ALARMIST TALK

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 108, 8 May 1937, Page 10

ALARMIST TALK

SPIRITED PROTEST

CANON-JAMES.-AT HOME

LABOUR SINCERITY

(From "Thß Post's" Representative), LONDON, April 14.

"I feel very strongly that something must be done to counteract a certain amount of alarmist talk in England concerning the New Zealand Labour Government," said Canon P. James (Wellington) to the New Zealand Group of the Overseas League last evening. He,was replying to a welcome extended by Mr. W. J. Jordan (High Commissioner) at a sherry party in his honour. "I have heard once or twice since my arrival in the Old Country that the Government in New Zealand is going to wreck the country and that anybody who has anything to save is realising it as quickly as possible. I know that the Government is criticised in New Zealand, but whatever. alarmist talk there is I have found precious little of it in Wellington, w,here the people ought to know what is going on. "We know that the Government are fervent idealists, and it may be that in the first flush of victory >they may be inclined to move too far and too fast. But those who know are persuaded that the Government combines stark sincerity of purpose- with a large amount of political common sense which its members have gained in a long experience of public life. . "Some people may not agree with me, but I do want to emphasise this: I feel that one of the things which the Overseas Group can do is to discount a lot of this alarmist talk, which I believe from the bottom of my heart is truly unjust. And lam quite certain that ft it is allowed to go on, it cannot be to the interests of the Dominion. ,•■■■. ■ ■ . "REACTIONS" TO ENGLAND. After excusing himself for "talking politics," especially in the presence of the High Commissioner, whom he had not expected to be present, Canon James related some of his reactions to England- after an absence of nearly 20 years. He regretted that he found certain tendencies which,' he considered, were inclined to undermine British characteristic's. One of , the greatest assets of Britons in the past had, to his mind, been their steadiness to face extraordinary perils. It was exemplified in England's Premier (Mr. Stanley Baldwin) and it had been shown by the British "Tommies" during the war. ,;..'... "My impression," continued Canon James, !'is that we are losing that asset. We are getting a more excitable people, nervy and jumpy. It may be the effect of modern conditions, and is probably the effect of living in towns and in an artificial condition of life to which the nervous organism of man has not adapted itself yet. "Then there is the Yellow Press of England. It depresses me. The great English papers are great still, but '; I am afraid that the majority of people read the* fifth-rate newspapers which base their sales upon daily scandal Mia manufactured crises. The,;: streets on Sundays are full of shocking,, nasty, vulgar newspaper posters, which I am aifraid can only be regarded, as a. poor index to the minds of the people. I am certain that the time will come when the people will have to take charge of the newspapers. It seems deplorable whon, in these days, with the European situation so delicate and dangerous, that those.who are.trying to guide the Empire should not be given fair play by their own newspapers. Some of these irresponsible attacks by the newspapers seem to be nothing Jess than treachery. ■ ~': .' "It is no use saying that democracy is not oh trial. It is. It is no good saying that our democratic, free institutions are not in peril. They are, and will be for some time to come. If we are to confront the power of the totalitarian States national discipline must come back again. Democracy may triumph still, but it will have to be a disciplined democracy." Colonel E. ft. W.Lascelles (chairman of the group) suggested; in thanking Canon James for his remarks, that he should not be too pessimistic. His own experience in England, and he had travelled extensively throughout the country during the past eight years, assured him that there was no material change in the people.