The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE MONDAY, AUGUST 21st, 1916. A COMING DANGER.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 160, 21 August 1916, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

MONDAY, AUGUST 21st, 1916. A COMING DANGER.

(With which is incorporated The Talhape Post and Walmarino News.)

In these columns the incalculable difficulties ahead of New Zealand in the re-absorption of returning soldiers into the country's economic life has been discussed on several occasions, and now there comes an article in the "Nineteenth Century" by, perhaps, the greatest authority in the Homeland, calling the attention of the B'ritish Government and people to the trials to come on the return home of meii no>at the front. A good deal of what the writer says is just as applicable to this country as to Britain. ,When war broke out we had our rumours of labour upheavals and strikes of a huge and farreaching character. Labour was loyal to the Empire, and has allowed, for the time being), rich men to exploit them for everything they need; that Is a fact that cannot be truthfully denied, and we may rest assured that when the sons of labour return from maintaining the safety of their homes and Empire they will turn their attention seriously and determinedly to the righting of social and political problems. The whole question of industrial relations here, as in Great Britain "has a sinister background which seems to be unknown to the cheery optimists who shout for an economic war. It is a background of interrupted strife of the most determined character, which is only waiting the conclusion of the war to be resumed with undiminished ardour. The industrial conflict that is going to be forced upon Britain will not be confined to that land alone, but with the experience ,of vast organisation, it will be so comprehensive as to reach to the uttermost parts of the Em pire. Capitalists, traders, manufacturers, ship owners, are contemplating going back into old social and labour ruts, and the same applies to labour, because they understand that nothing will be conceded except that which is acquired by force. "We shall :go into peace with the prospect of unprecedented industrial turmoil and strife before us," says Dr Shad well, in the "Nineteenth Century. If the war ends with a stalemate, leaving. Germany with the same aims and ambitions, bent on eventual control of the sea, we shall surely go down unless we altogether change our -ways." We shall be in no position to meet the competition. "The persons

who talk about the economic war and promise themselves the crushing of German commerce and industry are like children playing over a rattlesnake's hole and anticipating the pleas ure of pulling it out by the tail. Dr. Shadwell thinks the war will end by an industrial revolution in Britain, ana we may be assured that the organisation that brings about revolution in Britain will be Empire wide, and New Zealand will, with the Dominions, be drawn into the swirling vortex. The people of this country are trusting to a National Government to make provision for the absorption of returning men, and to legislate conditions that would ensure industrial peace at the time when, above all others, it i s essential; but the National Government either can not or will not see the danger which is obvious to the greatest economists in Britain, or the gambling spirit is so strong on them that tney prefer to remain the passive tools of that class which is and will remain the root cause of industrial trouble. If Germany's military regime i s left intact after the war, it will only ne few years before Germany has a greater and firmer grip on the world's trade than she ever had. While Germany is acquiring this the British Empire will be in the throes of social and political revolution, simply owing to the greed of a class. What Germany may fail to achieve by the war alone may fall into her hands by a British internecine economic struggle. In New Zealand the danger might be lessened, and probably trouble almost altogether averted if immediate steps were taken to handle the question in an intelligent manner. There is absolutely nothing but an ever-present greed that stands in our way of making ready for the men that are comingi back to us, and so take them out of the threatening industrial fight. These men will be on one side or the other; why are we as a people so blind as not to see this, and to make the conditions such as will secure them to the right side—the side that is opposed to industrial revolution? We are confronting a ru«ure fraught with a danger of the most appalling character, and we move not a hand to avert it; we trust to a Government whose policy is one of drift or speculation. It either doesn't realise or is content to take its chance and gamble on it. Did any Government so parlously pursue so obviously disastrous a policy? When it is so late that only partial or fitful amelioration is possible those responsible will strive in a hand to mouth fashion to avert the trouble. Unfortunately, the Prussian ex ample some politicians in New Zealand are "following of denying a condition that is obvious to everybody is :gping to bring the trouble such insincerity is sooner or later invariably followed by, and if we continue to disregard the! settlement of our returning soldiers in the quickest and most effectual way we disregard one of the most potent safety valves against industrial strife and revolution.