AS THE WORLFD WAGS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLIV, Issue 14006, 10 March 1920, Page 6

AS THE WORLFD WAGS.

(By Mercurius.) „, .. The world is .wagging Juharmoniousli {*. an r»«%<in»6«fc''*o»op*Tar.* <•» The' only i'liiii thiag iris**' s|tpnqmel $v ronrting ■•■• smoothly is profiteering', and that_ : ioo has its occasional jars. The British Government, that is badlv in want of revenue, proposes to got back as raiich as it can of the-war profits made out of the country in its years of peril, and no_ one but the profiteer himself will raise a protesting voice. ' The British Board of Inland Revenue calculates that the increae.of individual wealth between 1914 and 1919 amounts to r onr thousand million pounds, half of that huge sdiii haring been mopped up by 280 individual*. These are the more barefaced of the profiteers, who arc not to be allowed to get away with inc. money taken from the country when to win _ th«i war was a question of greater importance than that of the cost of _ winning it-. It ia not so much a question of putting down profiteering as of taking out of the pockets of iho profiteers the moneys thev have taken out of the pockets of the State and of the public. There will be a variety of howls, but necessity knows no law. These 280 individual obtained the money easily, and "it will be some satisfaction to a suffering public to know * that what these people won so easily they have to lose again just as easily. That is one compensation for the financial jangle that has placed the -world at _ sixes and sevens, and given iiie United States the financial over-lord-ship of the earth for the_ time-being. Britain borrowed about nine hundred millions from America, birt the remainder of her borrowings were from her own people. To find the money to pay the interest on the seven thousand odd millions that she now owes she has to devise means of taxation, and the question Ls: On whose shoulders shall that taxation fall? Could it fall on shoulders with n greater right to bear it than on those of the people who extorted money out of the Treasury at a time of national peril, or those ■vho have become unarmed bandits, and nns extorting prices for goods out of the people far in excess of their actual value? The British Government uill have Ihe solid backing of the people in their foray on these gentry, and if revenue is a necessity who will say that the subjects from whom it is to be raised eotdd have been better chosen ?

The railwaymen and the post inil telegraph officials, as the seamen, the wharf laborers and a variety of other people have already done, are seeking u way out of the dilemma they are in in trying to square the circle of a. £.*4 a week wage meeting an expenditure of £-5 a week in household upkeep. The wages man is undoubtedly in a corner, for he cannot launch out in profiteering. He might rob his employer if he has the handling of cash, but that, way lies ruin and disgrace, ajid the game is not worth the candle. He i-> therefore asking that his wages be r.iised or. in the alternative, that, the cost of the necessaries of life be reduced. The pest and telegraph officers suggest that increased charges should bo levied on the public to make good the increase in wages. If the increases asked for are granted the increased charges will follow as night follows day. There is no roval road that the Government can t«Bc that is more easy ef perambulation than the road that the ordinary common mortal takes. There is no process of alchemy by which they can transmute shillings into sovereigns, and every £IOOO of additional expenditure has to be met by an increase of £IOOO in revenue. If there is any other way the Government would gladly pay to the deviser of the scheme a thumping bonus on 3 method of negotiating what Sits hitherto proved to be a veryacute angle, for the ramifications of increased charges are seen in the rapidity w»th which those who have to boar them spread them over the public generally. There is no finality to the comnWron which even a small splash makes when the waters of trade and commerce an* disturbed. Certainly, if profiteering could be suppressed, there would b«» ne tired for all this, and there would, be no need for these incessant and persistent raisings of wages. But *vho is to put down profiteering? The people look to the Government, and the Grveniment look to the people, and r-c----tween the two the thing is getting worse. Chaos reigns. Everyone knows that the raiding of prices necessitates the raising of wages, and tlie raising of wages again necessitates the raising of prices, and so, the game goes on. Thr inpnmiT chases the profiteer, or rather puts the Government on to hunt hint dewn. but tho Government looks to ;be. profiteer to supply him with the sinews of war in the wav of taxation, and declines (he t:isk. The prolit<-er is on safe TTruiid. and holds a hand of trumps. Where will the whole thing end. for it has to end? The people hay ihc prwtr. and will compel n halt in t:>i—srstem of brigandage. But what *•> ill ht»nnen when thev make their felt ?

Britain leads the world in aviation, as she does in the greatness o>" her ttavy and in the sochl with which she can nrro and equip a great citi7en army and place it in the field equal if not snm-nor to the armies of thv continent. But although she leads the world in avbi •-•>!>. the art of flying is too modern to allow it ti be termed a certain "fans of rciching a particular goal. The Hying machine has its iimitatiniis. and the limitations are as numerous as the machines that demonstrate the fait. How nvuiy machines started on- the great flight to Australia, and bow Miacv sc--cecded? The road is littered with the wreckage of failures. Only one i*m<hine b-.ts reached the objective of all th-se thit started, and tbaV niahii-e had i» halt by th«- way and repair danmges tn .-« disordered propeller. So much was this success acclaimed that the King created the two intrepid brother aeronauts knights, the miexoected decoration drawing from one of tlie astonished livers the exclamation: "What will mother say when she finds two knights kicking about the house?" The Cairo to Cape flight- induced about half a dozen bold flyers to spread their wings in the empvfean. and the race is still in disordered progress. But the route is dotted with broken-down machines, onlv one flyer, and he obviously a Dutchman, if the name is any guide, remaining sound in wings and engine no to Bulawavo. when he too crashed. It is true that the 'discovery of detect* leads to the discovery of remedies, lint w mif-h depends on atmospheric conditions that even » perfect machine might suffer long delav till these conditions are suitable. As an engine of warfare the aeroplane has found its best place. On the battlefield it i* now the eyes, crs and intelligence buretu ol tin- armies but as a commercial unit it ha-' a long wav tor go (and it may never get there) before it will supersede more certain means of communication and freightage. The cost will torce it out of this field of commercialism, and even ns a mail carrier a special charge must be levied on "letters by aerial to make the revenue balance the expenditure, revenue may never balance the expenditure, for the special charge will limit the users of this means ot communication to a very few The >rezoinK reference i* to aeroplanes as we know them, and not to what the Inttiiv mav produce. But those who have given the* subject much thought. »nJ«w ««J rxpert knowledge of the capib.httes of thTmachme. csfnnot imagine its being of anv great commercial ntiltty.

The muddle and raws "'to «'uch American international affairs have drifted have obviously mode a call on the intellect of the nation to unravel &hv tangle. The American Presidential . It: tion takes p|»cc this year, and -{rr-*dv ** an American newspaper ' "Democrat* and .Republicans hire Vcn noppin-i nr» all over the count rv. and craning their necks to tbe«> zrrit«-st fceieht in the nope that tip. Predentin! lichtiiing mnv hit rhc-t.'* There nevw was su£b an .ivabn«-he of intendine candidates. •vrp expect to he -elected for the Msrfh primaries, after which the weeding out will take place. "Abundant timber— mostly green." says one newspaper. American newspapers write Kith » flowing pen of their great men. but the reference to timber in the foregoing quotation need not neeessarifc upplv to the heads of the expectant candidate*, siltbouzh the inference may Ke in that direction. Amongst the expected candidates is Senator Lodge, who has been the means, of banging np, President Wilson's Peace Treaty. 7f. that Senator's election depended on the. Allied nations outside America he j would not get a rote, and should be j

be elected bis exaltation to the first I position in the United States will cast a slur on the good faith of the people who "won the war," and who, through sthVn.TJ&jiitie? l - undertook to see "tue .*jvS'ri'jtntKl-iXV^'- «J«Vifeh.^6j*w*taffinite f eiidV "It V^pyrcsif-,*ntt*tte*taifarfe; 1 ih*tnV 'ScTratt* HSs ~enfou*ag«r , *tfie' ' armv of contestants for the Presidency j to emerge from their burrows, eacn one imbued with the determination to flatten out the angles and make the roadwav to a decision easy to trace. How that is to be done is not «l««te; clear It may be explained that the Prudent is elected for tour years, the senate, for six rears, and the House of Representatives for ; two years. The President has a veto, but that mav be set aside by a two-thirds majority'of each branch of the Legis--lature." The President sends to the Senate his Peace Treaty,, but the legislative authorities have the right to cast an adverse vote against it. I resident Wilson will not accept the adverse vote, which is his veto, and the recalcitrant Senators are not strong enough to remove the veto by a twothirds majority. President }\ ilson cannot force the Treaty .through, and will not accept certain amendments, and in that position it must remain. The election of a President may not remove the difficulty unless -the new President holds the same views as Senator Lodge, in which case he will' accept the .Senate's amendments, and the Treaty will then be practically valueless. .