CAN WE AFFORD A SOCIALIST GOVERNMENT ?

Hokitika Guardian, 24 October 1924, Page 4

CAN WE AFFORD A SOCIALIST GOVERNMENT ?

I’HEIR POLICY li REEDS UNEMPLOYMENT AND BRINGS PS NEARER THE ABYSS. (By Lord Rothermere) (London “Daily Mail"). A I’arliamentary recess is a suitable occasion For inquiring into tin* effect of Socialist rule upon our welfare as :i nation. \Ye have liad a Socialist Government in power for more than six months. What, have they done? Have they redeemed any of their numerous and glowing pledges to their credulous followers:-' Have they brought us even a single step nearer the millennium of their dreams:-' Or have they made tilings rather worse than they were before:-' For the Socialist Ministers it can he said that Mr Ramsay MacDonald has tilled tlu* office of Prime Minister

with distinction and dignity. Lord Haldane, in many wavs the ablest man in our public- life, is a tower of strength to the Government. Mr Philip Snowden has won general esteem as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr .1. H. Thomas and Mr Wheatley have both earned laurels upon the Treasury Bench. There have been singularly lew firebrands among our Socialist Ministers. They are almost without exception patterns of amiability. But when we have said that our Socialist Ministers are charming fellows. what more can we say? The outstanding fact about our first Socialist Government is that, instead

of curing unemployment, they are taking active steps to increase it. Let us take some aspects of their policy, all of which have been very much in the public eye of late. The amazing recklessness and levity of their action in suddenly signing two treaties with the Bolshevists has already had deplorable results, for it has struck a severe blow at British credit, upon which we depend lor the ultimate recovery of our prosperity. Whether these Bolshevist treaties ever come to anvthing or not. the mischief has now been wrought. Russia already owes us more than

£1.(1(10.000,1)00 which she shows no disposition to pay. The Bolshevists have seized British property in Russia to an enormous extent. They stand before the world arrogant and uashamed as defaulting debtors, and the l nited States flatly refuses on moral grounds to hold any communication with them. For these people, who are profoundly mistrusted in every capital, our Socialists propose to pledge British credit bv guaranteeing a vast loan of still unknown dimensions. As the Bolshevists have never discharged any liability yet, as they most assuredly will never repay the proposed new loan, and as Russia may be overwhelmed in deeper chaos to-morrow it is practically certain that British taxpayers will eventually have to shoulder the loan themselves. mi rt» i ? il.nu i.oii iln ud

These Treaties, while they can do no possible good to us, will have a inost disturbing effect upon our business position. They will cheek the revival of industry at home, for no one will undertake new commitments while a Government capable of such folly remains in power. They will injure oin financial prestige abroad. They will deepen the prevalent sense of business insecurity, and will breed more unemployment. Moreover, how do we know the Bri-tish-guaranteed loan will not lx* used for propaganda against British interests in Egypt, the Sudan. Ireland, and elsewhere ? The next step which is bound to react disastrously upon British trade and upon the already high figures of unemployment is the proposal that this eountrv should join in guaranteeing a loan of £■!(>.O'F’.OuO to Germany. Our Socialist Government is straining every effort to secure this loan for the Germans. but their policy seems more suitable for the madhouse than lor T)owning-slreel. The wheels of German industry have not been revolving regularly and >wiftlv. owing to a lack of ready money, which acts as a lubricant upon the industrial machine. If Germany gets the proposed loan, her competition with with our -feel. coal, wool and cotton expert trade, and with our shipping. will in my opinion bring tr, an economic crisis of the first magnitude in the earlv future. Before the war Germany's chief markets were Russia, Austria-Hun-gary. the Balkan nations, and the old Turkish Empire. To-day the purchasing of these markets is hardly onetenth of what it was Indore the war. To find outlets for her manufactured products which are practically the same as ours she will deluge our overseas markets with her goods at cutthroat prices. The outlook for our manufacturers and workers is indeed tragic. The third blunder which has already

very seriously increased unemployment is the abolition of the McKenna duties upon the imported manufactured goods. This most foolish stop was taken in pursuance of the Socialist policy of being kind to Germany, a country which in a greater or less degree produces precisely the same varieties of manufactured articles as we do ourselves.

Foolish newspapers said the Hoard of Trade figures for July showed improving trade. They did nothing of the kind. They flamed with signals of distress and danger. They showed we were spending far too much on imports of all kinds. A high proportion of all increases in wages is spent in purchasing imported foodstuffs and manufactures. They further showed that for every twenty shillings’ worth of manufactured goods exported v."e are to-day importing ten shillings’ worth. Two years ago we were only importing something over seven shillings’ worth. For a country which exists mainly by its exports of manufactured goods this is a tendency which should cause all of us much concern. Our industrial workers have no conception of the dangers ahead. It is said that in Middlcshorcnigh, one of our greatest centres for the production of iron and steel, a third of the population is living either on charity or on the official dole, while the local corporation is practically bankrupt. The same Ihing is said about Sheffield.

There i.s untiling In prevent tlk* conditions; which prevail in these stool cities ; from spreading to every otlier town and city in (treat Britain, including London. if fjermany is (inaneially helped ■ to destroy our trade, which is what > our (iovernment’s policy really amounts j OCR RYINO INDUSTRIES. i \Ve need a (iovernnieut whose first * aim will he not to try to set Hermany ‘ on her feet, Init to keep (.treat liritain | on her feet. t 'Jo these blunders of policy on the j part of our Socialists must he added j their rash and unwarrantable attempt to reopen in the broadest possible way the sealed and settled issue of the future of Ulster. I fear that if the Socialists continue much longer in ollice, and pile up one blunder upon another, the growth of unemployment will reach sensational dimensions. Our great staple industries are sick almost unto death. I am convinced that the unemployment figures foisted upon the public by the departments are delusive, and that there are far more men and women without work than the oflieial statistics suggest. We have over a million unemployed in the insured trades, but while their number is constantly rising, the total number of insured persons in the great staple trades is rapidly falling. In the last year there has been a decline of ’242.000 in the total number. The total decline in the last three years is over 700.000. There are great numbers of uninsured persons c out of work who are not shown in the I lists at all. There are crowds of ( others who are being provided with ( work which is really an uneconomic < form of relief. All the railway com- ( panics, all the county and municipal < bodies, are being spurred on to spend < great sums in finding work for the ( workless. \

THEORY AND ILLUSION. Rig sums are also being expended upon the building of new merchant ships, which are not really wanted. I

approve of this course, although, it is economically unsound, Viocause it . it were not done I l'eaf our .shipbuilding industries might close for evermore; but shell ship-building is really only another form of compassionate relief. In the last two years there has been no real reduction in the total number of unemployed in Great Britain, registered and unregistered ; and the indications are that in another two years there will l>e he a swift rise In the unemployment statistics, unless om Socialist rulers mend their ways. AYill they over change? Will they ever learn? I doubt it. They are a Government of theory and illusion. They take no note of contemporary industrial endeavour. They have now, at the bidding of an entirclv superfluous and pretentious Ixidv called the International Labour Organsiation, which is an excrescence upon the League of Nations introduced an Hours of Industrial Employment Bill which enacts a statutory eight-hours day. and may become law within a. year. Meanwhile, in May last, the Germans , * i i .1 .!. .1. t .I*l V 2111(1

discarded the eight hours (lay. ami placed all their industries oil the basis of work for nine, ten and even eleven hours a (lav. Holland followed suit in .Fline*. The immediate result is keen competition for all coal contracts, and an offer to deliver German steel >n Middlesborough at HOs a ton less than it costs us to manufacture steel m Middlcsiiorough. . , The Germans can do this nlthougn, according to Sir Fredreiek Lewis, the well-known shipowner, they have to pav for docking ami unloading m Bri-

tish ports charges which amount to 38 per cent, more than the dock charges ill Continental countries. A< r uiu, mv observation of our textile industries, as compared with those in neighbouring countries, is that our mills are often badly handicapped nj out-of-date machinery, and by their location some distance from railway sidings. which greatly increases the cost fo handling both raw and manufactured material. Yet our Socialist Government oblivious to wlmt is happening on the Continent, have selected this critical juncture to introduce a. new Factories Bill, which will force manufacturers to make considerable capital expenditure upon their factories, in the interests of further safety and better health. Those objects are very commendable, but when our textile industries are practically prostrate is it wise, is it prudent, to compel them to furnish great sums for any purposes except those of supreme necessity? r have examined the portentous Factories Bill, which contains 113 clauses. 1 confidently predict that it the two Bills, the Factories Bill and the Hours Bill, are passed into law their principal result, will lie to extend unemployment, for the weaker factories whose owners cannot find the money to meet the new demands of Government inspectors will have to shut down. AY 11 EAT-G-ROW ING IN D FSTR Y. f turn to the question of agriculture and wheat production. The Government have just passed ail Agricultural Wages Act providing for a great deal of fussy intervention, which will irri-

Into l:m(liHvnors. farmers, mid lalauuors alike; yet tliev will do nothin:! really practical for the salvation of the agricultural industry, which has to find the wooes. For several years past 1 have advocated the payment of a subsidy on w heat-crow mp; within onr own shores. It miftht to he the Umndeii duty of the doverninenf to see that not less than per cent. of the foodstnlls onr people require is produced in (treat Britain. Tf the policy of a snhsidv is not adopted there may he deadly peril ahead for ns all. This year we have less wheat under cultivation than in any year since 1001. Even potato • 'rowin'' is rapidly failin'' behind. Vet, with these facts before them the ffovernment delude the agricultural workers with a new Wooes Act which can only have the elfect of throwing many more of them out of work. We know that the price of tic,' bait has ciine up during the past lew weeks, hut. as we are now situated, there is nothin'' to prevent the loaf heino double the price that it is to-day. Cotton. an aoricull oral product is threefold the price of a few years non. and wool, also an aoricult lira I product,, more than twofold. What reason is there to suppose wheat will not show a similar rise;-' Food is even more important than shelter, and yet while the Cnvrrnmeut oiler lniL'e and unsoucht subsidies to the buildiu'' trade they refuse a wheatorowino subsidy to aoricult lire. fn his speech upon the Education Estimates last month. Mr C. I’. Trevelyan. our Socialist President of the entirely mythical “Board of Education.” propounded a •'rent eventual increase in our educational expenditure, and wanted to make wholesale “maintenance allowances” for children in elementary schools, a scheme which has nothin'' to do with education, hut is really pauperisation. Where is the money to come from’ There is no scheme of so-called “social

reform” introduced within the last twenty years which has not tended to impoverish the country. None of these Ministers pause to consider that wo must provide at least C 10.023.000 a week for the purchase at present prices of essential foodstuffs from overseas. That one fact alone ought to he a deadly warning to ns against embarking on such a foolish policy as

making the taxpayers “maintain” school-children instead of compelling the parents to do so. The London Comity Council, for example. is adopting a new extension of its educational expenditure, which will grow for the next three years. Does anyone who knows whither the l nation is drifting believe that London is as rich as she was before tlie war. or that three* years hence London will Ik* so wealthy as she is to-day? And is it not time we thrust aside our political Pied Pipers of Ilamelin, who are hiring us along a road which can only load to bankruptcy. collapse and extinction? AYhile their legislation amounts to nothing more than consolidated doles for their supporters, our Socialists are announcing that they mean to stay in .Mesopotamia mid Palestine, which implies the expenditure of‘more money on a great scale, and the risk of another war with Turkey, tin’s time about .Mosul. Can we afford a Socialist Oovernment any longer? Can we watch unemployment increase while Socialist Ministers produce chaos at home and abroad, and drag us nearer the abyss?