PUBLIC OPINION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18008, 19 November 1926, Page 6

PUBLIC OPINION.

WHAT OTHER WRITERS ARE SAYING. To End the Coal Dispute. Considerable significance attaches to the vote of the Rhondda Valley district in favour of accepting the Government's terms as a basis of settling the coal dispute. In the recent conference of miners’ delegates, the men representing South Wales were determined in their opposition to acceptance. Their opposition could not be attributed to any idle fondness for strikes. A cloud of anxiety has loomed over the district. according to a recent report by one having heart to heart intimacy with the men there, as to the dire effects of the strike: and this may well be. as the consequences of the 1921 strike arc still felt by them and their families, credits then given by the local tradespeople being in most instances still unredeemed. The opposition is more reasonably attributable to suspicion that they were not getting “ a fair deal ” from the owners: and, rightly or wrongly, they have hitherto held it to be their duty to stand by the strike; but the majority against them in the conference has evidently convinced them of the duty of loyalty to its recommendation. This change of front, added to the reported favourable vote in Yorkshire, associated with South Wales at the conference in leading the opposition to acceptance, confirms the hope that the miners’ districts. to whose decision the conference left the acceptance or rejection of its recommendation of. acceptance, will return a clear majority in favour, even should the nine districts already so declared include only those where that decision was to be expected.—“ New Zealand Ilerald,” Auckland. United States of Europe. A United States of Europe i? an old dream, which since the war has become a stronger aspiration, and it is not surprising to read of a Dutch Labour delegate raising the question at the Economic Conference at Geneva. But when Herr Oudegeest, in the name of international organised Labour, demands the abolition of all European Customs frontiers and the unification of Europe, to “ combat American competition and assure the same standard of living as that of the workers in the United States.” he is pointing along a path bestrewn with difficulties. Europe is a collection of highly nationalistic States, which have erected tariff walls to protect their own interests. Before Europe could be unified, immemorial sentiments, traditions, conditions and prejudices would have to be broken down. But. impracticable though it may seem, this Dutch proposal has an interesting bearing on world affairs. Like the bankers’ proposal for general free trade, it springs partly from a desire to counteract the economic power of the United States. It is also partly an illustration of the saying that imitation is the sincerest flattery. The spectacle of the American artisan going to work in his motor-car has impressed the world, and naturally enough workers elsewhere wish to raise their standard to his level. It may be said, indeed, that this Dutchman’s proposal is a sequel to Henry Ford's labour management The United States can teach the world much in this direction The American workman enjoys a high standard of living, and he is helping to preserve it by co-operating intelligently with capital. It seems to us that European Labour will gain more by following these examples than by seeking to create a United States out of its own i territories.—Auckland “ Star.”