TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Waikato Times, Volume 116, Issue 19462, 29 December 1934, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Mr Roosevelt’s Victory

“ The great congressional majority Mr Roosevelt will have may easily prove more troublesome and dissentious than one which could not afford to kick oyer the traces,”-states the Christian Science Monitor. “ And personally the election places a tremendous responsibility upon the President. What will happen to him, to liis party and to the nation —if his plans for recovery do not succeed is not pleasant to contemplate.

“ The election was not a revolution, but a continuation of the revolt caused by the depression. To-day many voters have only had their appetite for change whetted. But if recovery comes, reckless changes can probably be avoided. The President has recently disclosed a desire to avoid them. This election cannot be considered a mandate for them. It was primarily a vote for recovery. But the people cannot vote recovery back, even by strengthening the hands of the President. They have done what they thought best with votes. They can now give to the recovery effort something more vital than, votes —work.”

What Is the Stumbling Block? “ It is so far good that Mr Coates should emphatically declare that the end was not yet—that at the continuation of the conference in Hew Zealand next March there was every prospect of an agreement,” commented the Sydney Morning Herald on the breakdown of the Australian and New Zealand trade negotiations. “ Nevertheless, the world has been looking on at the attempt of two Dominions of the British Empire trying to find common ground for a treaty that under the conditions should have been quite easily drafted.

“New Zealand and Australia have no more radical differences in race, religion, language, and loyalty (o the one Crown than have New South Wales and Victoria to-day. Yet we may be reminded that this Stale and her neighbour before federation were just as difficult and as hard to reconcile on trade and other differences as the two Dominions wo are now discussing.

“'What brought Victoria and the mother State together in the end? Just the pressure of a world outside that made unified defence imperative. And was there ever a time when this same need, arising from the same pressure, was moro imperative ?, What, then, is the stumbling-block?”