MR BYRON BROWN ABROAD

Otaki Mail, Volume XXVIII, 19 July 1920, Page 3

MR BYRON BROWN ABROAD

, SOME OF HIS IMPRESSIONS. Mr Byron Brown, who has been .further (lwl;i\V<] in Sydney, writes as follows: t “Been here for the last three weeks e • waiting for my boat to leave for Engi' land. There was no chance of getting to London from Java, not even by > bribing the captain. Even that avenue has been shut out by too many people offering the bribes. About fifty ! commercial men were held up, and we j all had to get back to Australia to get ! to England. Some of us managed it; the majority are', as far as I know, still looking for a boat to bring them. I , am to leave here by the Port Mel"I bourne, a big cargo boat, on tho 15th . of this month. She may be further ; delayed, and not get away until the ! end of July, and so land me in Blighty j at tho wa'iie of the summer, with tho ! prospect of all winter to do my business. After the boiling tropics, I | would rather not lose the good effects |. of tiliit apprenticeship that lias fitted i me to endure the reward of my many l siils in a prospective hereafter. My I recording angel has not been working | overtime lately. I’ve been too busy. "Work is a fine occupation to keep a ' man from sinning. The Dutch East Indies arc all too full of sin for a New Zealander to teach them anything. . Humanity is all too sordid and unlovely in these islands, where every ; prospect pleases and only man is vile. ! Even the Dutch boast of little beauty, and their women, are coarse, hefty, loud-voiced, aud mannerless. The men have contaminated their white blood ! with the Malays, and the produced half-caste is an abomination on the lair surface of their beautiful islands. These pied humans are the lowest dowu . stamp of humanity I have ever seen, . and some (lay they are going to give ; their white progenitors a heap of : trouble. The Dutch can see it coming. 1 and arc doing what they can to save • the situation. There arc sixty thous- ! and Europeans in Java, forty million I Malays, and about eighty thousand half-castcs. There is a standing army J of about 100,000 Malays officered by Dutchmen. Nothing easier than for this army to take charge of the whole country; and they will if indications that. I saw count for anything. | “Like all Britishers, I have taken i! for granted that we are the salt ol the earth, but I never realised hmv superior we were until .1 saw the Easterners, as represented by all kinds of them in Jatva, Borneo, Sumatra, and the Celebes Islands. With all our faults, we are as far above, these peoples as the sun is above the earth. Kipling’s “Lesser breeds without the law’’ is a line of inspired and intellectual truth, that only those who have seen can appreciate. If these sons of Ham ever get to heaven, the. Britishers who have won to Glory will be justified in petitioning Ihc Lord for an Act' of Segregation. I’m offering this suggestion to you because your chances of the heavenly kingdom are fairly good, and you might take tho hint,-and for the sake of sanitation lead the revolt. There are bound to be a few other choice souls up there who will help you, “I saw dirt enough in Java to pot lute the ocean. As a matter of fact, j the harbours are foul with filth. The j canals that run through the towns carry on their tides nameless things that are being added to by the natives at every turn. In all this foulness and filth there is a welter of wealth going on among the Europeans. Fortunes are being piled up at the rate of millions a year. Sugar can be produced at a cost of Id per lb. It is sold retail for .10(1. One sugar company with a capital of one million guilders paid last year six millions in dividends. Ail this and more has been going on during and since the war; but there arc now indications of tho turn of the tide. There is a decided slackening of the industrial and commercial boom. Before 1 left Java, Japan was in the throes of it. I read of SOO factories in Japan closing down in one week. We know that the United States is at the end ef tin: Boom, and now we hear from our own old land of the fall in prices and the rising of the interest rate. The New South Wales Premier iold us last week that the next loan will cost S per cent. One just raised was til per cent, aiul a local lpan from the peoplp of two millions has just been subscribed at 51 per cent free of income tax. This is as good as S per cent to the man with over £2OOO per year. The Labour members in New Zealand complain of the advantage our 41 per cent local loans are to rich men, and have condemned the loan as class legislation: yet it is a Labour Government in New South Wales that offers 5} per cent .to the same rich men. and then tell the country that poor people have subscribed it. I have discussed this bursting of the boom with you. and predicted that it must come sooner or later. T|ie commercial record of previous wars shows an era, of high prices during the war. a period of even higher prices after the war. and then a slump, sometimes into a slough of severest depression. Wars are. not only wasteful in themselves because they destroy, wealth and kill vast numbers of people, but they also cause waste by affecting the habits of the people. The high wages and profits of war time stimulate tho spending proclivities of the recipients, ami that extravagance does not stop with the cessation ot hostilities- it has a momentum of its own which helps to keep prices up for some time. Beal recovery after u war B difficult; whole nations hsce been beaten into a condition of industrial inefficiency, and even the victors have been seriously injured by their own losses and by the injury done to their pre-war markets. It is an economic fact that Germany was in a _ worse, plight while she was receiving the French indemnity than France' was while she was paying it. Bismarck did not understand commercial, economics when he conspired for th®

D ruin of France by his two hundred mi lion indemnity. We are trying th same, thing with Germany to-day, bu Germany is going to recover from th economic effects of ,thc war just a fast as most of the nations who wer s on the winning side. Since tlfe wa high prices have obscured the issue , but now we have to reconcile a perioi r .. of lower prices, diminished profits, am impaired taxation with the immensi v : burden of the national debts of th( Great Powers and our soutlieri colonies. Here we are face to fact with it all, and it is going to be t 3 world-wide commercial crisis. It i: t going to do good, but it will be a . ' period of stress and turmoil until the I economic and commercial readjustment [ arrives. Britain ia ready. Her statesmen are paying off debts before their L due dates. Her industries tire being . stimulated, and London is agajn going to be the financial capital of tlie world. The figures that have been cabled to us recently of Britain's expansion of trade, her increased revenue, and her reduced indebtedness, read like a fairy tale of finance, and must bo a source of gratification to those of us who can see the world commercial crisis looming in, the near distance. Here in Sydney merchants have already taken scare, and prices are falling rapidly. Three months ago Sydney merchants were only buying; to-day they- tire all engaged,in a mad rush to sell. The profiteer is a cowardly rascal when he thinks the rot has set in, and he makes things worse for himself by his mad rush to unload. “’Cheer up! The coming crisis is going to do a heap of good. Working men will have lo work. A lot of men who don’t work now will have lo turn to. Production will be stimulated, and this will enable us to pay our debls. Natural economic conditions will return and linden happier people, enjoying a better condition of justice to all than ever this old world has seen. New Zealand is going to suffer less than Australia. Our finances are much , sounder, anil our wealth per head of population is double, jind our excess of exports over imports will compare with the best in the world.’’