HOPEFUL DAYS

Evening Post, Volume c, Issue 54, 5 March 1934, Page 10

HOPEFUL DAYS

AMERICAN PUBLIC

FAITH IN ROOSEVELT

The American public, irrespective of individual political opinion, rests its faith almost implicitly in the policy of President Boosevelt,' according to Dr. h. C. Benkert, who arrived at Wellington thia morning by the MakuTa from Rarotonga in the course of a tour round the Pacific. He stated that conditions were on an upward move in the United States when he loft San Fraucisco in January, Roosevelt's national recovery plan having served to put many people back into employment. Americans were hoping that their problems would be satisfactorily settled by the accomplishment of the plan. Dr. Benkert, who was in Europe in 1930, expressed the opiniou that the depression in business which had been then apparent on the Continent had spread later to the United States,, and was what Roosevelt was attempting to cope with at present. "We felt that Roosevelt was the man of the hour," he said, "because we had been drifting along for the last1 four or five years and getting nowhere. Regardless of party politics, the people are for him." The wage level was higher in America than anywhere else, he stated, and accordingly the standard of living was higher. Since the war practically every household had acquired its own car and had accustomed itself to a standard of living higher than before. The slump in business- had resulted in wages being lowered, and the living standard had had to come down. The American public as a whole had found it hard to accommodate themselves' to the new conditions, and had placed their faith firmly in their new President to assist them back to prosperity. Dr. Benkert said that he noted the depreciation of the American dollar most particularly when he was in Papeete. The depreciation was so bad, he saia, that many American tourists had left Papeete and gone back to the United States because of the serious effects of monetary devaluation. In his own case, n-hen he arrived at Papeete the exchange value of the dollar in francs was 16.40, but by the time he left it had dropped to 15.12. He was sure, however, that the effects of the depreciation of the dollar would not be felt so greatly in New Zealand.