The Evening Star FRIDAY, APRIL 15, 1932. THE WRONG WAY.

Evening Star, Issue 21078, 15 April 1932, Page 8

The Evening Star FRIDAY, APRIL 15, 1932. THE WRONG WAY.

What happened in Auckland last night has happened in other countries, one of them not far away, caused by this or the other provocation not necessarily connected with unemployment, but is fortunately new in New Zealand. It would seem that a very small candle of violence lighted without forethought in Dunedin had ignited an atmosphere naturally more explosive in tho northern city. Example generally is contagious. On the other hand, the Auckland outbreak might have happened if there had been no trouble here. No purpose will he served by attempts to assign causes or reckon contributory influences or blame this party or the other. The main fact is evident, that an atmosphere unusually sensitive has been produced by troubles which are real, and which it falls to the whole community to do its utmost to assuage. It was easy enough for Mr Holland to say in the House last night that the riot was tho direct result of tho Government's policy, A member of his party, Mr Lee, put that argument with more detail when he stated, during a recent visit to Dunedin, that 11 every act of the Government had only served to intensify the evil of unemployment and poor living conditions.” But tho same thing can he said after every operation that is required to restore a patient’s physical health. The first thing ho thinks- is that he is worse, nob better; but the operation may be necessary all the same. It may be the only way of putting him back on his feet.

Mr Holland went on to say that “ Labour members had warned the Government that its policy was likely to lead to happenings of this kind.” They did, and there is danger in such warnings when they are repeatedly broadcast. But our object is not to shift the blame from the Government's shoulders on to Mr Holland’s, or to put it on anyone. Jho Leader of the Opposition stated that every member on the Labour benches would stand for the observance of law and order, and we are satisfied that that has been their attitude. As to the requirement that ‘‘the law must be such that it operated in the interests of the whole community,” we have no doubt that every effort is being used to make it so. There is no doubt what happened in Auckland. The riot was unintended. Those—if there were any—who intended it to the extent that they brought stones to Queen street pretty certainly did not envisage the scale it would assume. Example of the first window smashes was contagious. With darkness—when the lights were broken—anything could happen, given similar circumstances, in any city of the world, and Queen street was made a wreck. Looting and hysteria flourished together. All that will not help the unemployed. The cause of unemployment is depression—world-wide at the present time. Destroying property can only deepen depression. Hundreds of shopkeepers, struggling to make ends meet themselves, who had been doing their best for the workless, will now have Jess means to help them. Counting heads is our normal niethod of settling troubles, which will not bo improved on by breaking them, whether they are policemen’s heads or citizens’. That is reaction, a real letting down of “ our standard of living.” Depression is not a plot, strangely devised by the Government to ensure their going out of office at the next election. We shall view it better as something akin to the influenza epidemic, which spread, like it, the world over, taking its toll of nil classes, the business man and the worker and the soldier who had served honourably in the war. It passed, and depression will pass.

What is required now is that all should combine together to ease it. Tho Government is doing its best, it would be folly for anyone to imagine that it can be happy in its task. The community is not lacking in kindness. Last Tuesday morning we had fourteen inquiries, by post and by the telephone and by visits, for the name and address of a correspondent who had set forth his difficulties in a letter, from persons anxious to help him. That has happened before on a smaller scale. The particular appeal of this letter, which made it bring more answers than others, was contained, we have no doubt, in the statement that “ I have not taken part in any demonstrations.” There is one thing the Government must do, which we have emphasised before. It must abolish the stand-down week. The main difficulty in doing that, at the present juncture, may lie not in finding money but in finding work for the continuous period. But the difficulty must be surmounted. We happen to know that the Government has measures in train, which should almost immediately be operative, for doing more for women.