OUR COLOUR.

Evening Star, Issue 21077, 14 April 1932, Page 15

OUR COLOUR.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —The reaction of our people to the “ direct action ” of the last few days should ho warning enough that economic change hy violence is unlikely in New Zealand. The one typo of revolution that can succeed and will in time transform the whole face of society will come about by the silent leaven of great ideas. For the moment the community is split into warring factions. As the dust settles those who forced the issue will learn that gentler methods arc more potent. The more stable elements will forget their resentment. Sympathy will return for genuine hardship. On either side there is a preponderance of moderate opinion. On the right it feels that the Government’s diagnosis is open to question its remedies to dislike; on the loft, that the leaders of the unemployed have presented their case with more force than discretion. When more moderate counsels prevail there should he an opening for a body of forward-looking citizens representing industry, the workers, and those without employment, to think out proposals more constructive and satisfying than those of the Coalition. Labour wo have in abundance. The problem is to find the other two factors of production—land and capital.

Many authorities are of opinion that the slump will not end soon. Stop-gap schemes of relief give grave dissatisfaction alike to those who have to find the money and to those who give of their labour. To mulct the_ earner of his just reward without equivalent return is unjust, call it unemployment insurance or what we will. To turn the skilled worker into a shiftless navvy is to insult his intelligence and self-respect. Such a policy stirs resentment on cither side —a situation full of dynamite. An honest effort to get together and understand each other’s difficulties will show that our elements of red and blue are held together by broad white bands of sympathy, and that differences of opinion cannot prevent us from pulling together under the old Union Jack.—l am, etc., MacG. Walmslev. April 14.