The Grey River Argus FRIDAY, September 13, 1946. A TIME TO BEWARE

Grey River Argus, 13 September 1946, Page 4

The Grey River Argus FRIDAY, September 13, 1946. A TIME TO BEWARE

That they should be grateful their own country is so relatively free from social, commercial, and industrial trouble should be evident to New Zealanders, day by day, in the news from nearly every other country. Those here who do complain are chiefly Opposition politicians and their supporters, with an eye first to the elections, and then to new possibilities. To their fancy there how are too many jobs, too much money, and too much leisure in the Dominion. It is another story, in Europe, where there are new fears of a new war; in Britain, where the rich fear the poor; in America, where the industrial strife may be the prelude of an economic collapse; and in Australia, where discontent has disprgahised industry very widely. The state of the world is judged by keen observers to be as critical to-day at least as it was on the eve of the war. The United Nations are decidedly disunited. The Balkans often have been called a cauldron, but look now like becoming a volcano, in view of the latest disclosure that, with Soviet encouragement large Yugoslav forces are in the narrow valley which is the traditional route for an advance on Greece. There is little yet to show cither for U.N.O or the so-called Peace Conference in Paris, as the Assembly has to defer meeting because there yet are no treaties even in draft form ready for deliberation or endorsement A new distraction for the Western Powers is the possibility of a depression. The struggle of the American workers to obtain a status more in accord with the rising costs of living is apparently being made an occasion by finance capitalists for a drive towards currency deflation. Incidentally, a lesson for workers here is the fact that the plan of stabilisation in the United States is at present in jeopardy, and that the result is precisely a loss of public confidence and a consequent loss of values in industrial securities of all sorts. Our self-constituted apologists for private enterprise' may look with envy upon the extremists among overseas capitalists, but if they had a taste of the present anxiety in the United States their advocacy of rugged individualism might be suddenly dropped for fear the public might instead be given only a vision of a glorified soup kitchen or slave camp as the background of the spectre of depression. On the eve of the elections it is an appropriate time to contrast the return of bad conditions overseas with the changes this country has undergone during the past decade. Unemployment has been abolished, wages raised to record levels, the 40-hour, fiveday week is a reality; the conditions of all workers and most families have been bettered; social security is available for all; industry is regulated by arbitra tion; workers’ compensation has been increased; and all workers are assured of a fortnight’s holiday annually. All of these are benefits which'it would be the |

probable policy of the Nationalists' to wipe out if a depression should afford the opportunity. They are already asking for working hours to be .increased, and admit that if they should reckon, it advisable they would ask the people to sanction reductions of wages, salaries and pensions. It is well to hear in mind these possibilities last other countries might lend an excuse by a resort to renewal of labour exploitation in the name 0 |- (l W ar or a depression eiiicrgciicy, >