TWO LONDONS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 64, 13 April 1943, Page 4

TWO LONDONS

London is the very heart of the capitalist system; or it sits like, a vspitler at the heart of its web. The strands of that, web run out to all the cities of the world, and to all the homes by the side of the ageless woods. Miners have died to buy a shareholder lunch at the Savoy: Chemi-t cal workers have rotted to endow a charity in Kensington. There is great poverty in London. The rich voluptuous cultured heart is surrounded by twenty towns of dreadful ugliness. Islington, Shore- 1 ditch, Hackney, Bow. . . . The splendours and the miseries of this age are both together in London. For London is the mirror of the age and shows forth the. state of things ; as they are. ■ These arc the various parts—profit, the sovereign power, sitting on the; triune throne of the City, West- 1 minster and St. James's, with all ' her favourites that have the enjoy- 5 ment of. her, the bankers, the merchants, the holders of bonds and ' shares. The other part is the great mass of the people that Avork for wages to make other people's profit. Thus there are two Londons—tlio.se who have the command of money and those who are commanded, by it. So London is the microcosm of the age.—John R. Allan, in England ] Without End (Melhuen).