MONDAY, JUNE 16, 1919. SOCIAL AND POLITICAL UNREST.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXVIII, Issue LXXVIII, 16 June 1919, Page 4

MONDAY, JUNE 16, 1919. SOCIAL AND POLITICAL UNREST.

The Hon. A. M. Myers, in a statement in Palmerston on Saturday, referred to the social and political un_ i rest in New Zealand at the present time, and he feels that it is necessary to have the leaders of the National Government back as soon as possible to face the matters which are clamoring for attention. It is true that the general public is very unsettled, and there is that very dangerous element extreme Labor "urging on Bolshevism." The main cause for the unrest is the high cost of many of the necessaries of life due fo three leading causes. First } the lessening of production owing to the withdrawal of millions of workers for war purposes; secondly, the necessity during the four years of warfare to sacrifice civil needs to war needs, and, thirdly, the inflation of currency, due to the diversion of huge sums of /money to war purposes and the substitution of paper money for gold. Now in the Dominion to-day there are thousands of people seeking to put the blame upon different sections of the community, and the Government more especially, for what they consider to be its failure to adjust mat. ters and make the problem of life less complex than it is. Let us go a little below the surface and try to analyse the.pcisition. It is clear that the withdrawal of worker* from industry must result in decreased production and higher prices for what i 6 produced. The extremist would say that the Empire should not have sent so many men to the war. Yet every sane person know® that with every man Britain could muster it was with the utmost difficulty that the Allies gained the victory. Part of the price of victory which the people who stayed at home had and still have to pay is to be found in the shortage and high price of goods and here we enter ' into the second cause, the sacrifice of civil needs to war need®. Supposing Governments in the various parts of the Empire had allowed their care for the comfort of civilians to come first, then it is clear that Britain's army would have been starved for want of full supplies of war material, and the loss of life would have been infinitely greater than it was, not only of our own forces but of all the Allies. So it must be conceded that the sacrifice of civil needs was to the ultimate advantage of every person in the Empire. Then we com e to the inflation of currency through the withdrawal of great sums of money from industry to supply the demands of war and the increase Oi notes. No system of finance could have avoMed that. These enormous changes were absolutely necessary and unavoidable for the gaining of victory, and unless our nation was prepared to make them it is very probable that the war would have been lost. The jplendid spirit of endurance shown throughout the war, and our national sense of honor enabled tlie Empire to bear its full part. For four and a quarter years the g^»t revolution in the social and financral lif e of the nation continued, and yet there are thousands of people clamoring to-day because we have not returned to normal conditions now the war is over. SucK a speedy recovery is impossible, and the very least common-sense would

suggest would be the withholding c r .serious, action by the masses unt equal time (4J years) had elapse the ending of the war. We a great deal of criticism fro; A wrious sources, but it is all of a fetruc4iye nature. Ha s any person m Qf people a sovereign reme< ? is the policy that with a _ Qf the pen, or a sessie.^ rea± parliament, is going fo xestore ±he n& _ tior. at once and abou± some mythical millenm m? Time and Ume alone, can bnr^ the natio n back to normal condit but if great &trike6 such, as are ' s p i ace i v Canada and Australia ■ nx& f o break out spasmodically, the ,'«lay of complete restoration must b a J®B»g# delayed. Thousands of men ibawe already returned to their homes atsfl ■civil oocnpaiiions in various par.ts ,©f the Empire, and though there is. the ileeway of over four years to be .made up, the position is already show- [ ing some improvement. Production is steadily increasing, and as it increases prices must fall and the sovereign gradually return to a value approaching that of pre-war times. If our workers, instead of continually calling for .shorter hours atid higher pay— which, of course, are contributory | causes of the high cost of living— | would take the view that a s the war was a matter for ihe individual to tackle so is the task of restoring the nation, then would the Empire and the several Dominions march m to gain another, and perhaps a greater, victory—a triumph over the economic perplexities due to the war. There is no doubt that profiteering is going on, not only hy capitalists, but by some "branches of Labor, who are receiving far more) for their woifc than they are entitled to. The Governments of

ilie Empire should deal drastically with those responsible, but the greatproblems are mainly due to the war, and no ishort cut to their complete solution appears to be possible.