A VIA MEDIA

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 80, 2 October 1933, Page 11

A VIA MEDIA

THE KR.A. SCHEME

FASCISM AND COMMUNISM

MR. MILNER'S COMMENTS

(By Telegraph.—Press Association) AUCKLAND, This Day. "The N.R,A. economists are of the opinion that individual acquisitiveness has gone for ever and that tho paramount consideration of the future is community advantage. They hold that this is not an isolated incident, but is something indicative of revolution in the social order,"'said Mr. Frank Milner, C.M.G., rector of "Waitaki Boys' High School, who returned today after representing New Zealand rotariaris at the International Rotary Convention at Boston. He afterwards attended tho Institute of* Pacific Relations Conference at Banff, Canada, and was then engaged in a lecture tour throughout tho United States.

Mr. Milner said that the American people were voluntarily allowing themselves lc be disciplined, because they believed that President Roosevelt rcpiresented honest" leadership. After referring to Mr. Roosevelt's immediate action on taking office, Mr. Milner said that it really had been an example, of how democracy, could function in a crisis by means of a benevolent despotism, with constitutional safeguards. America was showing how democracy, by a system of paternal legislation, could be preserved in toto. In the past the United States had been most tenacious of individual ri»hts, and resentful of any form of i\tiition, but undor tfie N.R.A.' the people had cheerfully agreed to observe tho hours of work and rates of pay proscribed by this new form of. Government. It was tho most extraordinary spectacle the world had yet seen. It was a via media between Fascism and. Communism. No monarch in the world had such unlimited powers as Mr. Roosevelt. They were willingly given; and tho people appeared to be amply satisfied with what was being done; and it could bestrictly said that it was the will of the people^' When Sir. Boosevelt.took office, tho.unemployed totalled about 15,000,00"0. ' Since then '5,000,060 had been given employment, .and it was estimated that 4,000,000 or 5,000,000 more woxild be employed by nfextXPeb-. ruary. - ' ; '..•■:• : j '• ■ ■■■■'■/ Mr. Milner said that the most dramatic incident at tho Banff Conference was a: full-dress debate on the N.R.A. plan between British economists, including Professor Gregory,-.who scathingly attacked it, and thrpc 'Americans, who defended it. Ho (Mr, Milner) concluded that the % British economists failed to attach* the proper valuation to' the dominant fiumaii or psychological factors. ' It had to be remembered that the American; people had suffered such a stunning and paralysing shock that above all else it,was necessary to establish confidence and a sense- of social security. Lawlessness^ was imperilling the security;.' of the' nation, and it was impossible to\ face another winter with 15,000,000 unemployed. 'The magnetic leadership <of the President immediately produced positive' and beneficial results. '." r