PUBLIC OPINION

Hokitika Guardian, 9 July 1931, Page 2

PUBLIC OPINION

RUSSIA AND GANDHI. For years the Bolsheviks have denounced Gandhi as a bourgeois, anil, now that he has come to terms with the English authorities they have turned on him the full artillery file of those expletives which they usually reserve for such “social traitors” and “capitalist lackeys” as Mr MacDonald and 31 r Henderson. Lord Irwin has realised that Gandhi stands for possible cooperation, and has gone ahead in spite of the accusations and ignoramuses like Lord Rotbermere that lie. is pandering to the Bolsheviks and wild men of India. For this very reason he commands such enthusiastic support from tbe great majority of Englishmen in India. The fine tributes paid to him on the eve of his departure by the English Press in India are not merely the usual stereotyped expressions of praise, but a really remarkable proof of the warm aprovnl of men of understanding.— The “New Stnternan.”

lumps OF LEAD. ' The lumps of lead piled up by ourselves on our economic organism are in this case called “Costs, Costs, Costs Ours are heavier irt proportion to world prices , than is the case in any competitive All economists agree that tbisUs the gravest disability we have ever suffered as a producing and exporting nation. They fgree zr.at unless some strong remedy can be ap)lied, we cannot hope for anything but i diminishing proportion of the world s trade. Our successive Budgets are organising the slow suicide of our selling power .Unparalleled taxation is not ,ny a heavy handicap in itself. It operates in a peculiar way to raise all other costs in every direction. With every year since the Armistice, British Budgets have increased the relative advantage of foriegn competition both abroad, and in our own heme market. The Treasury machine under the threeparty system has beein used as though it were a foreign engine deliberately worked to bring about British economic defeat.—“ Observer” (London).

“RURBAN.”

“Nowadays the problems 'of what used to be known as town and what used to be known as country dovetail together,” said Major Muirhead, M.P., speaking in the (House of Commons. “I think that by a combination of the old word rural and urban one ought to coin the word ‘rurban’ because, after all, planning affects not merely buildings and land. It essentially affects people, and there is undoubtedly a great Turban’ population—people who do their work and earn their livelihood and have their interest in a town but for planning purposes come under the -.cope of the country, and anything at ill that indicates that there is a hard' ind fast dividing line between the affairs of town and the affairs of country in planning matters is to be deplored.”