts of our congregations see it, especially that part which has drawing-rooms. Many of them ar.e apt to say that people are out of work because they do not want to work, and they point to the fact that they cannot get domestic servants. It is the working man who sees it. I think he sees it much more clearly than any other section of the community, because it is upon him the stress mainly falls. Things are difficult enough for people with fixed in-: comes and for business men, but they can live. Many a working-class household can barely do that." Civilisation] as they understood it was at the crossroads, and, unless it was to take the wrong turning—and if that were done it would lead to unimaginable disaster —it was up to every man of goodwill, and not least the ministers of Christ's Church, to try to get a stabilised opinion as to one direction in which an advance towards a healthier' state of things could be made.

Speaking at Oxford recently, Mr. John j Buchan, M.P., said it Hew Breed seemed to him that of Young there was an entirely Men. new breed of young men about today, for they were willing to take risks; indeed, they hungered for them. They asked not an easy road in life, but a difficult one, provided there was a goal worth striking for at the end of it. If he was right, then it was a fortunate thing for the country, for they stood at one of tho most difficult crossroads in their history. The whole world was hanging on to their coat-tails, and they seemed to be the one stable and,rational thing in an unstablo and irrational globe. He believed the prestige of Britain today was higher than it was even in the timo of Chatham, or in the days after Waterloo. It was a great responsibility, but it was also a great opportunity, for whatever course the world was to take, they would nave: a large part in the shaping of it. The young man he was addressing had a chance of public service far greater than their fathers and grandfathers had, for so many of tho old landmarks had gone, and they would havo to chart out a, new country. They, would succeed if they were faithful to that essential English mind which was clear-eyed about facts and a little chary, of theories,,^ -^ i

Tho opinion was expressed by Mr. L. S. Amery, in a recent The League's speech, that in spite of Failure. endless conferences and endless sessions of tho League of Nations wo were no whit nearer either peace or disarmament or freer world trade. "Tho method of approach has been wrong,'' ho said. "I believe that history will record as the chief value of the League of Nations and all its activities in the last ten years its having proved to tho world' how its problems should not be tackled. In tho first instance, it ignores deeprooted sentiment too strong for it. You are not going to sweep away nationalism by any international machinery. Secondly, it overlooks the fact that all these problems are interlocked and can only be solved together. You cannot separate.the economic problem from the military and peace problems. If you try to solve them for the whole world you fail. There is no uniform scheme which can be devised for the whole

world which, even if acceptable, would not fail becauso of its rigidity." He believed that the only practical, concrete, and real line of progress for tho world today lay in the creation of economic groups, well balanced in production. These groups must not be fortuitous. They must be based upon some common iink—history, geography, or sentiment, or something which would make tho nations which belonged to them believe that, as among themselves, they were less likely to go to war than with the world outside. The British Commonwealth essentially formed such a group. But it was not the only one; there was room in the world for other commonwealths.

In his report to the Egyptian Prime | Minister, Bussell Pasha, The Drug head of the Central i Menace. Narcotics Intelligence I Bureau, says: During the past year we have had the wholehearted co-operation of tho Greek authorities in Egypt. Tho majority of the drug contrabandiers in Egypt were j Greeks and owing to inefficient Greek | legislation they held a virtual'monopoly of the trade. Thanks, however, to M. Capsambelis, the Greek Minister in Egypt, and to his Ministers in Greece, totally new legislation has been passed, and drug trafficking in Egypt from now onwards will be a risky profession for a Greek. It is a great pleasure to me to be relieved this year of the necessity of calling attention to tho danger of drug factories on the Bosphorus. Turkey has. riot merely been content with closing down these factories, but has decided to join battle with the illicit traffic by limiting the cultivation of raw opium to the needs of medicine and science. The Ghazi, by a stroke of the pen, has dealt a staggering blow to the illicit drug traffic, and it is no exaggeration to term it the greatest national contribution to the solution of tho whole drug problem that has yet been made. I am now forced to begin a new campaign—this time directed against the Bulgarian Government. The European centre for the manufacture of heroin destined entirely for the illicit trade has now shifted from Istanbul to the capital city of Bulgaria, Sofia. Here we have a country which, although a full member of the League and a party to the Geneva Convention of 1925, has, it is believed, definitely implied its unwillingness to accept the terms of the Limitation Convention of 1931.

Mr. L. S. Amery, speaking at the dinner of the Midland AssoeiaDanger and tion of Mountaineers at Conquest. Birmingham, said he had no use for those who thought the whole world should be turned into a place where uo one could ever face death except from old age. There was a great deal too much of the undue fear of discomfort, or pain, or death in the world today. At any rate those who climbed on the high bills, while they did not seek danger unnecessarily, while they took very prudent precaution to avoid it, were yet among those who were not afraid cither of danger or discomfort. Mountaineering was the finest and the most inspiring of all sports. It was so bocause it taught us to measure ourselves against the elements and against Nature. It was so also, not because it was more hazardous than other sports, but because there was always in it a combination both of the sense of conquest and of the seuso of danger. __.