The Hawera Star. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1924. A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 1 November 1924, Page 4

The Hawera Star.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1924. A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

Delivered every evening by 5 o'clock in Hawera, Manaia, Normanby, Okaiawa, Eltham, ilangatoki, Kaponga, Awatuna, Opunake, Ocakeho, Manutahi, Alton, Hurley ville, Patea, YVaverley,. Mokoia, Whalcamara, Dhangai, Meremere, Fraser Road, and Ararata.

It is a great pity that people in these days neglect to read history, for there is no better education. True it is that the history of every nation contains many terrible blots, and one does, not relish reading of some of the worst happenings, but there is nevertheless much to be learned from the past, and those who do not read the history of their nation are the losers. If one goes the events of about ohe hundred years ago one finds that England was then experiencing similar troubles to those existing at the present time. The long wars in Europe and the great drain upon the British nation in its fight against Napoleon had left the country weak and in a very disturbed state. Agitations fur parliamentary reform and theories of various kinds through which, it was claimed, lay the only hope of improvement were common, and they were similar to the theories held by some people at the present time. Hampden Clubs had for their objective parliamentary reform. Samuel Bamford went to London at the beginning of 1817 as a delegate from the Middleton Club to attend a great meeting of delegates of Hampden Clubs, which, according to a report of a select committee of the House of Commons, were described as “associated professedly for the purpose of parliamentary reform, upon the most extended principle of universal suffrage and annual parliaments,” but that ‘‘in far the greater number of them nothing short of a revolution is the object expected and avowed.” At the same time “Spencean Philanthropiste’ 5 were in evidence—people who seem to have held views similar to the modern Communists and Bolsheviks. They derived their name from a Mr. Spence, a schoolmaster in Yorkshire, who had conceived a plan for making the nation happy, by causing all the lands of the country to become the property of the State, which State should divide all the produce for the support of the •people. Among the Spenceans’ most notable projects they petitioned Parliament to do away with machinery. Widespread distress existed and rioting and confusion were frequent, one of the worst happenings being the “massacre ’ of Peterloo,” in which eleven people were killed and hundreds wounded. Later the Cato Street conspiracy to murder Ministers during a Cabinet dinner shocked the nation, but Thistlewood and bis four leading associates were caught by the police and hanged. So the country continued in serious difficulties for some years, hardship and distress being experienced among practically all sections of the people. The economic position was very difficult and many protests were made against the shortage of money, for which the contraction of the currency was blamed. Alison, in his History of Europe, denounced the contraction in strong terms'. ‘*The effect© of this sudden and prodigious contraction of the currency (the Bank Gash Payments Act of 1819) were soon apparent, and they rendered the next three years a period of ceaseless distress and suffering in the British Islands. The accommodation granted by bankers diminished so much in consequence of the obligation laid upon them of paying in specie when specie was not to be got, that the neper under discount at the Bank: of England which in- 1810 had been £23,000,000, and in 1815 not less than £20,060,000, sank in 1820 to £4,678,000 and in 1821 to £2,676.000.” In 1822 a member of the House of Commons, speaking on' a motion for the appointment of a committee to consider the effect of the Act, said: “To enhance the value of money, to raise the price of gold, we have lowered that of all other commodities, while nt the same time we hove left the great payments of the nation raised from the sale of these commodities. Strange, indeed, would it be if such a system was not to have produced the general and long continued distress which we see around us. The reduction effected in the amount of money in circulation has been nearly one-half of; that employed in supporting agricultural. commercial and manufacturing industry. Hence these classes are unable to obtain much more than half the return they obtained from their industry before the alteration took place, and yet all their great money engagements remain the same. This is the origin of that state of things j which in its result leaves the land-: owner without rent, the merchant ] without profit, the labourer without! employment, or wages, which revolu-j tionises property and disorganises ail j the different relations and interests of society.” In 1822 and 1823 there were abundant harvests in Great Britain, but matters did not improve to any extent, and it was not until some years later that real progress from the very heavy depression was experienced •, in fact it took at least a quarter of a century for the nation to get over the effects of the Napoleonic wars. We do not say that the history of that sad period of life in Britain provides a solution for the problems of the present dav, when the world is suffering from the effects of the greatest and most costly war in human history, but it is at least interesting to note that a hundred years ago the nation was struggling with difficulties very similar to those which

are proving so baffling to statesmen in these days. When one remembers the enormous disturbance caused throughout the world by the terrible struggle with Germany, it is not surprising that the nations are taking a long time to settle down again, and itlooks ae if several more years must pass by before economic and social conditions are restored to a state of stability. The main thing is to avoid applying new-fangled and unreliable theories which might easily lead to confusion worse confounded.