AMERICA AND WAR

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22141, 21 June 1935, Page 14

AMERICA AND WAR

ATTITUDE OF PEOPLE NEW " RECOVERY PROGRAMME " "The United States of America will be mighty hard to drag into another war. The people are in no humour for it, and there is a strong anti-war feeling, except that every man of us would seize the first weapon he could get hold of if it were a defensive war against a foreign invasion. But our people will not easily bo shipped across the waters for any foreign invasion of our own making." These words were written by Judge W. M. Harper, ol the City Court of Monroe, Louisiana, United States of America, in a letter to Mr. E. J. Bell, chief librarian of the Christchurch Public Library. Mr. Bell met Judge Harper, who is prominent in Rotary and the Boy Scout Movement in the State of Louisiana, when on his recent visit to America. The Judge added interesting first-hand views of America's recovery programme and the recent campaign against leading gangsters. "1 hope you have noticed in recent months the summary manner in which our Federal Government has eliminated a number of our major criminals," he wrote. "They have been feeding the gangsters a dose of their own lead, and it has had a most salutary effect on crime in the upper bracket. "One reform wo do badly need, however, as I see it, is a complete overhauling of our jurisprudence—that is to say, the Judiciary. I think all Judges should bo elected for life, during good behaviour and consistence, and that our criminal law should be 'revamped' to meet now conditions. Our system of dealing with crime is much too slow. And politics play too great a hand in it. "1 know you want me to make some expression about our much heralded 'recovery programme.' And I hardly know what to say. I do honestly believe that we are emerging slowly, but surely, from the throes of the depression, but there is much speculation as to 'what is going to happen next,' as our headway has been gained principally by artificial means (Government aid). "I shudder to think of what might happen if and when this Government succour is withdrawn; and I hardly see how we are to continue much longer to bleed ourselves in the manner that we have been doing for the last two years."