VIEWS OF AMERICA

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4820, 7 August 1939, Page 4

VIEWS OF AMERICA

CITIZENS “PUZZLED.” ECONOMIC DIFFICULTY. TARANAKI MAN’S VISIT. “New Zealand’s system of marketing is well known in the United States and many sections, particularly the growers of California, are envious,” said Mr. Darcy Cameron, senior patrol officer of the Automobile Association (Taranaki), who returned to New Plymouth at the week-end after ten weeks’ absence on the west coast of America. Growers of produce there did not know whether in return for consignments they would get a cheque or a bill, he said, and they were developing an increasing fear of being at the mercy of middlemen.

The average intelligent American, he found, was no different to the average intelligent New Zealander, and he found- that they knew all about the legislative experiments being conducted in the Dominion.

Many Men on Relief,

The small American producer was just beginning to realise the benefits of co-operation, said Mr. Cameron,' in getting a reasonable return for their goods. Only a few growers in Calfornia were strong enough to possess their own outlet independent of shipping and marketing organisations, a notable exception being the raisin-packing firms. The average American was very puzzled about the state of his country. Life was highly organised and business efficiency had reached a scale few New Zealanders could realise without actually paying a visit. Yet poverty was rife and possibly some 20,000,000 to 30,000,000 people were on the bread-line.

Thousands of young men were in the C.C.C. or Civilian Conservation Corps camps. The title was dignified but there was little work done on the projects, which were making fire breaks, building roads through parks and doing other work calculated to improve the country’s natural assets. The inmates of what were little better than relief camps were often young men with a college education put to pick and shovel work because industry could not absorb them, The men were becoming embittered and many were inclined to take a pessimistic view of America’s future when such C.C.C. employees became the older men of the nation.

Efficiency of Business

President Roosevelt was doing his best, said Mr. Cameron, but thousands of young men were being thrown on the labour market: each year without work being found for them. Huge corporations were multiplying and the ordinary United States citizen was worried without knowing how the condition of many fellow-citizens could be improved.

A cynical attitude was adopted towards politics, both national and local, and a paradox was that the American was fond of saying, how much liberty a citizen of the United States possessed. Many groups of foreign residents did not care anything for the welfare of Ariierica, maintaining their own newspapers. When he had suggested that if the United States was good enough for such people to live in they should become proper American citizens the American stoutly upheld that in such matters the individual was free to think and do as he pleased.