The Christchurch Star. PUBLISHED BY New Zealand Newspapers Ltd. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1934. BRITAIN’S LITTLE SECRETS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20425, 2 October 1934, Page 6

The Christchurch Star. PUBLISHED BY New Zealand Newspapers Ltd. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1934. BRITAIN’S LITTLE SECRETS.

<< T DO NOT BELIEVE that any intelligent observer can accuse England of orthodoxy in the present emergency,” says President Roosevelt in challenging the view of the reactionaries in his own country that Britain has made progress in the depression by a do-nothing policy and by letting Nature take its course. That misconception,-one is bound to admit, has gained a good deal of currency, for it is based on a misinterpretation of such remarks as Mr Ramsay MacDonald’s that there is no lack of remedies but no magic cures. But when Mr MacDonald, speaking in Newfoundland the other day, referred to the honest work that Britain has been lining, he added the significant words detailed planning, well-instructed opinion and good judgment. Britain's departure from orthodoxy has really been forced upon her by the unorthodoxy of other nations. Germans were reputed to have said of Britons at the outbreak of the war, “ You will always be fools, and we will never be gentlemen,” but Britain has given up the habit of being the international goat, and she departed from the gold standard because the other nations were not playing the game. Under the manipulation of the Exchange Equalisation Fund the depreciated pound gave Britain a tremendous impetus in exports. When America went off the gold standard the advantage waned, but America increased wages and Britain did not, therefore retaining her advantage and beating the Americans at their own game. But the great pull that Britain has had has come from the adoption of the watchword of rationalisation, to which alone we may attribute the launching of the Queen Mary and the expansion of endless industries in the Old Country. Widening and mounting tariffs have assisted. Every weapon, in fact, in the arsenal of protection is available to maintain that progress which Mr Roosevelt concedes. MURDER WILL NOT OUT. ■ ''HE West Coast poisoning mystery is essentially a case in which a reward might be offered with some hope of success. Murder will not out, and the offering of rewards is usually a confession of failure. They should be offered earlier. In this case, too, the police ought to take advantage of the facilities that the newspapers are only too ready to offer them to broadcast photographs of the exhibits and particularly of the written messages. Poisoning is the most despicable of crimes and the most difficult to sheet home, and yet there must be innocent persons who are cognisant of some material fact connected with the murder if their evidence could only be discovered. SERFDOM IN GERMANY, /"t ERMANVS IDEAL of national self-sufficiency in her fofod supply has brought the farmer, through the action of pre-Nazi and Nazi Governments, at last to the position of (he Russian kulak. This strong agrarian protectionist policy began under Dr Schiele, a former Food Minister, who thought that if Germany could grow all her own wheat she would be able to transfer reparations and private foreign debts. Although he was not able to do so even when wheat imports dropped to nothing, the Nazis pushed forward his ideas to the extreme, hut sweetened the pill by the romanticising of the farmer. Under Hitler he was flatteringly called a noble, till after a bad harvest the cities began to feel hunger. Then the formerly idealised farmer fell a victim to price-fixing. When he refused to sell his wheat and rye Hitler told him, hv decree, to deliver it to his district collecting organisations. And now that small farms have been made practically inalienable the man on the land is simply tied to the soil in a condition of serfdom.