"We Cannot Afford Any More Wars"

Radio Record, Volume VIII, Issue 26, 4 January 1935, Page 13

"We Cannot Afford Any More Wars"

1 e/ Famous Economist Speaks on Present Economic Conditions-Cape’' Town, One of the Loveliest Cities Imaginable-Beauty in the Garden of an . Old Hotel-The Introduction of Rabbits to New Zealand.

DR. J. B, CONDLIFFE (All Stations). SINCE the war there has been a falling tendency of prices, just as there Was after the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian war in the seventies and eighties. In these earlier periods it took more than one severe depression to carry through the necesSary reorganisation and make bearable the burdens of debt incurred during the wars. We have already had two very severe depressions in this postwar period, and jt would be premature to assume that the depression from which we are now slowly recovering will be the last of the series. This is a heavy price to pay, and I thoroughly agreé with the distinguished American economist who said that "The true lesson of this depression is that we cannot afford any more great wars." "THE turning point from the lowest depths of the depression is now clear. It camé in the middle of 1932, after the successful Lausanne conference, much of the credit for which must ‘go to the courageous initiative of British statesmanship. This conference not only buried the troublesome and embittered problem of reparation payments, but it seemed to promise the prospect of further co-operation: When British and Italian mediation brings a reasoned and -reasonable agreement between France and Germany, the business world takes heart again, and economic conditions begin to improve. This has been demonstrated again in recent months. The check to recovery in the middle of 1984 which has been reflected in our wool sales was largely due to the darkening of the international situation, and there is some ground for the hope that the recent improvement in the political sphere will be followed once again by a renewal of economic activity. MR. PATRICK BELL-SYER (3YA). ' (CAPE TOWN, the "Haven of the Seas," which has been described by an early navigator as "the fairest cape we did encompass in the whole circumference of the earth," is certainly one of the loveliest cities imaginable. The rugged beauty of the Twelve Apostles which sweep down to. the tumbling waters of the Atlantic, the solitary grandeur of old Table Mountain, and overhead a sky of entrancing blue, captivate the imagination as few other. things* will do. : I Adderley Street, which is the principal thoroughfare; the flower sellers with baskets of wild flowers create a blaze of colour, and there is the pageantry of the surrounding country, the pine-clad slopes of Lion’s Head and Signal Hill, the flashing waters of Table Bay, which has sheltered so many bravé adventurers right back to the days of Sir Walter Raleigh.

MONA TRACY (3YA). ost of us, I think, haye- a little rosary of memories: on which are strung, like jewels, the perfect days we have known during our wanderings. The memory of one such day comes to me as I dare the microphone to-night: it was a day spent in HokitiKa. For Hokitika was full of sunlight that day-and full of history. I wandered down Revell Street, charmed to be again in this friendly, fascinat: ing town ‘of the west; and were anyone to have told me, as so many peopie have, that: Hokitika was unlovely, or that Hokitika was unromantic, I shouid have laughed, and carried my dream still with me. There was beauty and to spare in ‘the great open sweep of the beach, with its lines of gleaming. many-coloured pebbies, worn.smooth by the relentless surges of the, Tasman Sea; in’ the misty bloom,‘ like ‘that. of a grape, which.lay on the blue hills away to the west, As for romance, it was everywhere about me, even in-the © dining-room of the little hotel'at which I lunched, In‘ that very room the infamous Burgess gang; whose wanton crimes sent a waye of horror through the’ colony-in that very room these scoundrels had their ore-time meeting place, and the. old walls, if they had ears, must have listened to the discussion of many a grim plan. — EEING my frank interest in the place, its stateiy old proprietress took me to walk and talk with her in her garden. I have seen many charming gardens, but never one more unexpected than this little gem of a Hokitika garden, tucked away behind the old hotel. With its mallows and its clove pinks, and its’ canterbury bells and sweet williams and lavender, it might well have served to illustrate a book on typical English cottage gardens. Yet there it was, surrounded by high walls, utterly unsuspected by the: wayfarer, and not more than a couple of hundred yards from the long white wash of the surf. . MR. SELWYN BRUCE (3YA). NE of the problems faced by the early settlers of Canterbury was the grinding of the locally-grown wheat, and the wuters of the Wairarapa, a tributary of the Ayon, were brought into use for the propulsion of mill wheels. a race being constructed at Fendalton, in the vicinity of Holm- wood Road, which supplied motive power to the old mill at Carlton Road. Probably few citizens are aware that the pathway along Rolleston Avenue now occupied by the glorious trees which add so materially to the typieally Hnglish beauty of the city was reserved for a water-race which was to be cut from Armagh Street to Cambridge Terrace to feed the water-wheel of a ‘flourmill which it was proposed to erect ypon the site of the Antigua Street boat-sheds, .

We have in the rabbit pest a prob--lem which has gst untold. thou-’ sands of pounds to try and overcome. but I don’t think-many people are aware to whom we are indebted for the millions of these voracious animuls ‘With which this isiand is cursed. Our early papers report that Sir George Grey presented’ Canterbury province with a number of silver grey rabbits, assuring the people that in the future they would be a valuable asset. ‘These animals were received with grateful thanks by our people, and they were liberated on the tun of Mr. W. D. Wood at Swincombe, the occasion’ being made a time of feasting and mirth by the innocent countrv settlers.