1940-10-16 — Page 39

THE CHINA MAIL, OCTOBER 16, 1940

Page

CHINA MAIL Britain "Goes To It" As

HOUSE

FOOD AND WASTE

Wasting food is to-day in Eng- Jand a punishable offence. In

the

A True Democracy

Mr. Herbert Morrison, speaking, measure was. to take supreme fore there can be any change of lum. This often involves Govern- for the new. National Government, power over wealth and labour, and rank. has told Britain to "go to it." Bri- | the nation welcomed this enor tain has "gone to it" iz stop. inous assumption of rights be-

There is nothing of the fine phrase or formal facade about the new National Unity. It is a fact, as never before. The people march shoulder to shoulder.

cause it believed that it made for Profits Down: Wages Up equity as well as despatch in the conduct of the war.

ment subsidy, but that is a form of equalisation. What happens is that the taxpayer has to assist the

poorer purchaser by contributing

not a few elderly bosoms shock of the news must have caused what the psycho-analysts call a 'reversion to the infantile. They are back at the nursery table. Long-dead voices speak

a ha'penny or so to the price of long-unheard but never forgotten

Profits are

being stringently, the loaf. The price of bread has to rise at all words. "Master Osbert, if you

restricted while wages of sections not been allowed of workers who have been since the war began, don't eat all that fat before I

relatively badly off in the past cdunt ten, you'll go in the corner."

have been increased. The farin the "Miss Millicent, you know

National Governments in

labourers have had increases of about 33 per cent. In recent weeks.

A visitor returning to London rule- no cabbage, no pudding!" past have rarely, if ever, had total agreement. There was an inde-

The labourer that was earning to-day after a year of absence and And then, inevitably: "Wilful

pendent Liberal Opposition to Mr. Let us see how the new equality 36s,. or even less, at the cutbreak remembering the discreditable dis- waste brings woeful want," and, Lloyd George's Government in the is being achieved. In the last of war will now draw 48s, or tinctions between rich and poor "Many a poor child would be last war and a vigorous Labour wur, admittedly, there was much | more.

would find much to note in the to the MacDonald-profiteering and many social dis- glad of the good food you're turn-Opposition

Railway workers have just been spectacle of the West End. the Baldwin National Coalition formed tinctions, which active warfare stepped up another. three shill- ing your nose up at"; and

to fight the economic consequences should and often does abolish on ings. of the stump nine years ago.

the

country, In the

one may be certain there is even less dissi- dence than that.

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Real Equality Now

the field, were increased at home by the emergence of a new pluto-

trad

Now, if there were inflation and prices were rising giddily all the time, as they did in the last war, such gains would be illusory.

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no

Taxation and the ending of lei- sured luxury have brought their Great town changes to Mayfair. houses have been closed in many a famous street and square. But it cannot happen again. The Excess Profits Duty has

Many country mansions, been slapped on immediately and not But there has been no inflation, longer supportable by men once turned into after long delays. It affects every and prices have been efficiently rich, have been industry and trade. It stands al-kept in hand by Government con- schools, hospitals, offices of trols. During the last war the evacuated firms and Government homes for re- Government borrowed at 5 per departments and cent.; now it is borrowing at 3 fugees. or even less. Considering that the basic rate of income tax is seven- The "blond and sweat and and-sixpence, this gives the ren- tears" are being shared. Never in tier less than 2 per cent. net on hundreds of years has Great Bri- his loan. No great booty there! tain been so equalitarian as now. While the war-effort is, as they Of course, prices cannot be kept say, on the "up and up," the re- at pre-war levels, but they can wards and sacrifices are increas- be, and are being kept to a minim-ingly "on the level."

By Ivor Brown

submissive children of those days of discipline were sorely tempt ed for the moment to hate what

But to Mr. Churchill's new cracy. was usually one of their favourite Government there is no Opposi- storics-Miss Edgeworth's "Waste tion in Parliament, save Mr. Max- Two Stringston's tiny party of three LL.P.'ers, Not, Want Not, or, to your Bow," in which, by aand a single Commurtist. miracle of skill, saving Ben, not wasteful Hal, becomes the child- reader's heró as well as the au- thor's. Under the new Order the penalties are, on summary con- Labour has not only come in; it

such viction this and that of fine and holds

vitally important imprisonment, on conviction on Ministries as those of Labour and side indictment this and that much Supply. On the industrial more. In the nursery conviction Trade Unionism cooperates for was always summary; the penal-victory to the full. ties, by imprisonment in corner or by fine of pudding or jam or sugar, were tyrannously heavy, and there was a per- manent "Boothby snooper, an accuser who was also, like Alice's Fury, judge, jury, and all. And miserable infancy, its gorge rising both at the thing on its plate and

of at the cruel disregard

its natural icelings and human rights. was all the unhappier, without knowing why, because there had

define been no attempt to meaning of words.

"

the

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Coats Off, Limits Off

Restrictions, like coats, are off. Night and day the "go to it" slogan has universal support.

ready at the top limit of 100 per cent. Elaborate safeguards arc being built up against evasion. It dficult for will be enormously any firm or factory to "do well out of the war."

What of the individual? In the last war Income Tax never rose above 6s. Already it is 7s. Gd. and As for Sur-Tax, will go higher. that now begins at £1,500 a year and rises sharply from. Is. on the incomes just above that level to Mr. 9s. 6d. on the topmost heights of That with the the big fortunes. and basics. 6d. makes 175. in the

pound!

Now this unity cannot be sus- tained on enthusiasm and battle- cries alone. It demands similarity of sacrifice as well as of energy. the A war for democracy must involve cquality of effort and equality of suffering. The new British Pr me Minister, when he took office and The new Order at least has a invited support, offered his fol- shot at defining food; it is "every-lowers nothing but bleed thing used by man

sweat and tears. for food or drink, other than water."

It says also with enough clearness

Equality is coming in many They accepted the challenge for

Everyone agreed that ways. Compulsory military ser practical-purposes what it means gladly.

the such a prospect was bitter but vice levels both the obligation and

bitter things are less sour when the nature of the service. shared.

to

Its Arst

A duke's son cannot reckon, as he could of old, to become an off-

or ever at all. cer at once

All must spend two months (at least) in training as à privath, be-

To The Conscience Of The World

by, waste. The public and Government will have little dif- flculty in adjusting any differ- may be ences of opinion that

The Government will continue disclosed in practice. In the to command the general support nursery opinions on the matter and enthusiasm because it is really were opposed and irreconcilable. levelling things out, with no cant Good food, according to author- or nonsense about it. ity, was whatever happened be sent up; and there were sure when to be days in the week extraneous assistance was ab- solutely necessary to make the company truly thankful for what The it was going to receive. company was resolute that mut- ion fat, cabbage, and tapioca were not good food, were not even food in any condition; and, since authority never troubled to alleviate trouble by explaining, for instance, that mutton. fat was not at once really so bad if caten before it got cold and revolting, there was no chance of agreement between the parties. The mean- ing of waste was lefl'equally in contention. To childhood nothing could be more obvious than that it was wicked waste to cram cold mutton fat down a gullet shud- dering in horror at it when there which was a dog in the room would wolf it down with rapture; and cats had a strange liking for! slimy tapioca, even when luke Warm. But authority dully in- sisted that anything on a child's plate not eaten by that particular child was wasted, although the very nicest. of all the cakes or sweet biscuits at tea had to be left for "Mr. Manners."

How America Would Suffer

Otto D. Tolischus, writing in agreement. between

governments, the "New York Times" on the whose relative position, in turn, is their relative economic results in America if determined by Great Britain was' defeated, might. Baye!—

"The result would be a complete change in the political and eco- homic control of Europe and Africa, much of Asia and Oceania and presumably Australia.

"The economic consequences to America of such an upheaval are obvious. It would put America's entire foreign trade, not only with Europe but also with the rest of the world, completely under the control of Germany, and her allies.

•

"Germany -RS. the mightiest country in the world could her- self determine how much foreign goods her first marks would buy and how much German goods the currencies of other countries should buy in return. Germany could determine employment and living standards in countries that must trade with her.

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"For America the more or less. world-wide adoption of this sy- stem would entail a further de- "That trade, it may be argued,velopment of still immeasurable amounts to less than 10 per cent. of consequences--namely, demoniti- America's total production; but sation of gold. With such a de- under America's methods of pro-velopment the 19,000,000,000 dol- duction that 10 per cent. often de- lars gold hoard in Kentucky would termines profit or loss. True, be reduced to trinket value. In America produces many things such a case it might be doubted which even a totalitarian world whether America's foreign invest- would still need. But the things ments would be worth the paper To the conscience of the world, I to consider what this means. We that world would need would be they are written on. Difficulties of an appeal has been addressed by ask you to make it clear to the American raw materials, such as America's financial imperialism', already are the subject of mocking comment in the German Press. forty-five leading English writers, people of your country that we oil and cotton.

are not fighting among whom are H. G. Wells, J. B. with our allies

"In markets for finished goods Priestley, Walter de la Mare, Ro- only for ourselves, but for the be

Jabour "Such, in any case, would be bert Lynd and Hugh Walpole. The lef we share with every man of employing profitable.

of the inevitable appeal says:

every face and religion who holds America would find the competi- some that men should respect each other tion of a consolidated Europe, be-sequences of 'socialistic planning "At this moment, when the fu- and minds should be free. We are hind whosa salesmen stood the between nations' and a victory of 'blood over gold' ́ which the Na- tional Socialist regime has pro- ture not of our nation alone but fighting for our own lives. We are military might of Germany.

claimed on its banners. It pro- that of all nations is being decid-Dghting in the hope of ending this undersigned English war before more children-inno-

poses to lead the world into the ed, we, the wuiters, ask to be heard by the cent if any one is have been

socialistic millennium to be writers of other countries,

slaughtered in their homes and as

"What that means. already is formed-in "Hitler's words 'not they Ace from their homes. But in as much as we are fighting for the amply illustrated in the case of by the senile forces of a decaying consciences of our children, we are Rumania and other Balkan States. world but by the young and pro- lighting for the people of every Moreover, whatever forum trade ductive nations to whom belongs would have to be conducted on nation without exception. We ask remains to the United States the future. you to know this.

one

"Our country has been blamed in the past for actions most mani- festly taken because we hoped by then to avert war. We failed. We falled to check the deliberate and carefully prepared violence which has invaded and killed in

Austria, country after another Czechoslovakia, Poland,. Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France. Where the invading armies It is to be hoped that the new of Germany have goné, unarmed Order will not land the Minis-men and women and children have been mercilessly killed and free- try of Health and the public in dem of mind and spirit has been similar conflict, but it would in-crushed out. terest others besides psycho- analysts to learn which will obey the more loyally-the with their Infantile

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con-

terms dictated by Germany, which "This would leave, the United repudiates free private multilateral States. alternative courses. This We ask you, with the world trade conducted on, a gold | nation could adopt an aŭtarchic confidence that you will standard and substitutes for It a planned economy of Its own and judge us fairly, tò aup government - controlled bilateral ilva mainly on its own resources port us as best you can ina barter trade based on an equal with the confines, of its own struggle which is not ended yet exchange of goods between two borders and militarise itself to the We do not expect defeat. We countries and paid for in labour limit to nesure. Its safety: But expect danger and we are able currency.'

there can be little doubt............ that to face it.

planned economy goes hand in "In practice this means that hand with authoritarian govern- We expect your belief in us. And Germany buys from each countryment, and so this course might

she sells to it, I mean an end of America's politi we pledge ourselves on our part only as much as to remember that a last peace con and measures the, value of goods cal democracy, "It is life which is threaten- be based only on justice. We do so exchanged not in terms of gold: révulsión against any such ruling, or the cd. It is freedom of conscience not desire and we will set our but in terms of hours of labour. "To adopt the alternative might Youngsters who were allowed to and if that is lost, as it is lost faces against revenge. We appeal But the value of hours of labour be to court economic catastrophe wherever the Nazi power.extends, to each one of you individually to In each country is determined of still inconceivable dimensions, cat whatever they liked and have life itself is not worth a breath. pass our words, on, by every through the mechanism of a man with social and political up- and possibly mike never been put in the corner for We ask all those, who have still means, to the nations of the aged flat, currency; the exchange heavals,

value is adjusted-arbitrarily by Amerien ripe for the invader." leaving what they did not like. the Uberty to speak and to think, world."-(Associated Press)...

oldsters.

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