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T>« B«niw«ll People-S«ntiB<L B«r»wtll. & C. Thgniday. XnKunt 27. 193« BRISBANE THIS WEEK Spender* of Y«*tenre*r Gone With Their Billions Paris Hotels Empty England Learns Also Europe learns that political ex periments cost money. England de cided to prevent Mussolini taking Ethiopia, camp ing along the im perial British highway, and controlling Lake Tana, source of Nile water. The attempt failed. England hacked out of that situa tion, hastily, aft er her war de partment had as sured our so- called war de- partment in Washington that Mussolini could not possibly conquer Ethiopia in less than three years, probably not at all. When the dust had settled and • England, with her chicken-feed as sortment of 51 league nations, had apologized to Mussolini and tossed Haile Selassie into the waste-bas ket, England found her foreign commerce much damaged. She had missed Mussolini, and shot herself in the pocketbook. Tor a little while she will copy Job: “I will lay mine hand upon my mouth. Once I have spoken . . . yea twice, but I will proceed no further.’* Arthar ilrlaban* Paris, which is France, decided to sing and dance a new car magnole with Russian dressing; clenched flsts raised in air a la Russe; red flag waving; the dole ful strains of the Communist hymn, 1'lntemationale. and its Communist injunction, ’’Arise, ye prisoners of starvation,” excellently sung from the Arc de Tnomphe to the Place dr la Bastille You can hardly imagine what Are, fury and enthusiasm thousands of young and old French gentlemen put into that hymn, although many of them showed few outward signs of starvation. There were, and are. manifests- tions everywhere Now in the chamber of deputies. Monsieur Gaston Gerard, practical French statesman, asks. “What has be come of our foreign tourists and their spending money M Gerard tells the deputies something must be done In IW7. 2.123 000 foreigners from all over the world visited France, spending much money Visitors now number only 700.000. as a rule with little money to spend--oysters containing no peart. many that come to help smg TInternationale bring no moo- •> Foreign visitors, says M Ger ard. used to give highly paid em ployment to half a million French men and women; spent 300.000.000 francs for Kre ich railroad and steamship tickets. scattered throughout Franc* from 12 to 13 thousand millions of francs Fifteen billions, even in francs, are •‘real money” here. M Ger ard tells the chamber French prices are too high There is something m that, with the four-cent franc costing six to seven cents in the United States—a comic-opera situa tion. considering the relative wealth of the two nations. M Gerard thinks there should be some cabinet official to look after foreigners, with better propaganda and fewer vexatious taxes on for eigners; there is nothing in that. Foreigners do not voluntarily travel and spend money where they feel they are not wanted. The cos mopolitan, educated Frenchman is ns polite and hospitable as ever, but ask him what sort of reception the crowd gives to the foreigner, British especially. It offends the British ear to hear A bas les Ang- lis!—“Down with the British!” An innocent American, in an in nocent average American automo bile, sallied forth on July 14 to help France celebrate the destruction of the Bastille, and perhaps give a few feeble cheers for Lafayette, or Woodrow Wilson, or somebody. Great crowd in the Champs Elysees, especially around the in nocent American car, with new paint, shiny Chromium and several cylinders. ^A polite policeman says monsieur should know better than to appear in a car of ‘‘grand luxury” on such a day. Such luxury cars you may see by the thousands and millions on American roads. Nothing happens to the car of grand luxury; it crosses the Ave nue of the Champs Elysees, about 300 feet, in less than twenty min utes The French, newly self-iden tified as ‘‘prisoners of starvation.” are interested in the auto Ameri can, which is careful not to bump anybody. - The bourgeois, the “rich,” an ex tinct species, although it does not yet know it, are nervous. In a vague way they feel that they are held responsible for all those “pris oners of starvation.” with their strong voices, deep chests, power- Sul flsts and pink complexions. g X F-fc'ijr** Syndiuai*, ium, wsv News Review of Current Events the World Over United States Won’t Interfere in Spanish Civil War—Crop Control May Be Dropped by AAA—Jeffersonian Democrats Organize. By EDWARD W. PICKARD £ Western Newspaper Union. EFFORTS of European nations, notably France, to persuade the United States to join in a neutrality pact concerning the civil war in Spain are not likely to succeed. Howev- : er it is the intention of our government not to interfere in the situation in any way whatsoever. In structions to this ef fect were sent to all American repre sentatives m Spain by William Phillips, acting secretary of state. While assert ing that the American neutrality law prohibiting assistance to war ring nations does not apply to the Spanish civil war, Mr. Phillips said that the United States intended to conform with its “well established policy of noninterference with in ternal affairs in other countries, ei ther in time of peace or civil strife.” Most of the nations invited to participate in the non-intervention agreement were willing, but Ger many temporarily blocked the plan by announcing that its answer would be delayed until Madrid gave a sat isfactory reply to German protests regarding the execution of four German nationals in Barcelona. France aet August 17 as the dead line for completion of the agree ment. and it was expected that, if general neutrality failed, the French government would lend aid to the Leftist government at Madrid. Dispatches from Seville said Gen eral Franco, rebel commander-iiv* chief, had received a large num ber of German and Italian planes manned by aviators from those countries, and was about to launch an attack on Madrid from the air. The flghUng for possession of San and in the mountain north of Madrid continued unabated and loss** were heavy on both aides General Queipo. rebet commander at Seville, announced he was about to adopt new colors of the rebellion, red and yellow, which are the colors of the Spanish monarchy. /''OFFICIALS of the agricultural adjustment administration dis cussed in Washington the advisa bility of drastically reducing or re moving altogether the planting re strictions on com and wheat next year No dect sion was made and farmers will be consulted before any changes are ordered. It was. however, definitely stated that wheat acreage will be expanded. Secretary of Agriculture Wallace, passing through Chicago on his way back from Iowa, said he believed government-controlled crop insur ance would prevent wild price fluc tuations in farm produce. The plan, he Slid, has not progressed be yond the embryo stage, but probab ly would entail storage of crape in government granaries. Each farm er. depending on the percentage of his normal crop he wished to in sure, would make his “insurance” payments in the form of bushels to be stored in a common pool. The plan, preventing “lean years and fat years,“ would tend to stabi lize market prices because it would assure a continual adequate sup ply of whatever commodity was to be insured. Gradually, he said, it might be worked out to include all major farm produce. FOLLOWING ^ PrgsciHont f a conference of President Roosevelt, Chairman Harrison of the senate finance com mittee, Chairman Doughton of the house ways and means committee and Secretary of the Treasury Mor- genthau, the administration’s fiscal program for the coming year was thus outlined: 1. Assurance that no request will be made to the next congress for the levying of additional taxes or in crease of present tax rates. 2. Launching of an immediate study by treasury and congressional tax consultants of present revenue laws as a basis for recommenda tions to the next congress for elimi nation of inequitable taxes, especi ally those unfair “to consumers or to trade.” 3. Treasury assurance that “with continued recovery” the revenue yield is approaching the point where it will cover government costs and provide a surplus for reduction of the public debt. Mr. Roosevelt then started on a three-day trip to the vicinity of Johnstown, Pa., where he talked over flood control problems with Governor Earle and others, and on to Cleveland for a visit to the Great Lakes exposition. His itinerary pro vided then for a visit to Chau tauqua, N. Y., to deliver a speech on foreign affairs. tinuation of the rate of decline was shown for the first week of Aug ust. On the basis of an index kept by the agency since the end of 1932, July insolvencies were at the an nual rate of 38.2 for each 10,000 firms in business. It compared with 44.6 in June and 52.8 in July, 1935. In January, 1933, as business was heading for the banking holiday, it was above 170. July failures numbered 639, a fig ure exceeded on the downside only twice for the month since 1894 de spite the growth of population and business in the meanwhile. It com pared with 902 in the same month last year and 2,596 in July, 1932, around the peak of the depression liquidation movement. For the year to August 6 failures totaled 6,157 against 7,355 in the corresponding 1935 months, a drop of 16.3 per cent: J. A. Reed E'ORTY - THREE Democrats, 1 most of them prominent nation ally or locally and representing twenty states, gathered in Detroit to tell one another and the world how much and why they disliked the New Deal. After two days of conferring, they organized themselves as the National Jefferson ian Democrats and named Former Senator James A. Reed of Missouri as their national chair men. They decided to establish headquarters at once In St. Louis and to set up an organization in fjtery elate. Then they gave out a 1.300 word declaration or plat form in which they declared they "will not support for re-election the candidates of the Philadelphia con vention for President and vice presi dent, and we call upon all loy al and sincere Democrats to con sider the question of their duty to their country in the appre aching election with the same earnestness that has guided our deliberations— joining with us If they feel that our ronclustona are sound and our anx iety foe the future of our party and our country ta justified ” The name of Governor London was not mentioned In the declara tion, but a number of its signers are openly supporting the Republi can candidate. Among these are Joseph B Ely. CbL Henry Breckin ridge. John Henry Kirby of Texas and Robert S. Bright of Maryland. W rfEN the American Bar as sociation convenes in Boston soon it will receive two widely dif fering reports from a special com mittee named to study the effects of Nfw Deal legislation on the rights and liberties of citizens. They were made public in' Washington. The majority report, signed by John D. Gark, Gieyenne, Wyo.; Fred H. Davis, Tallahassee, Fla.; George L. Buist, Charleston, S. C„ apd Charles P. Taft II., Cincinnati. Ohio, “deplored” the action of President Roosevelt in reducing congress to a “rubber stamp” body to carry through his program of legislation. “Novel legislative and govern mental trends of the New Deal are just as uncertain today as they were two years ago,” the report said. “Laws specifically proposed as emergency measures with limit ed life have been declared by im portant members of the administra tion to be the beginning of perma nent changes in national policy. “There has been a continuing conflict between such officials as to whether a new social and economic order is in the making or the old institutions are being perfected so that they may be preserved.” These findings were challenged by Kenneth Wynne, New Haven, Conn.; Fred L. Williams, St. Louis, Mo., and James G. McGowen of Jackson, Miss. In their minority report they said: “If the purpose of the resolution creating the spe cial committee was to get the opin ion of the American Bar association regarding legislative trends de signed to meet changing economic conditions, the report is superficial. It does not deal with the problem but concerns itself with a short range attack on surface triviali ties.” The sharp divergence between the two reports presages a conflict and heated discussion at the as sociation meeting. Washington| Digest xm Natiqna! Topics Interpreted By WILLIAM BRUCKART NATIONAL PRESS BLDG WASHINGTON D C Himl DREMIER BLUM made good one * of his campaign promises by putting the French leftist govern ment in control of the Bank of France. The board of regents, in existence for a century, was abol- | ished and replaced by a council of > seven headed by Leon Jouhaux, | president of the conference of la bor. The others are representatives I of the ministry of finance, savings i banks, consumers’ co-operatives. handicrafts, chambers of commerce j and chambers of agriculture. The new board » expected to ' continue the anti-devaluationist pol icy of the retiring board of the insti tution. H ENRY MORGENTHAU, secre- 1 tary of the treasury, and the national commission on An* arts have given their approval to the design for a memorial half dollar which will bear the likeness of Phineas T Bamum The coin will commemorate the centennial anni versary of the establishment of Bridgeport. Conn., as a city, and Bamum ta honored not for his achievements as a showman but for his grest philanthropies snd rich gifts to Bridgeport. CMGURES compiled by Dun St * Bfadstreet for July show a de cline In commercial failures to the lowest figures since 1920, and a con T iVO veterans of the senate. Wil liam E. Borah of Idaho. Republi can. and Joseph T. Robinson of Arkansas, Democrat and majori ty leader, won their fights for re- nommotion without much difficulty. Borah defeated Byron Defen bach, who was backed by the Townsend- item. His Democratic opponent at the polls In November will be Gov. C. Ben Ross In the Democratic primary to select a congressman to succeed the late Joseph W. Byrna of Tennessee the Townsend influ ence gsve victory to Richsrd M. Atkinson of Nashville by the nar row margin of 13 votes. In the Presidential contest the American Federation of Labor, as an organization, will maintLin its traditional non-partisan policy, ac cording to the firm declaration of President William Green. The fed eration, said he, is not in the Non- Partisan Labor league, which is backing President Roosevelt. “We will not formally indorse any candi date this fall,’’ Mr, Green contin ued. “Our non-partisan committee will merely prepare parallel reports on the labor records of the two chief candidates and of the plat forms. We will send out all data to our membership. They will have to make up their own minds.” A. P. Sloaa OEBELLION among the Town- ^ sendites, smoldering ever since their Cleveland convention, has broken out into civil war. Dr. Fran cis Townsend has just summarily ousted from the organization three of the eleven directors. Apparently the reason is that they are support ing President Roosevelt and object to Townsend’s effort to swing hi^ followers to the support of Lemke. The three men thrown out are Dr. Clinton Wunder, a former Bap tist preacher, now living in New York; John B. Kiefer, Chicago re gional director, and Maj. William Parker of New York, eastern re gional director. f EADING officials of Class I rail- roads, meeting in Washington, voted to petition the interstate com merce commission for an advance in freight rates to replace the tem porary surcharges which expire at the end of this year, and to meet the rising expenses of the roads. The petition also will ask the commission to give the railroads relief on the long and short haul clauses in the various commodity classifications. CECRETARY . OF COMMERCE ROPER'S department has Just put out a "world economic review” for 1933 which contains many mteresting state- menta. It says, for instance, that f u t u • i business prospects a.t condi tioned in port upon the possibility of narrowing the gap between gov* ra ni ent expenditures and receipts. It as serted that “the government deficit springs from the root of unemployment, which Is still the major problem confronting the country,” and continued: “Most of the recent increase in the public debt has resultec from emergency expenditures which will be reduced as the need diminishes. At this date the evidences of need are still manifest.” As to “the part played in the re covery to date by the heavy govern ment expenditures," the report said: “This question is not easily an swered, but it is certain that such outlays have had an influence in many directions — tor example, on retail sales, on farm income, on the growth of bank deposits and on the prevailing level of interest rates.” The latter statements may well be compared with the report of Alfred P. Sloan, president of Gen eral Motors, to the stockholders. Business recovery thraughout the world — in which the United States has participated — is being gen erated by a combination of various factors, Mr. Sloan explains. In this country the automobile indus try has been helped, he says, by principal influences. Only one of these, he points out, has its roots in the New Deal financial schemes and he finds that particular influ ence a bad one because it creates a temporary fool’s paradise , in which sales and earnings are bal looned by extraordinary govern ment expenditures. L incoln steffens, long prominent as a journalist, writ er and lecturer, died at Carmel, Calif., at the age of seventy. He was creator of the so-called muck raking school of journalism and in many magazine articles he exposed the corruption in municipal politics. Another well known American writer, Arthur B. Reeve, passed away at his home in Trenton, M. J Washington.—President Roosevelt again has changed courses on re- lief. This time he t ne# G.O.P. has launched an Relief Plan experiment that becomes most sig nificant and interesting because he is trying out in a small way the Very heart of the relief proposal contained in the Republican plat form. Without any ballyhoo or any de tailed statement, the President has allocated $22,700,000 of Public Works Administration funds for use in direct grants to states and has laid down a formula for use of this money that takes it into the same category as the Republican plan. The President took this action per sonally. He has not only prescribed the conditions under which the grants will be made but has laid down rules for "PWA which will, in effect, bring to his attention any completed arrangements involving these funds. The program provides that the federal government will bear 45 per cent of the cost, a municipality or county contributing the other 55 per cent out of its own funds, and be fore the allocation is made definite ly, the municipality or county re ceiving the funds must agree to em ploy 100 per cent relief labor. In this manner, the “need for re lief” becomes the measuring stick. If the local community is unable to supply only unskilled labor from the relief rolls and the project of construction planned for the com munity requires the use of skilled labor, it does not get the money. The projects considered to fall with in the category of this new experi ment include a great many worth while construction jobs such as school houses, sewage systems and water systems The things pro posed. therefore, may be said to be of permanent value and to Uiat ex tent represent a* veering by the President to the theory which Sec retary Ickes of the Department of Interior always has held, namely, that if federal funds are expended they should be used in the construc tion and maintenance of permanent Imorovemenls • • • Although the general idea of this new experiment in relief, new to u .. , the New Deal, was ffnnmlea practically forced Locally upon the President by the necessity of the present relief mess, it neverthe less represents a return to a method long regarded by many students of the problem as the only way in which relief funds can be properly handled It places back in the hands of local communities the task of looking after their own destitute and charity cases. The federal govern ment contributes a share of the funds, of course, but it does not boss the job as has been the practice un der Harry Hopkins and his Works Progress Administration further than the requirements that relief labor be employed As stated above, the plan now on trial constitutes the very heart of the Republican proposal for han dling federal relief. The Republi can platform calls for “federal grants in aid to the states and ter ritories while the need exists upon compliance with these conditions, a fair proportion of the total relief burden to be provided from the rev enues of states and local govern ments; all engaged in relief admin istration to be selected on the basis of merit and fitness; adequate pro visions to be made for the encour agement of those persons who are trying to become self-supporting.” I hear much discussion around Washington that the President’s ex periment meets the Republican program in every way except as to the second provision which re lates to the selection of the adminis trative personnel “upon the basis of merit and fitness.” There are many who believe Mr. Roosevelt has reached the conclusion that there is considerable merit in the contention that unless steps are taken to get relief of the unem ployed back into the local com munities, it will become an unwork able monster, a Frankenstein. On the other hand, some of the bitter critics of the Roosevelt ad ministration are contending that Mr. Roosevelt seeks to try out the Republican proposal in this manner in order to demonstrate that it is unworkable. They point also to the omission of the second provision, just mentioned, and declare that the President will use political pat ronage rather than merit as the means of creating supervision. • • • v - While the new method has not U**n made fully operative,, so that anyone can see it Way to in f u u detail, the Dodge restriction which Mr. Roosevelt has laid down that only relief labor shall be used is looked upon as pro viding a means of dodging complete operation of the plan. It if to be noted that the Republican plank does not limit the workers wholly to relief. In making such a restric tion as the President has done, it is held in some quarters that there will not be too many communities able to take advantage of the fresh federal funds. The reason for this is that particularly in the smaller communities there is not a great amount of skilled labor. This com paratively small proportion of skilled labor, comparatively small when measured against the amount of common labor, or unskilled labor, available makes it impos sible ,in a good many instances for the smaller communities to obtain money. . The situation is simply this: in the construction of sewage and water systems and most other con struction jobs, there is more skilled labor required than will be avail able in the communities where * these public works are to be un dertaken. Further, with the pick up in industry, however small it may yet be, the skilled artisan has more chances to get jobs than has the common laborer. In addition, I think it can be fairly said that a skilled worker is of the type to be among the last to go on relief rolls. In any event, he will not go on the relief rolls until there is no other alternative. He is able te earn a much higher rate of pay than is available to him as a relief dole and naturally is not content to remain on the relief rolls longer than is absolutely necessary. In this direction then, trouble may lie. Possibly some communi ties will be guilty of'seekmg to in duce skilled workers to go on relief rolls for a sufficient length of time to enable them to carry out an agreement to employ only relief la bor. This is a regrettable possibil ity but it is a very real one. In all fairness to the President, 1 think it must be said that he is proceeding on a method to reach communities and unemployed that hitherto have been rather like step children. The big relief p. ojects under the former PWA system, and the Harry Hopkins method of han dling relief in some way or other have managed to be concentrated in the great cities While some per sons may be unkind enough to say that the President is expanding his vole-getting machine to the small communities, it nevertheless re mains as a fact that the system now undertaken will let some relief dribble down to those who have not had it before In any event, since it ta the Republican proposal and it is being tried out by the New Deal, it is an experiment very well worth watching. • • • The nations at the world find themselves in one of those peculiar , and almost humor- Quirkb of ous situations that Diplomacy can develop only from the queer quirks of diplomacy. It has not progressed far enough yet for any one to say what the outcome of this new diplomatic situation will be but it is not devoid, neverthe less. of possibilities both from the serious as well as the humorous side. It may have escaped Ktneral notice that, under Mussolini's or ders, King Victor Emanuel is now not only king of Italy but he is also emperor of Ethiopia. He was given this new title immediately after the conquering hordes of Italians had held their triumphant march in Rome and. as far as Mus solini was concerned, Ethiopia had gone out of existence, a dead na tion. Despite the fact that Mussolini would like to have Emperor Haile Selassie known only as a plain Mr. Tafari, most of the nations of the world still are compelled, through treaty agreement, foreign policy or plain desire to consider that Mr. Tafari still has the title of emperor of Ethiopia which he and his an cestors so long bore. There is, however, this circum stance: since no nation has extend ed formal recognition to Italy as embracing Ethiopia, no diplomat can be formally received in that capacity. For example, the new Italian ambassador to the United States will come to Washington as the plenipotentiary of the king of Italy and emperor of Ethiopia but our ambassador to Italy, Mr. Welles, will go to Rome when he returns to his post this fall as the ambassador to the court of King Victor Emanuel — nothing being said about Ethiopia. All of this results from American foreign policy and the foreign poli cies of other nations who oppose the taking of territory of another nation or race by force. It is a policy firmly footed, as witness the course of all of the nations except^ ing only Salvador in their attitude toward Manchuria which is now un der Japanese control. Salvador recognized Japanese sovereignty over Manchuria largely because it was thereby enabled to consummata a great coffee sale. C toMtera N«««p«p«r Ust««