AMERICAN MENACE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 14, 8 September 1931, Page 2

AMERICAN MENACE

If any intelligent New Zealander takes the trouhle to sit down for five minutes and seriotisly study the sources 'of the news which is cabled out for his edification each day, he cannot help hut be impressed by the amount of real news bearing on National and International affairs which emanates from England and the lack of it from Anierica. We get full particulars oi English politics, and all things that matter and even the total of her unemployed. England is not always proud of her affairs but at least she is not ashamod to have them thrown into the light of day. Consider the case of America. From there we get plenty of news of Bobby Jones's golfing exploits, of W". T. Tilden's tennis prowess, of Lindbergh's terrific aviation feats — feats which pale into insignificance alongside those of Kingsford Smith and half a dozen Australians and Englishmen — we even get a scrap or two about the gangster activities of A1 Capone, who if he had been living in England por New Zealand would have been placed behind the bars or on the scaffold long ago. Look, however, for any real news about America herself and you look in vain. What is behind the declaration of martial law on the Texas oil fields and what is the result of it? Are so many men being thrown out of work and with their families being placed on the starvation line owing to the compulsory restriction of oil output that practically civil war is pending there? From the fact that martial law has been declared, we are led to assume that the position is critical but the cables are silent on the question. How many unemployed are there in America and what steps are being taken to feed them? Uncle Sam is reticent on this point also, but an inkling of the true state of affairs leaked out recently when it was cabled that one man regarded the situation as so bad that he offered to donate

one million dollars to relief funds. There is an uncomfortable feeling that something is lurking darkly in the background of American politics, something menacing to the peace of the world. The American political^ system though paraded as an example of democracy is not democracy at all. It would be hard to describe it in one word but it is certainly not democracy as we know it in the British Empire. In the hands of the two great party machines, it gives no safety vent for radicals to promote their ideals and aspirations by evolutionary political methods such as brought into power the British Labour Government, but forces them to direct action and revolutionary methods. The strikes which they promote are ruthlessly suppressed by armed thugs drawn from the backwash of the great cities. The time may come when the political machines will have no further use ior these cohorts and then danger will arise. Cast on their own i esources, this armed host will not hesitate to use deadly weapons on peaceful citizens, and America may yet be faced with the turmoil that France has been through in her revolutions. This is a spectre whch does not confront conservative °ld England for her people can secure their aspirations slowly but surely through the proper channel, that of the ballot box When talkmg of disarmament America should turn her attention inward and disarm her thugs, criminals and gangsters and set about placmg her workers in employment. They present a far more dangerous menace to peace than does the Gerinan pocket battleship. When that is done Uncle Sam may lift the veil of mystery that surrounds his internal politics and give us more news of real importance and less of Bobby Jones.