AFTER THE WAR PROBLEMS

Hokitika Guardian, 16 October 1920, Page 4

AFTER THE WAR PROBLEMS

AN INTERESTING REVIEW

(Address by llic President of the Adelaide Chamber of Commerce). The. Presidcilt (Hon David J. Gordon M.L.C.) in moving the adoption of the report and balance sheet, said: — Gentlemen, —It was by production—the winning of wealth from soil, sea and mine, the application of inventive genius in the workshop; the distribution of the combined products of science, capital, and labour, that eivilisation'evolved on the material side by gradual and sometimes painful stages to a relatively high standard of attainment and comfort. The war checked tins upward and outward movement and left a legacy of complex economic and moral problems, which, unless faced with courage and solved by determination, may cause Peace to prove only a little less disastrous to mankind than was that tragic period of hostilities. The first year of war’s aftermath finds the world in a state of chaos, with the conflict and turmoil and collision between authority and its enemies shifted from the restricted areas of battlefields to the unlimited spaces of continents. The Red Revolutionary with the ghoulish instincts of the. fanatical assassins is running riot in Russia. Central Europe, is struggling in the' morass of poverty and rebellion. Great Britain has been beset with internal troubles and threatened by enemies within her gates; while other countries, even those who kept outside the war zone, are not immune from the influences of the International cataclysm. Up to the present time, nearly eighteen months after the signing of the Armistice, Peace has been denied its traditional right to win victories for humanity no less renowned than those of war. Instead of alien battalions seeking to outmatch each other, men of the same race are engaged in an economic struggle which, if continued, must destroy tiie standards of higher civilisation, and cause more sufferng and loss th*m even the toil of war. It is not a country’s enemies that are to be feared in time of peace, but those of its .own households who persist in confusing I rights and duties, and mistaking license for liberty.

The only hope for humanity to rejoice in the glories of Peace, and benefit by its rewards, is an unqualified recognition of the immutable laws of God and the admission of the limitations and imperfections of human institutions. The fundamental error that is being made in most countries, is an organised attempt to enthrone materialism by substituting the artificial for'the real and side-tracking natural laws by the aid of human advices and political palliatives. Moral and spiritual attributes are supplanted by codes based on material expediency, while economic forces are ignored or discounted by Abe dictates of irresponsible and often ignorant minorities.

The present transition stage through which we are passing, with much tribulation and anxiety, not necessarily so much for our own generation as for the next Hr which we carry the responsibility of trustees, is characterised by a rebellion against constituted authority, and a refusal to recognise the eternal truths of life. Just as two plus two continues to make four by the fixed rules of arithmetic, so must the. irrevocable laws of Nature operate with relentless exactitude, no matter what may be the decisions of a legislature, or the resolution of a Trades Union, or a Chamber of Commerce.

The foundations of a progressive civilisation, seeking improved standards, have been broad-based upon production, trade, commerce, and education and a recognition of human duties as well as human rights and privileges. So must individual and national progress in the future be governed by personal energy, efficiency and enterprise. The emancipation of humanity is not to be found in lawlessness, laziness or licentiousness.

Mr H. C. Hoover, the American Food Controller and Economist, has summed up the most acute economic crisis that history records as “demoralised productivity.” European production has never" been at so low an ebb as at periods during the past twelve months. What is the explanation? The check given to production, trade and commerce, by the war, the diversion of man power to systematic methods of destruction; human and material wastage ; the substitution of Government control for individual or trained expert initiative and enterprise; are all factors too important to ignore, but the chief cause of the world-wide unrest and economic danger signals is the almost entire absence of that intensive

stimulus of individualism which was responsible for that state of economic discipline, and efficiency which make for a high civilisation. Not only has there been a relaxation of tense effort, and a reaction from those human impulses which govern individuals and nations in a cause regarded as just and sacred, but communities have become inoculated as by a plague germ, with the pernicious theory that the limitation of effort and the reduction of output will provide increased employment and happiness by leading to a wider distribution of the work available in each country. Organised labour, with a lamentable disregard for the object lessons of ancient and modern times, seeks for industrial salvation in the “Serbonian bogs” of communism. Such a quest must inevitably end, as it invariably has done, in disappointment, demoralisation, and universal sufferings. Russia with a good soil to work upon, provided by ignorance, poverty, and a putrid autocracy, put the dangerous theories preached by fanatics of all ages to such a practical test that the applied socialism of a Lenin or a Trotsky is proving more intolerable and cruel than the accumulated crimes of the Romanoffs. The lure of nationalisation threatens Great Britain, while Australia which lias been a hothouse for experimental legislation, frequently camouflaged by an all-embracing but indefinite term “progressive” has reason to resist the temptation of putting unlimited trust in the infallibility of parliaments. Parliaments may supplement, but they can never supplant individual genius and effort, and the sooner that truth is recognised the better for any community that is seeking to be saved and spoofed by legislation.

Tiie present state of Europe demonstrates most impressively that the socialisation of industry results in a moral degeneration, a disastrous loss of production, aud inadequate distribution. “My emphatic conclusion is,” says Mr Hoover, “that socialism as a philosophy, of possible human application is bankrupt. With rivers of blood and an infinity of suffering, it has proved itself to be an economic and spiritual fallacy.”

, Economic salvation will not come through less work and a diminishing standard of efficiency, but by increased effort and added rewards; not by the lfiulticiplicity of restrictive regulations, but by greater personal freedom and achievement. The nation that honors human superiority in fields of sport, applauds courage and endurance, and rewards the personal development of Jod-given talents, cannot afford to lix one common level beyond which a man dare not attempt to rise without the risk of being regarded as a traitor to his comrades and an enemy of society. The recognition of labour by regulated rewards in terms -of the hands of the clock, instead of by results, is bound to lead to individual deterioration and lend towards national bankruptcy. There is no royal road leading to an economic elysium. The safe track has been well beaten by those Who, ready to recognise the fundamental truths of found real joy and dignity in the diitics nearest to them and thereby emancipated themselves and found their souls in that service and sacrifice which the daily round and the common task prbvide. The Lord Chancellor (Lord Birkenhead) speaking at a dinner given by the Association of the British Chambers of Commerce in London, referred to the close union between the doriiinioris arid the Mother country. “The fortunes of the Empire during the next three years,” declared Lord Birkenhead, “are balanced in insecure equipoise. On one side of the scale is a greater degree of glory and material success than ever was attained by Imperial Rome at the j moment of her supreme greatness; on the other side are the forces of unrest, fomented by the difficulties of living, high prices, industrial unrest, and by the efforts in many quarters of open re-! volution. So every British, responsible and patriotic citizen must stand to-day before those two scales and decide on which side he will be. If one scale inclines in 10 or 15 years, this Empire will riot be greater than it ever was, but it will be greater than any Empire in. the whole history of the world. If we falter with our high mission, not only we, but our children and grandchildren, may miss the Sublime sacrifice made by the bravest soldiers that the military history of the world supplies.” Tiie national balance can be restored, our Empire and the world saved only by increased production and a better distribution, \yhich latter is the province of trade and commerce, and the main incentive for energy, efficiency and enterprise will ever be as in the' past—personal reward according to service to the common good. Australia still offers more prizes than blanks for merit and service. There is neither caste nor law, exceptirig what may be self-imposed, to prevent the employee of to-day from becoming the employer of to-morrow. The majority of employers in Australia have risen from the ranks by a self deermination which knew no barriers. The hour has struck for the dethronement of Karl Marx and the exposure of the false doctrines based on class war.