The Press Friday, December 31, 1926. Another Year.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18888, 31 December 1926, Page 14

The Press Friday, December 31, 1926. Another Year.

It is sobering, but not alarming, that the year ends a good deal less cheerfully in the Dominion, industrially and economically, than it began. For the Empire also, perhaps to a greater degree still, 1926 has seen very little progress except along the sad path of disillusionment. There is of course one supreme Empire achievement to look back to in the political sphere, and politics do, though generally from a remote distance, determine economics. But it has been a disastrous year to the Homeland industrially, and even if we did not also suffer in the Dominions as often as anybody or anything injures the United Kingdom, we could not be entirely cheerful in New Zealand in the face of the distress caused to our kinsmen by the coal strike. Besides, though this is not an unmixed evil, we do not find it so easy to lift up our hearts as wc enter 1927 when we remember that we entered so hopefully on 1926 and almost immediately ran into strife and trouble. A loud warning of the big disaster of May came six months before, or even as far back as the middle of last year, but no one believed that what threatened was an upheaval such as the Kingdom had not felt for several generations. However, wc can look back at the industrial wreckage now and reflect with some approach to pride that it is industrial only. There is no political mess to clear up, as there would have been in Germany, and France, and Italy, and even in America; and there is almost positive proof that there never will be a political mess in England while the people obey their own instincts and guard against corruption from outside. As no one knows how much industrial strife has cost Britain since May, no one knows how much has been paid for this unforgettable lesson; but if wisdom has come, and remains, it may be cheap even at hundreds of millions. How many hundreds of millions would the Russian people pay to-day, or the Germans, or even the French, if they could blot out the political blunders of the last twenty-five years and feel themselves as safe as the British? And if we dwell, as wc should, on the biggest blunder made by our nation during the year, it is happily for instruction only. The coal strike is over. The General Strike lasted ten days. The blackest period of unemployment has passed. The rivals who thought they would steal our trade have been disillusioned. The nation is not despondent. The prestige of the Empire in world affairs has never been higher. The war debts are being paid. The anxieties in which the Imperial Conference met have all vanished. Secession is dead in South Africa. Independence has lost its voice in Canada. India is too complex to go simultaneously quiet, but is nowhere at present violently unsettled. Ireland is almost more silent than Scotland and Wales. Australia and New Zealand are thinking chiefly of the reception they will give the King's son. Wherever we look in the Empire itself we see something that other Empires would give a year's revenue' to discover—criticism stopping short of violence, and stability keeping well ahead of stagnation; and when we consider our relations with other Powers, we have only the confused hostility of China to worry about, and the restless jealousy of Russia. Perhaps, too, we could go so far as to say that Britain's relations with China are improving, and" that if they are not improving with Russia they are not getting worse, and would be better to get worse than improve by the withdrawal of her opposition to Bolshevik ambitions. With the Great Powers of Europe, oh the other hand, as well as with America and Japan, Britain has not been on better terms for a generation. The Locarno Treaties and the admission of Germany to the League of Nations put us at last on that footing with. Europe, and the nations of Europe on that footing with one . another, which • every worthy statesman has been striving for since the Armistice, and there is no present indication that the situation is not as good as it looks. It can be said with some confidence also of the Dominion, itself that it has taken the measure of its anxieties. There is no boom, but there is still, in spite of an appreciable . set-back, a sober prosperity which can be maintained with ordinary diligence and prudence. The farmer, on whom ultimately we all live, has learnt that the times are too dangerous for extravagance, and land far too dear for indifferent cultivation. The close of the year finds him with uncertain prospects in nearly every market, but it finds him also cautious, and with an improved outlook (in spite of some recent disappointments) as the man before all others whom the Government cannot afford to neglect. The saddest • feature of the year agriculturally has been the. number of settlers on all classes of land who have been overtaken by bankruptcy; and it is a sadness that will remain a little longer. But the average farmer, even the average embarrassed farmer, is surmounting his difficulties, and as fast as he is doing this he is reducing the difficulties of all other producers. And there are fortunately no social or political difficulties in the Dominion worth talking about. The Government has made an honest attempt to live up to its promise to serve every section of the community, the Prime Minister has acquitted himself well at his first imperial Conference, and particularly well as a publicity agent, there have been no political scandals during the year, and political criticism has not manufactured any. On the social and industrial sides, also, the year has been a remarkably serene one. There has been 6ome unemployment, and a little, but very little, of the foolish talk that usually accompanies this misfortune, and there has once at least been, the threat of a

serious strike. But nothing worse than this has happened on the industrial side, and on the social side there has been the customary harmony that has always been the outstanding feature of a community in which there are no classes, and in which even-body knows everybody else, or could if he wished.