EXTREMISTS’ DAY OVER.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 January 1922, Page 7

EXTREMISTS’ DAY OVER.

POOR HEARING IN BRITAIN. _ UNEMPLOYMENT PROBLEM. Some interesting observations upon matters of general interest in connection with his visit to England were made one day by Mr. P. R. Sargood, of Dunedin, who returned by the Niagara after an absence of nearly two years from New Zealand. During the time he was in England Mr. Sargood noticed a great change in the spirit of the people. The country was passing through one of the greatest industrial crises in its history, and economic changes were very marked. “One of the most important things I noticed,” remarked Mr. Sargood, “was the changed attitude on the part of the public with regard to labor. The extremists got a very poor hearing in England to-day. While I was in England the unemployment problem was at its acutest stage, over 2,000,000 men being out of work. This brought things home to the people. They came to realise the urgent importance of work, and clamored for the few jobs that were offering. Of course, there were many slackers quite willing to live on the unemployment dole, but the men, for the most part, were ready to take anything. “There was not anything like the amount of soap box oratory there has been at similar crises in other years. One did not see very much of the unemployed, save in the great procession organised by the Labor people some months ago, and it is doubtful if this was not an altogether true reflection of the actual state of affairs. Anyway, uniemployment had decreased considerably by the time I left, and people were really showing tne will to work, accepting lower wages and a greater readiness to ‘put their backs into it’ than they were inclined to do for some time after the end of the war. It was gradually being forced home to them by dire need tliat this was the only way in which they could save themselves and the country.

MINERS’ ACTION ALIENATES SYMPATHHY. “I think one of the greatest factors in turning the tide of opinion against the Bolshevik factor in Labor was the action of the miners in flooding the mines during the great strike last year,” said Mr. Sargood. “Possibly no single act in the industrial history of England has ever wrought such irreparable damage, or done more to alienate sympathy from the claims of the workers. The miners themselves soon came to realise the criminal folly of their act—not that they themselves devised it or wished to do it; they were simply the tools of their union masters.

“But the damage done is immeasurable. Mines were ruined which will probably never be reopened in these days of high cost of production. England lost or broke her Continental contracts —she was supplying practically all France’s needs at the time—and by the times the mines were reopened France was procuring her own coal and receiving supplies from the German mines. Then, of course, the blow to trade ond commerce in England was a terrible one. These are few of the things English people are coming to realise now, and they will be all the better for the realisation.”

Mr. Sargood went on to say that it was becoming more and more evident that economic conditions could not be properly restored in England until trade was restored with Germany and the Continental markets opened, A large section of the people was strongly opposed to this, and was calling out for protection against Germany, while another section held that it must be restored in order that the reparation money might be obtained.

POLITICAL TURMOIL IN ENGLAND. “Politically the country was in a tur‘moil when I left,” said Mr. Sargood, “and I do not think it will settle down until there is a change of Ministry. The Lloyd George Ministry has done good work in some ways, but it has not succeeded in reducing expenditure. Where they lower it in one direction they raise it in another. Here, again, there is h change of spirit evident among the people. After an era of reckless spending, national and individual, they are being driven by adverse conditions to really want to see evidence of economy in the Government, They want to see a reduction in national expenditure, to see a Budget which will balance, and above all, reduction in* taxation.

“The. present rate of taxation is so high that it is handicapping industry very severely. Men feel that it is no use expanding business if the Government is going to take all their profit®. One interesting, but saddening, result of the terribly high taxation is to ba seen in the increasingly large number of sales of historic and ancestral homes. The estates are. gradually being broken up simply because the owners can no longer maintain them. I believe the Governors of Tasmania, West Australia and South Australia have all recently resigned then* appointments because they are no longer receiving the revenue which will enable them to maintain their positions as overseas Governors.” In concluding, Mr. Sargood spoke of the splendid spirit which was everywhere evident among the people of France, who w-ere bending every energy to repairing the work of war. Some of the towns of Northern France—Lille, Roubaix and others —had not yet been restored, but the work of rebuilding industries was going ahead .swiftly ;n other districts, and the will to work was fast enabling France to regain her former proud position as one of the great industrial centres of the world.