VAST EXPERIMENT.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20266, 28 March 1934, Page 5

VAST EXPERIMENT.

U.S. National Reconstruction Act. IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA. The United States will be one of the last countries of the world to emerge from the depression in the opinion of Mr Russell Robinson, an aeronautical engineer and student of international affairs, now in Christchurch. He is staying with his uncle, the Rev J Lawson Robinson. In a country, built on credit, when the ogre of depression first raised its head the people were thrown into a panic, he said, and it would be a long time before the coun- I try regained the ground it had lost. | Mr Robinson, who has resided in the United States for the past eight, years and came out to New Zealand by the Bear of Oakland, as a member of the expedition, said that the country being essentially industrial felt the effects of the times to a greater degree than New Zealand, for instance. The proportion of unemployment in New Zealand was smaller. It was most difficult to bring about national feeling in the United States, one reason being the lack of enforcement of the law and the consequent lack of respect for the law. It was difficult for the President or anyone in public life by even the wildest methods of propaganda to unify the outlook. Increasing Buying Power. The National Reconstruction Act was a means, through propaganda, of increasing the buying power of the people. President Roosevelt’s policies could be criticised but the obvious reply was: Could the critic supply a better remedy, or another remedy? It was in a sense a vast experiment, and Roosevelt’s personal popularity assisted it greatly. He tried experiments that sounded wild but no one could suggest anything else in a workable form. New Zealand’s way was high taxation. “ Every law in the States is broken,” said Mr Robinson, “ so there will undoubtedly be trouble and disputes

over the N.R.A., but things are undoubtedly picking up. Although we in New Zealand will read of troubles of various sorts those troubles are not to be taken as national in scope.” Capital was not so expensive and the Government had ensured that it was more stable and the banking system had been improved tremendously since Mr Roosevelt came into power. He removed the banks whose finances were unstable and prevented further bank failures. Economy of Production. There would be a greater percentage of unemployment in the States when trade had returned to normal because of the mechanisation of plants into which the manufacturers had been forced through the necessity of economy of production. Those j economies had been introduced wherever possible, but the operations ' of the N.R.A. at present with shorter hours and bigger wages had counteracted that movement to some extent. The agitation at the moment was for a thirty-hour week and had been consistently advanced for some time by the national labour organisation. Mr Robinson stated that he intended to remain in New Zealand and enter 1 the field of air transport. He believed j that New Zealand offered a fruitful ! for an enterprise, started in modest fashion, and gradually developing and extending through safe and inexpensive services.