White the George's scheme amremployment it seems fat this distance and with direct intereat in Shanghai involved, those acho believe in it should be given their say.
In recent days a vast change 8 come over the political situation in England, Mr, Lloyd George has played the part of the devil fish that fishermen pt into their tank, amongst the catch, to stir up the lazy, edible, creatures that, without the stimulus of the mad rushes of their enemy, would lie supine la the water and reach the shore with their' flesh ina flabby, insipid, condition unfit for the market, The "little Wels wizard" has justified his name for he has produced from his mystery bag a brand new scheme for dealing with the unemployment problem and promises that if his party is returned to power, in a year, the running sore of our national life will be healed, His pronouncenient has stirred the national imagination like trumpet call and the Liberal party which was, to all appeai~ ance, "down and out" has suddenly sprung to life and bids fair to have as many members yned in the coming election abedlther of the other two contestants for the blue ribbon of attlee.
Of the urgency of the problem there can be no question, A million persons out of work at one time the figures touch the million and a half mark—s too serious an evil to be left untended, It fs true that we did not allow them to sturves we gave them a dole, But the was almost as bud as the di for nothing is more than money for nothing. are men, younye men in their work in hand now, and do it adequately, it is possible that. with the revival of trade, we shall be compelled to do it when labour is both scarce and dear. It is even possible that we might have to import labour to do for us what our idle hands could well do now, There are those who declare that the scheme set forth is but the hare brained dream of charlatan and quote "Limo-house" as a sufficient refutation of the claims made for it. But the proposals have the ando: ment of that well known coons mist, J, M, Keynes, and other experts have been consulted. There is, at least, nothing fantastic about it. It proposes to do something that very much needs doing and that must be done soon, Nay, it must be done now or be done, at a much greater cost, later. We would *|need to be much more enthusia tie in our admiration of Mr.
Lloyd George than we are to contend that everything work out as he has planned. The best laid schemes o mice and men, we know, gang aft ogles and more than once the Liberal Teader has promised more than he was able to perform. But h did give us the high explosives we needed in the dark days of the war and the task he has set for himself now is one of much Jess complexity than that was. Besides, there is no alternative before the country. Mr, Baldw' says "We will foster, by ever means in our power, the revi of trade that has already begat: and trust to see, 1 nother era of prosperity." The answer to that remark is "this ought ye to have done and leave the other undone." There ig no reason why both thins shoud not go pari passe with each other, In the very enunciation of his proposals the Premier has poured some of his own vitality und optimism into the life of the nation. "As cold waler (ea thirsty soul so is good news from a far country" and men whose hearts were h hopes of a boy' have been condemned from place to place lock the job that never Now, weary and disp are almost content to be loafers.
If the devil had schemed to sap the manhood of Britain he cond with hope deferred begin to heads. Whether Me.
George is returned power or not he has lifted question of unemployment to a!\new platform and it must be dealt with on what frages of the nation. have hit on no surer method achieving his end. W: at play and. you w nothing interests him so much as the joy of making something. It may be a rabbit hutch or a rat trap, but he will have more pleasure in the construction of the ricketts contraption than in the most hilarious game. He will probably make a_boteh of the job but while working at his task he is making something of Teufelsdrockh, ed his himself. That wise philosopher,
generation to "Produce, produce, were it but the pitifulest, finitesimal fraction of a product, produce it*in God's name. was surely the very bankruptey of statesmanship that we, with all the resources of the most splendid Empire the world has ever seen, could not bring the workless man and the unbroken territory into contact with each other, Mr. Lloyd George's plan is to make roads, to drain thes, to ai forest the hills,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.