Many Britons Do Not Realise Nation’s Plight: Not Facing Facts

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 34, 2 April 1948, Page 3

Many Britons Do Not Realise Nation’s Plight: Not Facing Facts

There are two nations (in Britain) today, says the “Economist.” Those who realise the plight of the country and the looming catastrophe which threatens British economy, and perhaps the British way of life, and those who still cherish the illusion of prosperity, a full wage packet and easy profit. In recent weeks, thanks largely to the frank realism of Sir Stafford Cripps, the gulf of understanding between the two has narrowed. But it must be reluctantly confessed, even now, that a majority of the people are still unable, or unwilling, to form any conception of the economic, and ultimately political, peril in which the country stands. It is disheartening, the journal continues, to see how quickly the lessons which the White Paper on personal incomes preaches have been lost in unprofitable bickering. It admits that there has been a great improvement in publicity about economic affairs recently but adds that the publicity is still couched in terms' utterly remote from the average man. The steelworker, it suggests, is more interested in football pools than the White Paper on the balance of payments, and dockers don’t read White Papers on personal incomes. What is needed is something which is honest, yet inspired by the common touch. That demands, first, a most scrupulous demand for facts untinctured by political hopes or prejudices. Secondly, the average man and woman must be shown what the facts mean in terms of food on their plates and clothes on their backs.