PUBLIC OPINION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17729, 26 December 1925, Page 6

PUBLIC OPINION.

WHAT OTHER WRITERS ARE SAYING. MR BRUCE’S POSITION. Mr Bruce appears to have been badly advised in regard to deportation, and it is a somewhat significant fact that the .Federal Attorney-General, who, presumably, was responsible for the setting uj) of the Deportation Board and the proceedings that were taken before it against these men, tendered his resignation within a few days of the High Court deciding against Xhe Government. The honourable srentleman (Sir Littlejohn Ernest Groom) has twice held the Attorney-General’s position, first as a member of the Deakin Administration and latterly in the Bruce-Page Ministry. The Attorney-General is, of course, responsible for the drafting of all measures dealing with the civil or criminal law, and it is quite on the cards that the successful appeal made by YYalsh and Johnson to the High Court has been responsible for Sir L. E. Groom s resignation. His successor, Mr J. G. Latham, K.C., sits for a Victorian. constituency. Although the High Court decision has gone against the Federal Government and, not unnaturally, his opponents have suggested that Mr Bruce ought to resign, that gentleman is i«i such a strong position, as the result of the recent elections in which not a single seat was lost to the Government Party, but a good number were captured from the Labour Opposition, that he can afford to regard the course of events with equanimity.— '‘.Manawatu Standard.” WHITE, BROWN AND YELLOW. Auckland has recently been the starting-point on several occasions of an agitation against Asiatic immigration. Without study of the local causes it would be unfair to suggest that there is exaggeration of the danger, and undue alarm; but the remedies proposed by a meeting of Pukehoke residents are so drastic that action can certainly not be taken upon them without most careful investigation and consideration from the Dominion viewpoint. The meeting proposed a united request to the Government: (1) For legislation making it illegal to lease or sell land to Asiatics; and (2) requiring that immigrants from Asiatic countries be of a much higher social standard than the class now coming in. To the second proposal there may be little objection in principle, but in practice there will be considerable difficulty in enforcement without making one law for white and another for brown. If we say that the fruit merchant is welcome if he is English, Italian, Greek or Slav, but undesirable if he is Chinese or Indian, we at once make the distinction one of colour and colour only. Much more difficult is the proposal to prevent Asiatics from acquiring land. New Zealand has hitherto made boast of her fairness, in that, having admitted British Indian subjects, she has granted them all the privileges of British citizenship. All other dominions have not done the same, and their actions have not cased the task of the British Raj in India. The excuse of these dominions has been that the colour problem for them is acute, while for «s it presents only trifling difficulty. Is it becoming more acute with us?—“ Post," Wellington. FRANCE FINANCE. One finds it difficult to regard with any great enthusiasm the new loan scheme proposed by French industrialists to assist the country to overcome its financial difficulties. It may look better when fuller details are available. At present we have only a bare statement that it is suggested that all French industrialists shall join in floating a loan of ten milliard francs (equal to about £400,000.000 sterling at par value), both at home and abroad, especially in America, the proceeds to form a sinking fund for the amortisation of the public debt. The first thought that occurs is that if the Government as representing the whole nation is not able to carry out successfully a scheme to fund and provide for the gradual reduction of the public debt, as Great Britain has done, there is not much chance for a section of the nation, even if it is the wealthiest section, doing so. If this section can make a satisfactory arrangement surely the Government should be able Jo do so, and even better, because it can pledge the credit of the whole nation, which the industrialists cannot do.—“ Taranaki Herald.” « RUSSIA’S EXISTENCE. Mr Ramsay MacDonald has only stated the obvious in his remarks at Leicester upon the existence of Russia and the visit of Tchitcherin to Paris. It is remarkable that Labour leaders seem to have far more sympathy for Russia than for any" other country in the world. Of course, Russia exists, and further she has a right to be controlled by any kind of Government she chooses.* but she has no right to attempt to force other nations to accept similar Government, not should she expect other nations to hasten to trade with her and extend credit to her when she has definitely repudiated her debts and "bcfiaved in a hostile manner towards her creditors. Even Labour leaders have been forced to admit that Bolshevism has been a failure in Russia. It has exercised a tyrannous control over the people and brought hunger, poverty and widespread degradation. from which the country will take decades to recover. It has destroyed the people's morale aqd thrown the nation back into the dark ages, with results more terrible than under the Czarist regime. The. people have been deprived of agelong rights and the nation has suffered very seriously from the “ dictatorship of the proletariat,” which Lenin claimed to have established. As Kautzky said, after isiting the country, it was certainly a dictatorship, but not of the proletariat. How long the present system will continue depends upon the people of Russia themselves.—“ Wanganui Herald."