POST-WAR BRITAIN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25800, 22 March 1945, Page 4

POST-WAR BRITAIN

CHALLENGE OF THE FUTURE

IMPROVING THE COMMON LOT By James Lansdale Hodson LONDON, Mar. 13. With the war in Europe moving inexorably towards its last great battles and as I write, with one or two shuddering explosions near enough to remind me that the stricken enemy- can still wound us,-1 have been rejecting on whether there is any offset to be recorded for Britain on the credit side against the appalling desolation brought by this war. And in honesty, I think, one must confess there

is , .. .. To begin with I do not believe- we shall again doubt our capacity—as sometimes we had begun to doubt it—to organise and to get things well and quickly done. The old joke about muddling through will not have such a strong ring. If anybody cracks it an opponent could justly say “ what about the invasions of North ;Africa and of France? ’’ . Certainly the Americans had thengreat share in them, but principally it was Britain’s own merchant marine 'and navy that were involved, arid it was from these; shores... that,. in,the main, the forces were launched. And organisation was good. No doubt about that. Nor is there any doubt that the character and spirit of the peoples of these islands have borne the ordeal well. The Battle of Britain. the blitzes, El Alaffiein, the work of the merchant navy, the. response, of the women—all these have shown, it. Steps on the Road But it was not of this I meant to write. The credit items I was thinking of are quite mundane things. 1 For instance, our new Education Bill, which is a step' on the road—if no more than a step—towards giving.each child in the land an equal start. And our Family Allowances Bill, which will give a few shillings extra per week to parents to help to. keep each child after the. first. (Precise details are not yet fixed.) It might be argued that we should have made ■ this progress war or no war, and it may be so. But war has a way of pushing' on things. Women got. their votes after the last war partly as a reward for their superb .work during the war. Will they now win equal pay for equal work? We shall see. There is a general desire throughout the nation that never 1 again must our merchant seamen- be expected to sail in such poor quarters on ships have often done hitherto, and there is strong revulsion from the idea of their being cast “on stones" in days of depression. But this last.’is part of a widepread determination to see to it that never again must we have millions of people unemployed. “Full employment ” is the battle cry, and the Government Bill, which will determine to some extent where factories must and must not be built, .will do a good deal to prevent old, distressed areas (we had four or five principal ones) dropping back into their appalling condition. The ancient notion that a boom must be followed by a slump will be fiercely fought every time it: dares lift its head. The coal industry, as you know, is strongly debated. Shall it or shall it not be nationalised? But short of nationalisation it will certainly be considerably re-equipped and controlled in a different fashion from before the war, possibly by some form of compromise akin to that governing the London Passenger Transport Board. We see that the cotton industry will have to be freshly equipped, too, and drastically overhauled. Still keeping one’s eyes on the industrial scene for the moment, one remembers that a ; number of shipyards which were derelict have built ships again, and that millions of acres that were unfruitful have brohght' forth food. Both those look to me like solid benefits. „ I cannot imagine us allowing them''to be easily-lost: 'Another excellent advance of another sort is the improvement made in equipment for life-saving at sea—betterequipped lifeboats and rafts, and that priceless new device which turns salt water into fresh. In medical 'fields the advances in plastic surgery made in World War I have gained a fresh impetus, though-the r opportunity for it is deplorable. ‘ Penicillin ha» brought its enormous boons (though again whether we should have had it as soon without war is hard to say), and the new methods of treating wounds have reduced mortality from injuries far below that of World War I. Science has manufactured several hideous new weapons, but at all events radio-location will assist henceforth in gaining knowledge of approaching icebergs in the Noith Atlantic. /

I have no doubt - that ; there - are scores of. inventions and improvements in industry and in workshops’ practice of which I am ignorant, and which have speeded up output in war' and can do so in peace. Our production committees have taught workmen, foremen and managers to-consult together and talk problems over, so that the workmen feel they are partners to a greater degree than This surely is an advance in the right democratic direction. Fireside Culture How far it is reasonable to claim that love of books and good .music has grown and a new. fondness for the delights of home life with its simple games, its reading aloud and its neighs bourhuod groups to study and discuss—all these arising from the blackout—l do not pretend to know. We have certainly had a boom in books and the Government-sponsored organisation for the entertainment of serving men and women which is known as E.N.S.A., has taken . opera and symphony orchestras to towns which rarely, if ever, saw them before. To this extent our Government, never, a strong supporter of arts, has grown less Philistine.

Politically, I think our people now show more liveliness, but it is easy to exaggerate it. One interesting development is the “Women for Westminster ” group, which' wants to see more women in public life—as I do. There is this further point—we in Britain realise better than we ever did before what an integral part of Europe we are. Before this war we had our group of isolationists in this country as they had (and still have) in America. I should say our own , are now done with. Lord Beaverbrdok led them.'and I cannot think he will ever lead them again. Not only that, but we know now more firmly than ever that we can only endure and keep wars away if we are firmly wedded to other nations in ari international scheme—the sort, that one hooes is going to be . hammered out at San Francisco. -

Do I then seem.to have jotted down too many items on the credit side to have made out a case for the war as a means .of benefiting mankind?' I trust not. For the debit side is overwhelming as the load of human misery to-day is overwhelming. Thousands, upon thousands of our finest young men have been' killed or maimed, and young women thev would have married made desolate: thousands of marriages and homes have been broken up and ruined by years of seoarat.ion. * Now the Challenge

You must add to all that, if you "are frank, the way black marketing and some roguery have thriven,’and you must note the rise in pilfering and juvenile delinquency. Manners have often suffered as overwork and war-tiredness have manifested themselves, and both employers and work people have sometimes shown too little sense of their responsibility to the war effort. But how could it be otherwise? How can perfection blossom in the madness and strain of war? And yet those faults are but a small part in the over-all picture. (Moreover, if one goes outside these islands and into Europe, one can find hunger, hardship and disease such as the world in its history has seldom, if ever, equalled. Greece, Poland, Holland, Jugoslavia, France and Belgium—all in varying degrees—are tortured and suffering to an extent that we British can hardly imagine. ' Compared with them a lot of us are In a kind of earthly paradise, ana Heaven knows, our own situation is not rosy.)' - ... . . - •' r So that’ it .is plain that there is nothing to be said for war: l ean think of nothing we have achieved during or'by war that we could not have had in Deace. provided We had used enough, .energy and vision. That is our problem—to go on devoting to days of peace the drive and‘initiative that spring forth in war, and ope' might perhaps add. self-sacrifice. ' Can it be done? ' T ‘hat is a challenge for us to meet.