THE OLD YEAR

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXII, Issue 11403, 2 January 1931, Page 5

THE OLD YEAR

“'DECREPIT, AND DISCREDITED”

HOW IT WAS, FAREIWELLED AT

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USUAL FESTIVITIES, RUT SMALL

ER CROWDS

(U.P.A. by Elec. Tel. Copyright) (Received Jan- 1, 1L55 p-m.) LONDON. Jan. 1.

TIIO new year was heralded in with the Usual festivities. The crowd outside ,St. Paul’s at midnight was huge, but not so. large as .'last year.

A feature of .the Chelsea Arts ball in Albert Hall was a gigantic cracker wherefrom, when it was pulled, sprang a number of girl students. Newspaper comment correctly reflects the opinion of the country that 1930 was a disastrous * year, and. a,'’hope that 1931 will bei better, but the prospect .is not. too bright. 'The Daily Telegraph describes the old year as decrepit and discredited and the worst in modern times. It says:—

“A bad year hue • been made immeasurably worse through the. government being in incapable hands. No government was ever so utterly discredited.”

Mr MacDonald, in an interview with the Daily Herald, 's/iys: —•

“It has been a hard year, with never such a tragic demonstration of the truth of Socialism. The age" of the machinery of Capitalism is bound to break down. A few financiers in New York, London and Paris were pursuing their own ends and their fortunes and were able co destroy the fruits of good harvests and of productive accomplishments of human energy, with, the result that prices had fallen from a sense of insecurity spread .over the world, and had descended steadily to tho darkest depression. Fortunately the signs were that the country had reached the bottom and an upward' move was beginning.”

The Morning Post says :—.

‘‘There are two main causes for the depression— Socialism, which means wages without work, and Communism, which means work without wages. World conditions are to Mi* MacDonald what predestination wa.s. to his Calvinist forefathers, namely a sufficient substitute for good works.”