IRREPRESSIBLE MR WELLS.

Evening Star, Issue 21170, 2 August 1932, Page 8

IRREPRESSIBLE MR WELLS.

In his salad, days Mr H. G. Wells was an ardent Republican. Fired with energy and enthusiasm he desired immediately to usher in a Utopian State. The sobering hand of time and the knowledge born of experience and observation have modified his views in some respects, and we do not hear much of his Republicanism to-day. When the writings of Mr Wells first began to attract attention a definite Republican sentiment existed in England, but it was confined chiefly to certain young intellectuals of advanced ideas who had been influenced by the events that had occurred in France and the atmosphere that enveloped that country at the tijne. So far as the Mother Country is concerned to-day the views of that generation have been thrown into tho discard. Not even in extreme Socialist circles do we note any marked advocacy of a republic instead of a monarchy. The world is full of republics now. The Great War, with the collapse of the Continental empires, made Europe and the world predominantly republican, including the curious type of government to be found in Russia. A study of international affairs from the days of the French Revolution onwards makes it exceedingly difficult to discern any advantage that Republicanism possesses over our own system of a limited monarchy. Mr Wells has fallen foul of the British Labour Party. The reason for his criticism is not quite clear, or if it is contained in the necessarily abbreviated cable message it is very childish. The King, with his usual public spirit, led the way in the call for judicious national economy sent out by the Coalition Government in a time of dire national peril. The effect of the Cabinet’s policy and decisions has already been to throw rays of light into the economic and financial atmosphere. The remnan't of , the Labour Party in the House of Commons has opposed the Government’s measures to the extent of its limited resources. Apparently its act's have not satisfied Mr Wells, who declares that not a soul in the Labour Party said what ought to have been said about tho King or that “ miserable campaign of unintelligent economy which cast a dismal shadow on the closing months of 1931.” Mr Wells is certainly within his rights in criticising the methods of the Labour Party if he feels dissatisfied with its conduct of affairs, but his reference to the King is in extremely bad taste. It is*' apparently not at the throne that Ins shaft is directed, but at the specific act of His Majesty in setting an example in a nation-wide campaign initiated by a Cabinet composed of members of the three political parties and endorsed by economists of authority and integrity. King George was not moving outside his constitutional functions in leading the way in the acceptance of a policy considered by his responsible Ministers to he urgent and in the best interests of the country. It is surprising to find Mr Wells using such a hackneyed phrase as “ grinding the faces of the needy.” It is not applicable to tho position either, for never in history have the poor been helped as they are throughout the Empire to-day. Mr Wells’s outburst was probably made in a moment of irritation, and would have passed unnoticed if made by one less distinguished than himself. For that very reason it was necessary that his comments should be corrected, and the remarks of Sir Michael Sadler, who presided at the meeting, will receive general endorsement. It is no exaggeration to say that never has the throne been on a more stable foundation than that which exists to-day, nor have any of our Royal families been held in greater regard by people of all classes and schools, of thought than that of the House of Windsor.