A PUZZLED PUBLIC

Waipa Post, Volume 45, Issue 3210, 30 July 1932, Page 7

A PUZZLED PUBLIC

" 'At no time,' Mr Mellon says, 'has an enlightened public, opinion been more necessary than now.' With that every serious student of world affairs will probably agree, but there will be wide differences of opinion as to what enlightened opinion is on this subject or on that.

"What, for example, is enlightened opinion on world currency problems? What is enlightened opinion on the gold standard or on the price level? What, again, is enlightened opinion on Reparations and War Debts? It is enlightened opinion that there should be a single currency for the British Empire, that we should return to bimentalism, that America should give up hoarding gold, that the price level should be raised by a little judicious inflation, that Reparations should be wiped off the slate, and that nobody should pay any more war debts to the United States?

"We do not know—we do not profess to know—the answer to all these questions. Experts give the most diverse and, indeed, contradictory, answers. If the experts knew, we fancy we should all know,, because we would all gladly follow the voice of authority on these technical problems. But, unfortunately, there is no voice of authority. "That is the tragedy of these times. The expert, especially the financial expert, has failed an anxious and expectant world. And Mr Mellon asks the poor working journalist to supply what the experts themselves cannot supply and create an enlightened public opinion to help the experts and the Governments to find what they are vainly searching for."—"The Scotsman" (Edinburgh).