CONDITIONS IN U.S.A.

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 August 1933, Page 5

CONDITIONS IN U.S.A.

SIR A. BANKART INTERVIEWED [SPECIAL TO “STAR”.] AUCKLAND, August 11. Among the passengers by the Mariposa, this morning, were Sir Alfred and Lady Bankart, who have been away on a short trip prompted by health reasons. Sir Alfred was impressed with one or two phases of American life during his brief stay in California. The two outstanding topics at the moment were prohibition and the economic depression. With regard to the former, there was undoubtedly a feeling of relief that an opportunity was being given for the State to vote on the question of the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment. Many with whom he spoke had hailed prohibition as a noble effort on the part of the people to remove what was considered by them to be harmful to their destiny. The results had been so different from what had been ardently desired that it had been manifest for a long time that popular opinion had changed ip favour of abolition of the modification. Mr Roosevelt’s expressed hope that the repeal of prohibition amendment would be carried before Christmas and a “dreadful blot on the constitution” be removed, seemed certain to be realised, with the imminent removal of prohibition. However, another trouble was looming up. the industry of kidnapping, which had assumed such alarming proportions that various States were calling for assistance of the Federal authorities to cope with this ne,w menace to the liberty of a section of the people. “I found profound ignorance on the part of the people I came in contact with in regard to the war debt position.” said Sir Alfred. The money had been lent and must be repaid. The.v were not at all interested in the merits of the case. The Economic Conference was not followed with any intelligent knowledge, and so far as California was concerned the people were engrossed with their own trouble. The State has a deficit of £25,000,000 for the year. Their Legislature had just passed a sales tax of 21 per cent., and a State income tax on all incomes over £2OO per annum. These taxes were anticipated to find sufficient money to balance the budget for California for this year.

“A national effort to increase the purchasing power of the people all over the United States of America has been launched. The proposals require that the 44 hour week at £3 per week shall ‘be reduced to 40 hours per week at the same rate of pay, and by this means it- is expected that some 5,000,000 of the unemployed will receive employment, and so the power to purchase commodities will be increased. I heard Mr Roosevelt’s appeal to. the nation he broadcast. While disclaiming any desire to employ force at the present time, he naively informed his hearers that all employers who accepted proposals would be enrolled and each would receive a blue eagle card of membership, and each post office would have the list of local members who had joined the scheme, so that the people could readily discriminate as to where to make their purchases. It is avowedly only a temporary expedient, quite outside the law, and is to cover the interval before comprehensive legal codes for separate industries can be put into effect. As it stands now, the agreement being outside law is to be enforced by moral suasion, backed by a scarcely veiled threat of Government-encour-aged boycott.”