DON'T KNOW ENOUGH

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 304, 18 August 1932, Page 2

DON'T KNOW ENOUGH

i VISITOR TO AMERICA SAYS DEMOCRACY HAS FAILED "A banker told me that there were no rich men left in Ameriea," said Mr. Selfridge at a luncheon of the American Chamber of Commerce in London. "We used to think that Rockefelle.r was a rich man," he said "but with New Yorlc Central shares at 17, he is no longer wealthy. "I was told of a Vanderbilt who owned 168,000 shares of New York Central stoclc. In the boom time they were worth £12,000,000 or £13,000,000, and he had an income of from £1,500,000 to £2,000,000 a year. "The shares are now worth about 1,500,000 dollars, with no dividend whatever." Mr. Selfridge said he returned from his recent visit to Ameriea confirmed in his opinion that democracy was a failure. "In my judgment," he said, "what must eventually come is the control of a country by an inspiring", unselfish spirit, managing it as a great business is managed. "In a hundred, two hundred years — perhaps less — -there will be no more democracies in existence. We don't know enough to govern ourselves. "We need a leader, an inspirer, some one to attend to our own affairs more than anything else."