Points of View Throughout The World

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17655, 19 December 1931, Page 16

Points of View Throughout The World

THE NEMESIS OF BETRAYAL

London Daily Telegraph: The Nemesis of political lolly and weakness has been swift and deadly. The leaders betrayed their trust- and the party that, uplieid them have been taught a lesson that will long be remembered in our politics. The National Government has a. majority in strength far beyond its expectation ; and the road is open for I lie enterprise of setting the country on its feet, and leading it, into a new path of progress and prosperity.

NATIONALISATION OF CREDIT London News-Chronicle: Labor has committed itself publicly to certain proposals which would be disastrous in their effect on tlie immediate situation. All the talk about nationalising the banks is merely asking for trouble. The nationalisation of banks, as Mr. Rumanian has pointed out, means not merely subjecting them to political control, but placing the whole mechanism of credit, including the granting of advances to private traders, under the control of the State. That is unthinkable. BRITAIN’S .DIFFICULTIES Quebec Evenement: The extent of (lie victory of the Macllonald-Baldwin-Sumtiol alliance will not prevent the. difficulty of always finding agreement between the leaders who have hitherto been so divided on questions Of economic policy. For the time being, we have good cause to rejoice in the fact that the British. Government is in the hands of real rulers. They will not be perfect, and they will perform no miracles. Their principal work will be- to raise the finances and credit of John Bull. LOW PRICES Ottawa Droit; The reduction in price of agricultural products is obviously one of the fatal effects of the economic crisis, but the prices of other basic commodities have not fallen in the same proportion. Does not the farmer still pay almost as much as he did two year ago for the manufactured articles which he needs'! lias he no reason to complain, ho who has been the first to suffer from tbo economic depression. when in the market for manufactured articles he. runs up against so manv middlemen, such high profits, and so many trusts? U.S.A. AND CHINA Ottawa Droit: The United Slates is involved in China to the tune of very great sums, inve sled with the object of creating new outlets for its commence. For this reason it is favorable to energetic, action mi the pari of the. League of Nations. It is significant to see (he neighboring Republic renounce i(s policy of isolation, and ask Ibe League of Nations for its support in preventing Japan from destroying the work of American financiers in China. In the same iconnection if is easy to understand the protests <d Japan against American intervention.

FOOD GROWN AT A LOSS Quebec Soleil: Jt is difficult io understand why provisions, a. necessity for everybody, have fallen in price so enormously. With cotton and building materials 'it is different ; you can put off' buying a suit or alter the plans of a house, but you cannot go a single day without, eating. The consumption of food is practically the same as it was in 1925), IF i( is true that tbo law of supply and demand must always govern the mat ket, there is no reason why the pro ducts of the soil should tie selling below cost price. They naturally had to fall like other commodities, but, according to the natural course of things and the laws of economics, they should he, in proportion, much more dear than manufactured products.

WHY NOT ECONOMY? Vancouver Province; The suggestion is made that Dr. Tolmio and his colleagues, instead of placing their dependence in the old stand-bys of British Columbia governments, loans and higher taxes try for once that new and strange expedient, economy. But, they must realise from the beginning that the only economy that will do them any good will have to bo deep and far-jreaelring. A snipping off of a few thousand dollars will not avail. Millions will have to go. Everybody is willing to talk economy until his own pet scheme is touched. There will, therefore, l>© innumerable local protests when the axe falls. These will have to be ignored. What- if it does endanger the Government? It is no longer a question of saving the Government. It is a question of saving the province.

NO MORE SPLENDID ISOLATION St. Paul Pioneer Press: The United States has given the doctrine of strict political isolation from Europe a thorough trial in the past 10 years. For a decade America acted as though the rest of the world were simply a place in which to unload its surplus goods, tourists and capital. The final result is that in the year 1931 the United States has suspended the war debt payments because it could not collect them whatever it did ; is sending a representative to sit in the Council of the League; and is anxiously hoping to find some way of restoring the international credit system. The world depression has furnished proof that the United States has failed to keep itself economically isolated from the world ; the Japanese affair proves that it has not been able to maintain political isolation.

THE FLIGHT FROM THE DOLLAR Manchester Guardian: The bank rate has been twice raised in New York, and still gold is leaving America for Europe in a swelling river compared to which this country’s loss of gold in that crucial fortnight in July was no more than a purling brook. America’s reserves—not her general financial position but lieu- actual reserves «f gold exportable—are immensely strong. She could stand perhaps another month (i.c. till (lie third week of November) of gold losses at the present unprecedented rate without serious danger of being pushed off gold. But an internal hanking crisis threatens New 5 ork from the rear. The domestic crisis has, in fact, compelled, the Federal Reserve Banks to expand credit just at a time when the gold drain would prompt them to contract it.

I"AIR. PLAY Saint John Telegraph-Journal (Canada): No individual or party loses in the end by lining fail; to an opponent., or if necessary in a national crisis, Ivy rising entirely above partisanship. It is to ho observed in Canada, at the present time that the leaders of the Liberal l’arty are refraining from harsh erilirisiu of Mr. Bennett and his Cabinet. They may and doubtless will have a- great deal to sav later, on, hut they realise that if they were in office the problems which now vox the Government would he on their own doorstep every day. Doubtless they believe they could find a solution, hut. they are giving Mr. Dennett liis 'chance. Their attitude is by no means to their discredit.

U.S. AND THE LEAGUE

New York Evening Post: It would be one of the great ironies of history if, after wo had created and then carefully avoided the League of Nations, we should be called into it in its first big test and then he unanimously charged with causing its failure and death.

GOVERNMENTS IN INDUSTRY London Times Trade Supplement: The effect of restrictions and interference by-Governments in industry is almost invariably disastrous, and it is to be hoped that recent experiences in many lands will serve as a warning to British Ministers. stale control of shipping lias been disastrous in the United Stales, Australia, Canada, France, and, indeed, wherever it has been tried out. Restriction has failed in the ease of rubber, and the ,story of the United States Farm Board is a record of failure and disappointment. NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS Portland Journal: But the biggest of all things in this onrushing wave of crime is the indifference of citizens. Tile general public hears of the killings and slayings and slaughter and never bats an"eyelash. And make killings 10 times what they are now, and broadcast the ghastly story in blood-red letters to the throng, and it wouldn’t make a ripple on the- placid surface of America’s national consciousness.

What are the mental processes of America’s millions, who stand meekly by in a smug and satisfied glow of contentment while crime strikes down in death their youth and their aged; butchers alike their women, 'children and men to the number of 12.000 a year; bombs and blasts men into bits on public streets, escaping untouched and uustrafed while it picks the pockets of more than a billion dollars a year?

THE WORLD, THE POUND AND THE DEVIL New Statesman and Nation (London): What we want to know )l,ow is bow the British Government is going to deal with the international situation which will face it when this election is over. The problem still remains as an integral whole. War debts, reparations, tariffs, disarmament, arc linked indissolubly together. There will have to be an international conference, which will deal with gold and the Young plan as well as with guns and bombs and poison gas. And that conference, in our opinion, ought to be the first concern of the British Government, not merely on altruistic grounds, but in the interest of Great Britain. We have little to gain or In lose directly though much indirect!v bv a wiping out of reparations ami debts, and our abandonment of the gold standard has given us a freedom of action and a supreme opportunity to lead the world towards international sanity. The National Government may boast that they arc going to save the pound. But they will not do it with a policy of “Ovir nation first, last and all the ' time—and the devil take the rest!” For the devil will tnko the pound with the rest.

DEMOCRACY VINDICATED - Spokane Spokesman-Review: Socialist radicalism suffers a knockout in the British elections, and the overwhelming verdict of the British voters will exert a beneficial infinelico ill other countries. For rampant radicalism has been the world’s outstanding menace. Its threats have prolonged the unsettlement and distrust that are responsible lor economic disturbance and unemployment. Wo may now hope for a considerable trimming bf radical sails in Germany, in the United States and in the Selfgoverning British dependencies. The average radical politician is reckless for his own aggrandisement. As a rule he is artful at the game and knows how to apply the loud pedal or the soft, as the feelings of his constituents may rise to radicalism or'recede from it. Another valuable lesson of these ejections is their vindication of democracy. Roosevelt said, in a speech on the Pacific Coast, that' there wore times when the breeching of the harness was more important than the tugs. To that conviction have come an overwhelming majority of the British voters. ’ They have shown that they can be trusted with the ballot.