The Christchurch Star PUBLISHED BY New Zealand Newspapers Ltd. FRIDAY. FEBRUARY 30, 1931. PLUCK AND GRIT.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 43, 20 February 1931, Page 6

The Christchurch Star PUBLISHED BY New Zealand Newspapers Ltd.

FRIDAY. FEBRUARY 30, 1931. PLUCK AND GRIT.

Gloucester Street end Cathedral Square CHRISTCHURCH NEW ZEALAND.

T'VISCIPLES of gloom receive little encouragement from the news that comes almost daily from Hawke’s Bay. Here we have a community stricken by the most serious earthquake ever experienced in New Zealand, deprived in many cases of both home and means of Livelihood, and yet facing the future with inspiring faith and unconquerable optimism. Whole streets may be tumbled ruins: the spirit that makes a nation remains. A day or two ago, the chairman of the Napier Citizens’ Relief Committee announced that, notwithstanding the enormous extent of the damage, the business men of Napier were determined' not to rest until the town was one of the finest in the Dominion. This was followed by a statement that another fifty large firms meant to reopen their premises immediately. From Hastings comes similar heartening intelligence. Little wonder that the Governor-General, after a visit to the affected area, felt compelled to record in a message to the press his admiration of the splendid spirit, indomitable pluck, patient endurance and resourcefulness of the whole population. Hawke’s Bay has reason to be proud of its people, and whole-hearted co-operation from the rest of the Dominion will, we feel sure, be unsparingly given throughout the whole period of reconstruction. KING CANUTE. A FFAIRS IN AUSTRALIA would provide excellent material for a comic strip, if the consequences of present folly were not likely to be so serious. Politicians who should be endeavouring to lead the nation to safety harangue and posture across the stage, everybody is talking at once and all sorts of fantastic schemes are being juggled with one minute only to be dropped like hot cakes the next. To-day’s cablegrams from Sydney not only contain the now familiar reference to repudiation and inflation, but mention as well a trade union demand for a declaration of national emergency, talk of secession and civil war, formation of a Red Army, threats to expel Mr Theodore from the Labour Party, and more vapourings by Mr Lang. A full page cartoon in this week’s Sydney “ Bulletin ” graphically conveys the almost tragic hopelessness of the present situation. On a high cliff above raging waters is a throne on which sits the crowned figure of Mr Scullin, surrounded by his fellow Ministers dressed as courtiers. The waters are the waters of depression, and in them men and women, on the verge of drowning, hold out despairing hands. The cartoon is headed, “ Words, Idle Words,” and below, is the line—“ King Jim Scanute: —‘ It’s very disappointing. I’ve been talking to these waves for fifteen months, yet they go on drowning people.’ ” AND NOW FRANCE. A FTER ENJOYING a period of outstanding prosperity made all the more remarkable and enviable because of the serious depression affecting other countries, France is now in the doldrums of trade stagnation. Her unemployed total is 1,300,000, said a speaker in tjie British House of Commons yesterday. Bad times must have descended upon France very abruptly, for even up till a month ago her position was held up to rivals as a model of good management, sound sense and marvellous fortune. “ There is no unemployment in France,” said a prominent English authority recently, “ and her prosperity passes comprehension. In the main it appears to be the product of a series of*more or less fortuitous circumstances, which have been well exploited by a clever French political and industrial policy.” Candid critics will say that the exploitation must have been carried a stage 100 far, and* recalling Franee s inflated currency attempts in the years following the war, may be tempted to declare: “ I told you so. The inevitable day of reckoning had to come sooner or later.”