HERE AND THERE

Hokitika Guardian, 7 April 1932, Page 8

HERE AND THERE

OPINIONS FROM OVERSEAS

AN ,OFFER TO THE DOMINIONS

“The Government has decided, subject to a satisfactory arrangement being made, subject to a real and i genuine quid pro quo, that it is pioparod to go to Ottawa and offer to ti.e Dominion?, a guaranteed quota foi wheat'. ’No one who was present at tlie last economic conference c«ii minimise the' value of that to the Dominions. 'No o.le can gainsay that they, attach considerable importance to it--1 nqt at a fixed price, but at woisd prices.”—Mr J. H. Thomas M.P.

“THE ONE GLEAM OF LIGHT.” “The one glint of light in the darkness is the Ottawa Conference, which may give Britain a new place in a system of economic co-operation, but even-that will be of little avail if France apd the United States are still led on by the mirage of Reparations and War Debts. The question is now becoming a choice between timeous cancellation' or default, which would not be confined to Germany, and which' might have incalculable consequences throughout the world. It is unfortunate, not only for the United States, but for the rest of the world as well,, that American policy should bp condemned at such a juncture to be merely temporising instead of boldly - constructive.” —“Thd Scotsman.”

A REMARKABLE PICTURE. “If you wipe the slate clean, you get a remarkable picture,” says Sir 1 Walter Layton, the economist. “Germany will be left with oplv £500,000,030 of internal debt, which is £8 per head: France will be left with approximately £2.300.000,000 of debt, or £56 per head; Great Britain, after allowing for wiping out of the Ameri;cari debt, will be left with £6,600.000,000 of internal debt, or £l5O per head, and the U.S.’. with the next -largest debt, will be left with an internal debt of £3,200,000,000 or £27 per head, Those figures are interest il ff,” Sir'-’Walter continues. “I have yet to mefet an economist of any country or any German who has said that Germany ’can pay nothing. It is quite clear that Germany could pay something if a plan could be devised under which the disturbing influence would be postponed ; during periods of depression and which could be adjusted so that it would not do great harm.”

THE DEPARTING SOFT COLLAR .“The stiff white collar is disappearing. It is'because as some allege, the laundries charge, too much tor laundering it? • Is' it beciiuse, true, to their music-hall and comic-paper repute, they rasp our net;ks by fraying its ♦starchy edge?” asks the “Daily Herald.” “Is it not rather that little by little we are learning sanity • in- clothing, learning that clothes are made for mail’s comfort? , A generation ago evp'ry business than went to work .in stiff collar, stifl; shirt, tight buttoned coat and silk bat. The worker celebrated Sunday, by similar discomfort.” Surely in this time the men of to-day are wiser than their fathers as thd women are wiser than their motuers. Many a campaign to force women back to corsets and bustles and trailing skirts has failed. Men, if less revolutionary and more hide-bound ■than their wives, will scarcely be weak enough to revert to the armoured discomfort of the nineteenth century.”