OTHER PAPERS’ OPINIONS.

Putaruru Press, 19 January 1928, Page 4

OTHER PAPERS’ OPINIONS.

TEUFELSDROCKH IN SPAIN. We have had occasion before to remark on the profound wisdom shown by the present Government in Spain —-its idea, for instance, of a plebiscite in which only the “ ayes ” were required to vote; and now there is its decision (reported in the cable news a day or two ago) to use the Budget surplus to redeem the nation’s clothes from pawn. Our own Mr. Downie Stewart produces a surplus each year as surely as a conjurer produces an egg from a hat, but no distribution of largesse follows; there is a little vague talk about sinking funds and the public debt, and hey, presto! the egg is back under the hat again. The Spanish Government, however, uses its surplus to reduce, not the public debt, but the public’s debts, knowing that a man’s happiness depends primarily on the condition of his own and not the State’s finances. Nor does its wisdom end here, for only politicians who are philosophers would realise the importance of keeping the naIti oil’s clothes out of pawn. Thomas Carlyle, who told us so emphatically I that “ Society is founded upon Cloth,” and that “ Man’s earthly interests are all hooked and buttoned together, and held up by clothes,” would have been flattered could he have witnessed this practical application of the doctrines of his beloved Teufelsdrockh. Only the Spaniards, in their wise simplicity, would think of such an obvious method of silencing the “ sansculottes.” Christchurch Press.