King Country Chronicle. Saturday, October 3, 1931. AMERICA FEELING THE PINCH.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXV, Issue 3373, 3 October 1931, Page 4

King Country Chronicle. Saturday, October 3, 1931. AMERICA FEELING THE PINCH.

The invitation sent by President Hoover to President Laval, the Prime Minister of France, to visit the United States, may have intense international importance. America is not now the world's most favoured nation, for at last she has been caught in the world's economic storm, and troubles are beginning to fall on her thick and fast. The problem of unemployment, national deficits and heavy taxation, which have been so acute in Great Britain and Europe are just as serious across the Atlantic. Now the policy of economy is being introduced into a country which has been noted for its prosperity and resultant extravagance for the last decade. Wages are to be reduced in most of the great industries, and the country has to face an enormous deficit in its national budget. Official statements give the number of unemployed as being 6,000,000, but it is freely stated in unofficial circles that the number lacking employment is double that number. Practically nothing has been done to frame a policy to deal with unemployment, and with the coming of winter the outlook for these unlucky people is most serious. The Federal Government is cutting down its naval building programme on the plea of economy, and the ambition of the United States to have the greatest navy in the world is not to be fulfilled in the meantime. The United States is now reaping the results of her policy of isolation, tariff walls and gold collection. Her politicians must now realise that she cannot remain prosperous at the expense of other countries, and if she wants trade must take her part in world affairs. It would not be a _ spiteful or envious statement to make that it would be a good thing for the world generally for the United States to have a set-back. Her foreign policy is to a large extent responsible for the general depression in trade and she has been one of the stumbling blocks in the movement for world disarmament. France has had a policy very much the same as the United States, and that country is beginning to face the same problems as exist across the Atlantic. Great Britain has her troubles, but it has always been her policy to trade with the rest of the world free from restrictions, and has met all her obligations without demur. By this policy she is held in respect by all other countries, and such feeling will prove a valuable asset in the general rehabilitation of the world in which the United States and France will be forced to co-operate to stabilise their own economic positions.