Oct. 3.
While it was inevitable that President Roosevelt's speech pending changes in the: New Deal programme should prove disappointing to those who anticipated that he would come forward with a cut and dried programme, there is every reason to believe that in the long run the President's announcement will receive rather more support than it is obtaining at present. Those, who expected tobe presented with a clearly drawn-up scheme for reorganization, generally fail to appreciate the (position when President Roosevelt first started what, after all, amounts to a fairly rapid revolution in social and economic ideas. It will be remembered that the history of the National Recovery Administration shows that, apart. from a general idea of ultimate objectives, the programme has to a very large extent been opportunist, the government—recognizing the symptoms and all that they meant, but dealing with the trouble as best was possible under the difficult conditions with which it was faced when it entered into power. There were, perhaps, food reasons for such a process. While it is true that the announcement of a complete programme would tend towards the establish ment of a greater degree of commercial stability, it is also true that it would' permit of the organization of methods of defence which might make the Administra~ tion's task infinitely more difficult than it has been up to the present. Tt might even possibly be that failure to disclose the whole of the Government's intentions serves as a brake upon the boom which optimists foretell as Likely to occur in the near future, for it must be obvious from the past history of booms in the United States, es-pedally when securities are' concerned, that they are attended with the grave danger of contributing to a subsequent depression calculated to do enormous damage. If then the Government's reluc tance to state its intentions is bated upon a desire to maintain stability in which steady progress remade towards a general improvement, there are few who will quarrel with the reticence which the President displayed in his broadcast on Sunday.
It is Interesting to speculate how far the President's enunciation of doctrine assumes what, for lack of better term, may be described as 'a modified form of socialism. His negative definition of liberty is a case in point. "I am opposed to defining liberty' as the state whereunder for many years a free People were gradually regimented into the service of the privileged few. I prefer a definition where under we are moving to greater freedom and greater security for the average man than has ever been known before." The broadening of the basis of liberty along the lines which he negatively in-dictates, the denial of some of the former privileges of capital which adumbrates and the general widening of the mutual responsibilities of the individual and the State, amount to a repudiation of the old order of things, and indicate "a desire for the establishment of a new system under which former abuses may be swept aside. The first move towards the desired end is undoubtedly indicated in the suggestion that at any rate for the time being there should be established a trial period of industrial peace, not by. the surrender of their weapons of self-defence by either the employers or employees, but by experimentation in "fair measures suitable to civilize industrial civilization" Again a phrase which by implication points out the savagery of an industrial civilization which needs to be civilized. But the President intends that it shall be made worth while for both parties to follow his schemes, for he insists that the policies of the Administration are bringing order out of chaos, with greater certainty that labour will }be afforded employment at a reasonable wage, and stronger assur Jances that there will be more and more business at a fair profit for capital. That in other words Jdicates a degree of control which can only be aptly described as a system of national socialization. It denies the continuance of the older Jsystem under which each was for himself, and insists upon a mutual responsibility, which, though it has Hong been recognized by people who were once thought to be mere doctrinaires, has now enter~ fed the realm of practical politics in many more countries than one.
Naturally the President spoke in Jgeneralities. It might not have proved particularly wise had he Jdone anything else, for it is clear that, though one stage of the pro-Jgramme of the National Recovery Administration has been _completed, the one upon which it is now entering has still about many of the experimental qualities of its predecessor. The very elasticity of such a procedure is its own best. commendation. The United States, like practically every other country in the world, is fighting depression on all fronts. The struggle itself is not by any means clear cut, though the object in view may very well be 50. In the fight President Roosevelt and his advisers have made a certain amount of progress. That it would be idle to deny. Tt may have been dearly bought, and though the fear has been often expressed that the bill which the country will have to pay may ultimately deprive it of most of the benefits obtained, the time has not yet come when any fair estimate of the costs can yet be arrived at. There Is, of course, the reproach to be levelled against the present Government that in some aspects of its policy it has acted re-gardies of the interests of other ations. That appears particular ly to be the case with regard to silver and the position of China, over Which there is undoubtedly little perplexity and Irritation. But ft has to be realized that the Pre-Jsident has on occasion to make his way by bargaining with the various Interests which are represented in Congress, that high principles in the matter of government Ihave often to give way to low expedient, and, in an age when in-{ternationalism has been completely submerged by a narrow nationlism, domestic rather than external considerations are most likely to appeal. That is but a phase of the depression through which the world is passing, and though much can be said of che [spectacle of each country endeavouring to pull itself out of the morass by its own bootstraps, the fact is that that is what they are doing. 'Thus while from a foreign point' of views the President's [speech may not prove particularly jgratitying, it has about it qualities from a domestic aspect which are by no means wholly to be dis-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.