"DISGUSTINGLY RICH!"

Taranaki Daily News, 29 May 1916, Page 5

"DISGUSTINGLY RICH!"

CONDITIONS IN THE UNITED STATES, , "United States is making so much money out of this war," states a business letter from Canada to a local firm, "that they really do not know what to do with it. "Every hotel, cafe, theatre, opera house, and every conceivable place of amusement is packed to the roof. As it is the fashion to have everything at a premium, theatre tickets are sold at about five, times their value. For instance, I was offered two seats for the opera in Now York for fifty dollars, which cost twelve when you were here a year ago. Naturally the working people are not slow to recognise these conditions, and are very unstable, and strike every other day for less hours, moro wages,. and everything else under the sun. The railroads are so congested that it takes as long as 15 days to move a freight car 15 miles. "Warner Bros, are advertising in all the papers in the State of Connecticut for help. They are short of 500 hands. These girls and men have, left them to go and work for such firms as the Remington Repeating Arms Co., who have put up n new plant employing 16,000 people. The building is seven stones high, and I swear it is n. mile long. This is quite outside their old factory, whidh ha* doubled its output. This new plant has cost 30,000,000 dollars ( £0,000,000) and has only been put to to make small ammunition. . -United States is disgustingly rich at present. I do not reproach them anything. They are certainly reaping vast profits from their great services rendered to the Allies. But if we compare their position and ours (in Canada) in these things, which people are apt not to do, they are not at all identical. You will see that if we in Canada are part of America, United States is the only heaven in this war. "Do people in Australasia ask themselves what the British Empire is going to «ct out of this war? When the thing is over and it has cost us our shirt, what means do the people of Australasia expect will be taken to reimburse us from a financial standpoint 1 Of course, the loss of human life we quite willingly sacrifice on the altar of Imperialism and Right without regret; but, for the rest, we think that it behoves us to see that we are not forgotten in the iflormath, and not let U.S.A. and Hh;.- neutral countries reap the benefit."