Britain's Plight

Hutt News, Volume XXII, Issue 1, 16 June 1948, Page 7

Britain's Plight

HEED FOR UNDERSTANDING

There are two nations (in Britain) to-day, says the "Economist." Those who realise the plight of the country and the looming catastrophe which threatens British economy and perhaps the British way of life, and those who still cherish the illusion of prosperity, a full wage packet and easy profit. In recent weeks, thanks largely to the frank realism of Sir Stafford Cripps, the gulf of understanding between the two has narrowed. But it must be reluctantly confessed, even now, that a majority of the people are still unable, or unwilling, to form any conception of the economic, and ultimately political, peril in which the country stands. It is disheartening, the journal continues, to see how quickly the lessons which the White Paper on personal incomes preaches have bean lost in unprofitable bickering. It admits that there has been a great improvement in publicity about economic affairs recently but adds thai the publicity is still couched in terms utterly remote from the average man.

What is needed is something which is honest, yet inspired by the common touch. That demands, first, a most scrupulous demand for facts untinctured by political hopes or prejudices. Secondly, the average man and woman must be shown what tin facts mean in terms of food on thcii plates and clothes on their backs.