CONDITIONS AT HOME

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 10715, 8 October 1920, Page 5

CONDITIONS AT HOME

GRAVE POSSIBILITIES "DANGER, OF INTERNAL CONVULSION." AN INTERESTING OPINION. The general condition of affairs in the British Isles was touched upon by tEo Rev. Dr J. Gibbn, of .Wellington, who returned from a trip abroad yesterdav, in the course . of. conversation with'a "Times" representative last evening. . ''You ask me how the people of the Homeland are settling down," replied the doctor, in answer to a question. ''l am tempted to use a Scotsman's privilege and to reply to your question by asking another: 'Are they settling down?' On the surface they certainly are not. When 1 left England about the end of August, the newspapers were filled with rumours of -the miners; strike, and every day chronicled strikes in this branch of " labour, and that. That there is a strong and _ resolute body of me,ii in Great Britain determined to overthrow the exist jug order of civilisation is, certain. • And yet, in spite of this., and all the other tokens of unrest, 1 dq not think .matters will be pushed to an extremity. There is an underlying sanity—conservatism, if you will—in the. British mind that will make Bolshevist communism for ever impossible. And some of the Labour leaders are veritable firebrands, there are among them many wise £ud prudent men, some of whom have been speaking out very plainly of late. They arc Socialists;, but they are not predatory Socialists. They. dp. not believe in direct action. They desire change,jiot t)y revolution tut by. Evolution; arid if the-, gauge of battle is ever thrown down by the. extremists,. my. . belief is that the.vast majority of the British fieople will be found on the side, of Jaw and order. The greatest danger of internal convulsion lies in the possibility of the Government lerfdiiig .the. nation, or letting it drift into war. 1 am convinced that the working men Britain will not. fight again in any international strife. 'And ill this determination they will • have the.support drpall th'e churches, or of almost all. Look how the Council of Action sprang into- being, llkc, Jonah's gourd, in a night, when it seemed as if the Government were about to take some partin the strife between Poland and Russia. They will not fight again— v take my word for it—in any international conflict; but tfJ\to force this on them, and they will fight to the death .in r s. war of class with class. International iyar is impossible, at least in. this gen&-_ .ration, but civil war,; nlay not be so remote a possibility.'' ,