The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-03-01

special .............. SPAS | instruments and appliances of des- tructions.
 The policing of the world will, un- til the millennium arrives, be a duty that has got somehow to be discharg- ed, and no League of Nations, how ever broad it's base, can fulfil it's trust, unless it has behind it, in the last re- sort, the sanction in one form or an- other, of coercive power.
 Debt and Taxation
 Nevertheless, the immediate effect of peace must be in this country a large disban ndJnent of war workers, men and women, both from the fight ing forces and from the war-created industries. Side by side with this un- exampled process of dislocation, and absorption, and redistribution, we 1 shall find ourselves confronted by ob- hgations in the way of debt and of necessary taxation, the bulk of which | it is even yet impossible to forecast. It is, I think, nearly two years since l appointed and myself presided over the Committee of Reconstructions, which with it's subcommittee and it's later developments into the Ministry, has ever since been grappling with these problems.
 It will not be invidious if I men | tion, as of special value and urgency, the report on the relations between capital and labor-of the committee which had for it's chairman my right hon. friend, MT. Whitely.
 There are two aims which, to my mind, should be steadily kept in view and constantly applied as crucial tests to all schemes and proposals which deal with reconstruction. They sound commonplace enough, but they go to to the root of the matter.
 The first is, that we shall need largely increased production year by year of national wealth. The second that we must see to it that, as among the producers, there is a fairer distr!- button of the yield.
 In regard to these matters you will
 not be surprised if I put in the fore front as of paramount importance a
 comprehensive rebuilding and a far more adequate equipment from the very bottom to the very top of our
 system of national education, of which the bill introduced by my right hon. friend MT. Fisher. gives the hope, and indeed the promise.
 To put it from the lowest and most
 material point of view, it is largely, indeed mainly, through our educa- tional deficiencies that we have either
 lost or never established some of those
 basic industries which no great coun-
 try can afford to be without.
 The future relations of employers
 and employed will have to be read justed starting from the proposals
 which I believe to be in spirit and principle almost universally accepted of the Whitley Report; with develop ments for securing greater elasticity,
 more representative authority, and a more vital contact with new condi- tions, in the organization of both; and : above all, with the purpose of achiev- : ing for men, women and children op- ! portunitieS which were never given } them under the old factory system for a free, a more self-developed, a humaner life
 The minimum wage under which 7 the stress of war-conditions has been : given statury authority in the great
 industry of agriculture, has come to
 stay, and is certain, as time goes on s to receive wide, and as believe bene- 3 ficent extensions.
 g The war has brought with it count less losses and untold suffering, but
 it has shown us, not only in the death l less heroism of those who have fought g for us on land and sea, but in the un- 3 grudging sacrifices which have beer = made by every class in the community = to attain the common end, that the 8 ancient and ingrained spirit of the = British peoples has not been sappec a by luxury and comfort, or tainted by
 cowardice and selfishness, or stalet e and withered by dotage and decay. r It has been at once revelation anC 5, a discipline.
 '- It has taught us better and nor, g clearly than any experience in ou Il history that we are all members on
 of another.
 u It has obliterated old divisions, re y conciled traditional ennities, given u l. as a nation a sense of new values, ney u perspective, new ideals.
 e We look to the end with an assure is and ever-growing belief that both i IS the council chamber of peace and i se the reordering of our household her le at home it will open new era c l. liberty and justice.
 :" There is not one of us who doe
 not regard peace as the greatest bless is ing that could come to the world. g. am peace man myself. But it mus - be a real peace, an honorable peac " and a lasting peace.
 Id The panorama of war unfolds itse lg day by day and week by week. It pre-
 sents very chequered and varyin. IF and indeed kaleidiscopic, sometime Ee almost chaotix, series of events. on this moment we are all exultant at tn
 magnificent success of our Armies i u- Palestine, which has enabled Gener; m Allenby to do what Richard I WE as never able to do-plant the Britis es flag over Jerusalem.
 n. We see an equally brilliant recor ch steadily and consistently pursued on the other theatre of the extreme eas al In Mesopotamia, General Marsha
 is worthi1y sustaining the traditions oh gallant General Maude; and in Ea of Africa our gallant General Devente be of South Africa, will shortly hay
 swept the Germans, neck and cro
 out of their last remaining colony. lst Those are encouraging and heartel h. ing spectacles.
 d. On the other hand, if we are in h. more or less depressed mood, we cal sr- not but feel the enormous disadval