The Otago Witness. (WEDNESDAY, MAY 7, 1919.) THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 3399, 7 May 1919, Page 36

The Otago Witness.

(WEDNESDAY, MAY 7, 1919.) THE WEEK.

WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE SOUTHERN MERCURY.

"Nnnquam allud natura, allud sapientia dixit. * —Juvenae. "Good nature and good sense must ever join."— Pope.

Some days have elapsed .since the arrival . . ' ' at Versailles of the German The'Peace delegation, yet they have Treaty. not yet been permitted to peruse the text of the Peace Treaty, although the announcement was made more than a Aveek ago that it had practically been completed. This delay is attributed to a desire that Italy shall be represented in the final settlement, and it is officially stated that a telegram has been sent to Rome requesting the Italian delegation to resume its ' place at the Peace Conference. It would almost appear that, if absolute unanimity on the part of the Allies in their settlement with Germany is to be awaited, the signing of the Peace Treaty may be indefinitely delayed, for well nigh every day brings some fresh and often unexpected development. News comes from Brussels, for instance, that, owing to the refusal of the Conference to accept responsibility for £550,000j000 worth of German money circulating in Belgian, a great agitation is being raised against signing the Peace Treaty, in consequence of which the Belgian Minister of , Foreign Affairs, M. Hymans, has gone from Paris to Brussels bearing fresh proposals. And there can .be little doubt that the financial aspect of the Peace settlement is perplexing and burdening the shrewdest minds among the nations. There is the extraordinary paradox that, while the .enormous cost 01 the war has brought the world to the verge of bankruptcy, there never has been so much money in circulation as at the present time, but the value or purchasing power of that money is steadily on the decline. According to one advice, the financial advisers to the Peace Conference 1 are awakening, to the fact that ninetenths of Europe is actually bankrupt, and there is a distinct danger that the financial plight of Germany may drag all the other European nations into the abyss. To avert so dreadful a disaster a proposal has actually been put forward for the flotation of an enormous international loan, to enable Germany to meet her treaty obligations, leaving her a balance sufficient to revive her industries. It is also stated that America dissents to the idea of pooling the entire cost of the war, preferring other ways of helping to solve the European financial complications. If it be true that Tinder the terms of Peace Germany is to lose 10 per cent, of her income, one-third of her coal and 20 per cent.. of her potash, as well as between seven and eight millions of her population, all her colonies and all her ships, the international loan idea is not too promising a proposition, either from the point of view of the borrower or the lender. There are grounds for

believing, indeed, that international finance is of its own volition tending towards the condition which. Lenin actively includes in his Bolshevist programme. This aims at nothing short of the annihilation of the power of money in the world. "Hundreds of thousands of rouble notes," says Lenin, "are being issued daily from the Bolshevist Treasury, with the deliberate intention of destroying the value of money. As it is impossible to root out Capitalism by confiscation, we are flooding the country with notes, without financial guarantees of any sort." A similar indication is seen in Ireland, where the Limerick strikers are issuing paper money, of the value of from Is to 10s, signed* "Limerick Trades and Labour Council," and inscribed "General Strike Against British Militarism." Straws show, the drift of the current, and it may be that, as an inevitable outcome of the piling up of huge war debts by the belligerent nations, there will eventually evolve a drastic change in the world's financial system.

It is interesting to study, in connection with the decreasing value The Rising Value of money, the rising value cf Labour. of labour, since ilvi one has

a distinct relation to the other. In such a study may possibly be traced an indication of the ultimate solution of the troubles of the present time. In the past the world has suffered no less from the pressure of the inordinate power of wealth than from the equally severe pressure of a widespread poverty, and in the reconciliation of these two extremes will be found the remedy for the existing social soreness and sickness. Speaking at a luncheon tendered to him last week by the Otago Expansion League, Sir James Allen made reference to this very thing. Referring to the necessity for the immediate development of the resources of the Dominion, the Acting Prime Minister said that "the two limitations, so far as he knew, were the supply of money and the supply of labour. He was not going to deal with the supply of money. They could find that somehow or other if they liked to pay for it. The supply of labour was .a very much more difficult matter. The development of the country seemed to him to depend altogether on the relationship of labour and the quantity of it and the quality of it." If. as indications seem to point, the world is entering upon an era when money will steadily decline in value and when proportionately to that decline, there will be a gradual increase in the value of labour, the difficult problem of the relationship between capital and labour will be in a fair way of settling itself. Hitherto capital has been in the ascendancy, and because of the superior power of capital, labour has been forced to take the subservient place. The great changes in thought and idea now taking place all over the world would seem to point to an altered attitude and aspect, involving a complete reversal of the process. The time is probably coming —its approach hastened by the cataclysm following the war—when labour will usurp the dominant power previously occupied by capital, and when capital will perforce have to be content with a subservience hitherto. acquiesced in by labour. Mr Sidney. Webb, an accepted authority on Socialism and Trades Unionism, giving evidence in the Homeland before the Coal Commission, urged the nationalisation of the coal mines, and gave it as his opinion that "the whole system of profit-making was now upon its trial, and that there would certainly be trouble if an attempt were made to revert to prewar conditions." A section- of the capitalists have joined hands with some of the more moderate among the labour leaders in an endeavour to arrange a compromise, and their efforts "have had outcome in the Garton (memorandum, the Whitley repoi't, which, with the report of the National Executive of the New Zealand Federation of Labour, was expressly alluded to by Sir James Allen in the speech before mentioned. The Acting Prime Minister sees much in common in those reports, and is optimistic regarding a satisfactory solution of the present industrial unrest along the lines of the compromise of co-operation thus suggested. It may reasonably be doubted whether Sir James Allen's optimism will be realised, the two outstanding obstacles being the disinclination of capital to make the concessions sufficiently attractive, and the disposition of labour to exact from capital the uttermost farthing.

The difficulties of establishing right relations between capital and labour are enormously increased by the problem presented by the returned

The Problem of the Returned Soldier.

soldier'. For four and a-half years New Zealand has gradually been drained of the best of its workers in response to the demands of the war; in four and a-half months all this potential power of labour is being demobilised, and has to be absorbed into the civil life of the community. Brigadier-general Richardson voiced the popular view in regard to the returned men when he said that the whole country should, unite in putting these men back in their old position just as it did to send them away to fight. And General Richardson added a very necessary word rvhen he declared that “the men did not want to bo spoon-fed, nor did they require anything to which they were not entitled, but it was. essential that they bo provided with the necessary opportunities of citizenship. ” Some of the peculiar difficulties surrounding the situation in the Dominion were brought out in strong relief by the deputation from the lAmedin Returned Soldiers’ Association which waited upon Sir James Allen to bring under his notice a number of matters affecting the -welfare of the returned and returning soldiers. The Acting Prime Minister made an important concession when he announced that the Government had decided that the needed financial .assistance be made restrospective, which means that the men who voluntarily enlisted in the early stages of the war'will now, under certain restrictions,

be entitled to the same financial relief as is given to men called up under the Military Service Act. This is a measure of bare justice -which ought not be have been so long delayed. Sir James Allen admitted that the discussion which ensued upon the question of finding suitable and remunerative employment for the returned men had proved most instructive, and doubtless the action of the Government will profit thereby. The Acting Prime Minister queried' the wisdom, of finding temporary employment for returned men, and especially when such employment involved the ousting of the present occupants. Ho defended the Government from the charges of inaction, and emphasised the fact that the schemes for the development of water power throughout the Dominion, and other public works, would provide, remunerative labour for thousands of men, provided, of course, that this was the sort of employment they Avere looking for. He admitted that the most difficult part of the -problem was to find work for the men who were looking for light jobs about town, a form of employment which obviously ought to be reserved for the partially disabled men; and Sir James Allen insisted that his concern was to see the returned man get the best work, for ho was entitled to it, even though this involved "shifting the other fellow." The moral of the discussion is that the satisfactory settlement of the returned soldier must be a work of sympathetic cooperation in which the Government, the Repatriation Board, the employers, the public, and the Returned Soldiers' Association must all take a. hand and display the same spirit and generous enterprise as that which characterised the patriotic efforts of the days of war. It is well, perhaps, that the report of the regrettable emeute at Perth should come to remind everyone of the lamentable consequences of dealing with returned soldiers in the wrong way. It has to be borne in mind that a section of the returned men are still far from normal, and .that there must be exercised for some time to come much gatient forbearance in all dealings with iem, both of a public and private nature.