AMERICAN DEPRESSION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21225, 4 July 1932, Page 14

AMERICAN DEPRESSION.

ANXIOUS IN STATES.

MAJOR POINTS IN PROBLEMS. SOME STRIKING COMMENTS. [ FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT. ] NEW YORK, .Juno 5. On May 24, Empire Day, a large number of Canadians residing in tho United States returned to their native country for a week-end holiday. As they prepared to return, many of them : were held up by American immigration officials, on the ground that an official ruling, made during the depression period, had altered the status of Canadians residing in the United States. While the tedious details of investigation were worked out, positions were lost, husbands were separated from their wives and families, and general hardship was suffered by Canadians, who, had they been, aware of the ruling, would not have taken the risk of visiting their native land. The incident aptly illustrates conditions at the present time in the United States and the American mentality generally. A glance at the reviews for Juna discloses what American writers think of their own country, based on major occurrences, among which may be listed, at random, the following comments: — Effect o! High Tariff.

(1) President Hoover takes the unusual course of attending the Senate, and pleading for the passage of such revenue legislation as will forestall the decline and possible collapse of the dollar. (2) Despite the fact that world-wide odium was engendered by the passing of the Smoot-Hawley tariff of three years ago, thei Senate passes new or higher tariffs on foreign products, dealing a sharp blow at Britain, Canada and South American countries, on the day on which Mr. Hawley is defeated for the Republican renomination in Oregon, which has lost much of its seaborne trade through reprisals invoked by the tariff. (3) The country is on the eve of holding the national party conventions, as a preliminary to the Presidential election, with no one in sight to whom it may look to lead it out of its difficulties. (4) Congress has voted thousands of millions of dollars to suhsidise banks, corporations and trust companies, whose assets have become frozen, despite cries of "inflation."

(5) The President has denounced the plan of the Speaker of the House of Representatives to hypothecate more thousands of millions of dollars for unemployment relief projects. Mr. Hoover condemns it as " pork-barrel tactics" and " a raid on the Federal Treasury." Demand by War Veterans.

(6) War veterans are making pilgrimages to Washington by freight trains, at the public expense, to demand payment of a thousand million dollars (£200,000,000 at par) in cash, on their war bonus certificates. They have announced their intention to become public t charges, and to remain in Washington until their demands are met.

(7) The United States supply of gold and its overseas trade have decreased by half in two years. About 8,000,000 are unemployed. (8) Governors of States and Mayors of cities have demanded that the Federal Government authorise loans, aggregating thousands of millions of dollars, for the issue of bonds for public works, in face of the President's disapproval. (9) The Government has lost control in both Houses of Congress. Tho two old-line parties have lost control of their rank and file. A demand is growing for the abolition of the major parties and their replacement by Liberalism. Professor Murray Butler, once high in the councils of the Republican Party, heads this new campaign. (10) The middle-class paradise built in the United States, which reached its zenith three years ago, is destined to decay before half tho twentieth _ century has passed, according to well-informed writers.-

Thcso are ten major points in the problem of the survival of American standards. How it will be solved, or who will be the organising genius that will indicate the means of solution no one at the moment seems to know.