CONDITIONS AT HOME

Hokitika Guardian, 15 October 1920, Page 3

CONDITIONS AT HOME

GRAVE POSSIBILITIES. WELLINGTON, Oct. 11. The general condition of affairs in the British Isles was touched upon by the Rev. Dr J. Gibbs, of Wellington, who returned from a trip abroad last week. \ “You ask me how the people of. the Homeland are settling down,” replied the doctor, in answer to a question. “I am tempted to use a Scotsman’s privilege and to reply to your question by asking another: “Are they settling down?” On the surface they certainly are not. When I left England about the end of August, the newspapers at home were filled with rumours of the miners’ strike, and every day chronicled strikes in this branch of labour and that. That there is a strong and resolute body of Then in Great Britain determined to overthrow the existing order of civilisation is certain. And yet, in spite of this, and all the other tokens of unrest, I do not think matters will be pushed to an extremity. There is an underlying sanity—conservatism, if you will—in the British mind that will make Bolshevist communism for ever impossible. And while some of the Labour leaders are veritable firebrands, there are among them many wise and prudent men, some of whom have been speaking out very plainly of late They are Socialists, but they are not predatory Socialists. They do not believe in direct action. They desire a change, not by revolution, but by evolution; and-if the gauge of battle is ever thrown down by the extremists, my belief is that the vast majority ot the British people will bo found on the side of law and order. The greatest danger of internal convulsion lies;m the possibility of the Government leading the nation, or letting it drift into nar. I am convinced that the working men of Britain will not fight again in any international strife. And in this determination they will have the support of all the churches, or of almost all. Look how the Council of Action sprang into being, like Jonah’s govr.rd, in a night when it seemed as if the Government were about to take some part in the strife between Poland and Russia. They will not fight again—take my word fol- it—in any international conflict; but try to force this on them and they will fight to the death- in a war of class with class. International i s impossible, at least in this generation, but civil war may not be so remote a possibility.”