TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Waikato Times, Volume 116, Issue 19330, 9 August 1934, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

German Public Service Camps. “I have just come back from a fortnight in Germany, and nothing in that very remarkable country has impressed me more than the fact that every university undergraduate, before he gets his degree, is required and willingly consents to go to a public service camp that is for less fortunate comrades, the unemployed men of between 18 and 25,” said Sir Arnold Wilson, a member of the British House of Commons, addressing a gathering of schoolboys in London. “ All have to work with pick and shovel, draining lands, making roads, etc., for six months, and this is having a profound effect on Germany. It has united the nation as nothing else could, and these camps could not have succeeded had not the university men and public schoolboys gone in with the others. It was of the few filings I saw in Germany of which I could heartily and unreservedly approve.” No Private Armament Firms. “ During the period of depression, while millions of men and women walk the streets ill-clad and half-starved, while governments liavo been unable to pay their debts, while educational institutions have been starved of funds, it is a fact that the munition manufacturers have been realising profits of 12 and 20 and 30 per cent.,” stated Senator W. E. Borah, in the United States Senate recently. “While the world was struggling to get from under the catastrophe of the great World War and to relieve itself of the untold and immeasurable burdens which it imposed, these manufacturers have been engaged in disseminating the news which brings another worldwar. I know of no way to restrain or control them except for the Government to take from them the power to manufacture, to take it over by the Government or to take it under licence so they can put out only the amount which the Government itself determines they shall put out.” Britain s Trade With America. “In 1933 we paid Ihe United States for imports £75,790,300,” states the London Financial Times. “We sent them £19,052,200 of produce and manufactures of the United Kingdom, and we reexported lo them £7,051,900 of previously imported merchandise. TOn balance, therefore, we spent £50,000,000 more with the United Stales than it did with us.

“One year’s war debt annuity under Ihe old agreement would involve some £30,000,000. The United .States would have to accept from us extra commodities of such astronomical value as would give an available profit in dollars of that amount —for the creditor will remember that his debtor must live —as to mako the transaction unthinkable.*