The Dominion. FRIDAY, JANUARY 4, 1935. CONSTRUCTIVE CONSERVATISM IN CANADA

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 85, 4 January 1935, Page 8

The Dominion. FRIDAY, JANUARY 4, 1935. CONSTRUCTIVE CONSERVATISM IN CANADA

The time has come to change the economic system. Reforms mean Government intervention, control, and regulation. There can be no permanent recovery without reform. If we cannot abolish the >dole we should abolish the system. „ Not a Moscow manifesto, this: nor a Hyde Park grouser blowing off steam; nor yet the Victoria College Debating Society. ■' The words are those of a responsible Prime Minister: the Prime Minister of a British Dominion, and the head of' a Conservative Government. Mr. Bennett, of Canada: he whom a year or two back the Radicals in England looked upon as the last stronghold of reactionary Toryism.

Then what does it all mean? Is Mr. Bennett “nuts, as the mental condition would be expressed in the picturesque language of his neighbours across the border? Or is he still the commanding figure who dominated the Dominions’ representation at the 193 G Imperial Conference, created the Ottawa Conference, and carried jt to a successful outcome? His career and the fuller summary of ms election policy printed on the opposite page this morning carry then own answer. The Prime Minister of Canada is a man big enough to move with the times.

Which having been said, it becomes necessary to’look a little closer at his proposals.' They arc for reform, not revolution; and they are not new.' The economic system can be changed—is being changed —without bombs and Bolshevism. It is being changed at Home, and here in New Zealand: most of all, so far, in the United States ot America, although there, presently, part pf the change may be undone. And in the long run, it may be hoped, the changes will be for the good of mankind, which created the system and lives by it.. Let us get a clear idea of what this is which wc call an economic “system., Not something fixed and everlasting in one form like the Great Wall of China. Not something as rigid and unadaptable as a granite pillar. Not something preserved as a mummy from the dead past. Rather something that is real, alive, and growing in harmony with the world s needs.

If some ogre were to stride into our homes, lay grasping hands on our toddling children, and explaim, “I’ll change them! I’ll abolish their present form 1” we should be roused to fierce resentment and resistance. But all the while Time is flowing gently through our lives and those of our children, changing them and us from month to month, constantly “abolishing” present playfulness, present prattling:., present capacity —to replace them with greater development. And, - beyond a sigh or two, we do not object. Viewed from afar off, so that years and tens of years dwindle to days and weeks, the economic and political unfolding of the world is very like the life of a child: it moves forward gradually, expanding to meet the increased demands upon it. The chief difference is that while Nature goes quietly about her business, the affairs of man are inclined to progress by fits and starts. That is why we sometimes imagine that man-made institutions are fixed, and why the mere mention of change may fill us with vague, unthinking fear. Call “change” by its real proper name “growth”—and where is our fear? • “Reform heralds certain recovery,” says Mr. Bennett. The reform he has in mind is a sufficient change to bringjhe machinery ' of business, and especially the machinery of distribution, into line with the productive processes that have outrun it. There has been unbalanced growth; and what Mr. Bennett really means is that growth —balanced growth —heralds certain recovery. That is a simple, sensible, and statesmanlike prescription well worth putting to the test.