NOTES AND COMMENTS

Grey River Argus, 7 December 1932, Page 7

NOTES AND COMMENTS

(Stockton Correspondent). The general talk throughout the world at the present time seems to hinge on whether Great Britain can pay her debts to America. 1 don’t suppose it matters very much whether we are in favour of pegging the exchange up to 140 per cent or not. Of course the workers will suffer by paying higher prices for commodities. So they will suffer also under the Douglas scheme. Capitalism means profits; profits mean wage workers; and wageworkers mean wage slavery. The world i> not suffering from a shortage oi money. Plenty of money will be forthcoming for war! It is not poverty in money, but poverty in men and in brains, that’s maklitig every country in the world weak. ■ Kellogg, of the U.S.A., has a scheme to •‘outlaw’’ war, though France looks rather dubious, and Russia’s feeling soic. while Britain smiles benignly and welcomes the idea. But are they scrapping battleships? My oath! No ruddv tear! The world is mad. my masters —wild as an old wives’ tale. Till mankind scraps its fetishes, disarmament will fail! Everything seems to be drifting, and as George Meredith says: — “That wandering ship of the drunken pilot, the mutinous crew and the angry captain. called Human Nature.” Only now arc the down-trodden beginning to realise that as long as they stick to worn-out ideas about the respective places in life of the different sections of the community, they can • never better their lot. What a hard and bitter struggle the working classics have had, and ‘are still having, to jobtain even a bare subsistence, from i the people for whom they toil and [slave! “Costs must come down!” It would lie something new- to hear the capitalists say: “We are going to increase the wages of our workers, and treat them like brothers. We are tired of treating out workers as slaves, ami besides, it is fundamentally wrong.” A change is as good as a feast. It is in the ranks of the wealthy and the luxurious classes that one must look for the widest and wildest moral aberrations. The lives of the mass of the people are too humdrum to admit of any very violent departure from established customs. It took many years of agitation to abolish slavery in the British colonies in 1834. and the British Government paid twenty million poujids for the release of the slaves. Mr W E. Gladstone’s father received over sev-enty-five thousand pounds for 1600 slaves! It took twenty years of Parliamentary agitation, says Benn, ‘‘to destroy siwh an indefensible i.ni(|uity as the slave trade.” which was not abolished until 1807, and. even after that was accomplished, slavery remained in full force. T’itt. Fox. Grenville, ami Grey habitually disclaimed any intention of emancipating the blacks on the sugar islands. Even Peel, in 1833, would have nothing to do with either immediate emancipation or gradual, ami as Lord Morley says in his “Life of Gladstone. — it was an ignorant movement. The history of the abolition of slavery by the English and its consequences would be a narrative of ignorance, injustice, blundering, waste, ami havoc, not easily paralleled in the history op mankind. That was black slavery. What will be the history of the emancipation of white, yellow, black —and. shall w say. green — slaves.’. Nothing is more disgusting than the crowing about liberty by slaves, as most men are. ami the flippant mistaking for freedom of some pa per const i tut ion. Politicians It'll us that the earth should be for the use of 'lie •omiaunity, but it is gathered into private hands ami used for the aggrandisement of the few. 'l’he best way to measure a man is not from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head, but from his chin i’pwa rd! Mr Furkert :s to be given a retaining fee of £236 per annum. Mr Farkert retires cn £l3OO supp’ri u mint ion. So £1330 in these hard times will undoubtedly keep the Wolf from the Mr Ben Tillett, speaking at Long Eaton, Leiceste rsh i re. England, said: — “Hunger and sorrow prevented our people thinking of tLe possibilities o', another world war”. It would In* more true to say that hunger ami sorrow pre- \ luted people from thinking o| a reasonable state of society, wherein peace would naturally follow, as the night I We should be able t-. say with Maxim Gorki: “I hav. rot eonie iat*r.e | world to comply with it. ’ ’ | “'l’lu* man who feels that he has I truth on his side must step firmly. Truth is not to be dallied with. ’ — Goethe. “W’hither Mankind.’’ is a volume of sixteen essays dealing with modern civilisation from various points of view, under the editorship of Mr A. Beard. The contributors are; Bertrand Russell. Sidney ami Beatrice Webb. Havelock Ellis. Emil Ludwig, lam! one Chinese. Hu Shih. Hu Shih deals with “The Civilizations of the ! East ami West.” wherein he says: “It [took over a thousand years for a portion of mankind Io emerge from the [civilization which glorifies poverty ami sanctifies disease, and slowly build up la new civilization which glorifies life ami combats poverty as a crime.’’ People who talk about mansions in the skies are not averse to a good share of prosperity on earth! Too long have the working class been gulled with the teachings invented by rogues who impost* upon fools. I have just discovered a cure for leprosy. H<*re it is:— “Get the roots of the red dock, the roots of rhe elacampane. honeysuckle leaves, wild hyacinth, broom sprigs. bugle. violet heath, shieldfern and avens; pound them well together in a mortar with unsalted butter, boiling them well, removing from the fire ami straining through new linen; add therto a portion of flour of brimstone and verdigris. Anoint the diseased part fro-

qtu-lltlv wilh Ibis ointment, and it will This re.-ipe i- take,, from the book, “The Magic of Herbs by \| ~s c 1’ Level. I do not vouch for the healing qualities of this concoclion but 1 do know that verdigris is lb,, cause of many poisoned hands ; „„„„gst workers in particular indus tries. faraday found the rotation ot the plane of a beam of polarised light I v a magnet. What method Mrs I'. I'. Level used in making this concoction 1 | Mrs Partington and her mop are always in evidence, or as Barnum says: “There’s one born every minute.’’ • don’t believe in principle, but i do in interest —profits.”—Biglow BaI)e,< , , , The American orator concluded an hour’s impassioned speech with tin* affecting words: “These, gentlemen, are inv convictions of a life-time, but it they don't suit they van be alter According to the “New Zealand Worker.” an English farmer was acquitted at Nairobi. Kenya, last month for shooting a native “like a dog.” lor stealing some moat. The Court found that homicide in such cases was justified if the man could not be captured without a “shot in the back.” It reminds one of an incident in Mark Twain’s Autobiography, as follows: — “When six hundred Maros wen* killed by American soldiers in tin* Philippine Islands. Mark Twain said: “With six hundred engaged on each side, wo lost fifteen men killed outright ami had thirty-two wounded. . . . The enemy numbered six hundred — including women and children—and we abolished them utterly, leaving not even a baby to cry for its dead mother This is incompatibly the greatest victory that was ever achieved by the soldiers of the United States! ’ ’ It makes one wish with the poet Fain would I dwell Where the lilies toll Their hopes to Ihe drowsing stream; Where the fleeting years. That bring no tears. Pass like a golden dream!