SILVER CLOUDS.

Digger (Invercargill RSA), Issue 11, 28 May 1920, Page 3

SILVER CLOUDS.

(By James Douglas in "London Opinion.")

Every dark lining has a silver cloud. I am not satisfied with the dark cloud which selvedges itself with a silver lining. I pvefer the silver cloud. There are many clouds hanging over these by no means tight little island.9, but I stoutly declare that they are silver clouds, and they are big with blessings. There is the silver cloud "of debt. It is a trifle bigger than i man's hand, say 8 thousand millions. But we owe most of it to each other, and nearly all that we owe to the Americans is balanced by what our Allies and our Dominions owe to us. I am no financier but I cannot help thinking that our condition is not past praying for. I know scores of men and women, who have more money than they can spend, and I set them off against the scores of men and women I know who spend more than they have. It will not liurt many of my frieads to have less than they can spend, and it will less than many of my friends to spend not hurt they have. There are many things that we can all do without. Nothing will induce me to believe that wealth means liappiness. I can lay my hand on my heart and swear tliat the most successfully miserable folk I have encountered during my pilgrimage through thisvaleof tears were rich men and rich women. I am prepared to demonstrate that in nearly every caso, riches produced discontent and diisillusion. If you do not believe me, go and ask the rich men and women you happen to know. Take, for example, the rich rake. Is he a happy man; You know he is not. Riches have a way of revenging themselves. It- is better to be happy than rich. Thcr.e is plenty of wealth left by the war, and all the trouble in the air is due ■ to the difficulty of arranging its distribution. Sooner or later we must face the delghtful fact that the rich must be content with less riches and the poor must be content with less poverty. It will do the rich man no end of good to be poorer, and it will do the poor man no end of good to be richer. I know a poor charwoman whose husband was a charman. Wh.cn he died she was left with six children. For years she charred her life out in order to feed, clothe, and house her children. Sho feared charity as other people fearod death. She fought for her children a more heroic fight than any soldier ever fought on any battlefield. She fell iil and was taken to a hospital. She was happier while she was dying than she was while she was living. Death brought her her fi r t. V Ast.

Slie was a casualty in the battle of life. Society did not disdain to use her as a casualty. She charred in the houses of the rich. Shc was on.e of the dark linings to the silver clouds I am not in the least afraid of the new order of things which will abolish these dark linings. Poverty is a disease which can be cured in any deoent society. There is no such thing I as incurable poverty. There is an amusing hallucination in the ininds of many worthy-persons. Tliey think that the countiy can pay the warbill without making anybody poorer, or forcing anybody to live more thriftdly. They ought to take a lesson from a soldier or a sailor. The soldier and the sailor do not imagine that war can be waged without loss of life. When they are killed they are killed, and there' s an end of it. But the rich man imagines that war can^ be waged without loss of wealth. Ha often contrives to increase his wealth by

reason of the war. He lends his- warmade money to his country and expects to be paid interest on it for ever. The soldier and the sailor give their lives to their country, and they do not expect to be paid interest on it. I may be very unreasonable ; but I say that the rich man ought to give his money as freely as the soldier and the sailor give their lives. His money is not his life. It is not really necessary to ask the rich man to give all his money, or to ask the war-profiteer to give all his war-pro-fits. All that is necessary is that they shculd give enough to save their country from ruin, so that they may be able to retain enough for themselves and for their children to go 'on with. They may lose all if they try to keep all, as some of them are foolishly trying to do. If all the war-profiteers v/ere to disorge all their war-profits a very large slice of our eight thousand millions of debt would be wiped out. There are men- who have made millions out of the war. I see no reason why they should keep their war-profits. If They had lost the war, they would not have been able to keep them. The Germans would hava taken them. Most of our industrial troubles are dua to the reluctance of every blessed profiteer to be content with a farthing less than he can squeeze out of the community. There is a point beyond vvhich this squeezing cannot go. When tliat point has been reached, there is a smash of some sovt or other. . In .this quiet, patient old country it is not easy for any of us to realise that there is a possibility o, any sort 01* kind of smash, We obstinately persuade ourselves that things will adjust themselves and even themselves out. But there is, nevertheless, a smash-point, like tho fkish-point of paraffin, and we have got to find out how. riear we can go to that smash-point without actually Teaching it. But the dark lining has a silver cloud. If all classes realise that they must pool their possessions, a$ the soldiers and sailors pooled their lives, in order to save the community, the problem is solved. It is easier to persuade a rich man to pool his life than to persuade him to pool his riches. But some sort of pooling is necessary, and I am quite sure that an actuary could work out the precise nature of the nec^gary pooling. It is a sum in arithmetic which could be done by a competent accountant, He could work it out in terms of rent, dividends, and profits, in terms of capital, income and wages It is better to work it out in that way than to work it out in class-hatred and strikes and revolution. Let us call in the accountant. He is master of an exact science. He can show us how to liquidate the going concem called the British Empire, Ltd.