GENERAL REVOLUTION CAN BE AVERTED ONLY WITH SOCIAL REFORM

Korero (AEWS), Volume 2, Issue 15, 31 July 1944, Page 17

GENERAL REVOLUTION CAN BE AVERTED ONLY WITH SOCIAL REFORM

[London The Napoleonic War ended seven years ago, Bonaparte last year died his lonely death on St. Helena; but far from improving with the end of the war, economic and social conditions of the people in Great Britain, and the manufacturing centres of England particularly, are worse to-day than ever before are worse than appalling. Europe is at peace, with the ears of her peoples laid back catching up on the

industrial manufacturing development that last century gave this nation such a lead in world trade, a lead that is being lost surely and not so slowly. The demand overseas for our goods has slackened, the machine has replaced the worker, unemployment figures, increased by general demobilization of the army, are staggering. There is not enough food, people arc starving. child labour in factories has not lessened in its bmtalitv — — . —— — ™

The Six Acts (passed in 1819 after the Manchester Massacre for the suppression of seditious meetings and publications and the seizure of firearms) may' have stopped public disorder, but it has done nothing to remove the causes of the discontent. George 111, whose interference with political matters was not helped by his insanity, has been dead two years; his son, George --IV, even in an age when virtue is unfashionable, has done more to bring the Crown into contempt than any preachings of the Republicans. The Combination Laws, which make strikes criminal and tradeunions illegal, have been neither repealed nor modified. Humanitarian Wm. Wilberforce in his appeals for the abolition of slavery might as well talk to the moon. Postage is not available to the

people. The gaming laws are sending hundreds of hungry people away as convicts to the brutal penal settlements in Australia. The Bow Street Runners, the only police force in the country, are known only with contempt for their corruption and their evil inefficiency. Gin shopswith their slogan, “ Drunk for a Penny— Dead Drunk for Twopence ” —are the centres of social life. General education is almost unknown. There is no franchise for the general public, who have nothing to do with the laws of the country but their obeying of them. The years ahead are likely to be written in history as the years of reform, reform in every sphere of life. If a general revolution is to be avoided, those reforms had better not be delayed too long.