Pigfancier v. Planejancier

His Majesty's Prime Minister in Australia is brisk, kinetic, remorselessly logical Stanley Melbourne Bruce--a statesman as different as possible from His Majesty's Prime Minister in Great Britain, kindly, honest, incurably emotional Stanley Baldwin. The hobby of beloved Prime Minister Baldwin is keeping pigs, prime pigs, prize pigs. The daily sport of popular Prime Minister Bruce is to hop from home to office by private airplane, hop back, and thus stable his winged mount in the cellar of his residence. Last week Pigfancier Baldwin and Planefancier Bruce became thoroughly vexed with one another over the vital problem of British unemployment. Cables flashed from England to Australia told that Mr. Baldwin said, last week, in the British House of Commons: "The state of permanent unemployment in Great Britain may now be considered an Empire emergency. . . . His Majesty's Government in Great Britain will continue the policy of loan enabling any British workman to emigrate to the Dominions, providing that he has been assured a job there. . . . But something more is needed. Remember that it was not by a slow, restricted process of immigration, confined to guaranteed employment, that the Dominions were founded and began their splendid history. . . . Our British workpeople . . . who want to try their luck in the Dominions . . . want to use their skill in that spirit of adventure which stirred in the old pioneers. Yet the call for adventurers does not come across to us now, as it used to in the old days. . . . By all means let the Dominion Governments get men from here to do agricultural work . . . but . . . the Dominions cannot rest on agriculture alone, nor do all these going out from England want to do agricultural work. . . . The spirit of pioneering in other lines must be encouraged." When Pigfancier Baldwin's emotional appeal had received a thorough scanning in Australia, Planefancier Bruce declared with coldest logic: "I unhesitatingly reaffirm my great desire for an ever increasing flow of British people into Australia, but the flow must be conditioned upon its quality and upon our power of absorption. . . . Australia is not going to undermine her national health by lowering the standards of fitness of immigrants. . . ." Loyal citizens of the Empire put quickly out of mind this undignified squabble between two of His Majesty's Prime Ministers. Hopefully they turned to consider two additional and alternative measures designed to reduce unemployment which were proposed, last week, to the House of Commons by harassed Stanley Baldwin. First came a promise that the Baldwin Government will shortly force reduction of British freight rates on coal, in an effort to stimulate that industry, and relieve unemployment among miners. Second, Mr. Baldwin announced that Simon Joseph Fraser, Baron Lovat, Permanent Undersecretary of the Dominions Office, will shortly set sail for Canada, Australia and New Zealand, to prepare a survey and general plan for integrating the manpower needs of Daughter Dominions with the job needs of Mother Britain. The projects, after being amply aired by Prime Minister Baldwin (Conservative), were roundly flayed by onetime Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Snowden (Laborite) as "an abject confession of the Government's hopelessness and failure." Thereupon 151 of the 157 Laborite M. P.'s voted for a motion censuring the Government's ineffectiveness in dealing with the tragic national problem of unemployment. Although Conservatives number 412, the Labor motion was defeated by an adverse vote of only 331. Explanation: Even Conservatives are becoming worried at Mr. Baldwin's failure to reduce the number of the unemployed, which now stands at 1,242,000, an increase in the last year of 206,000. Not since the brief, disastrous period of the General Strike (TIME, May 10 to 24, 1926) have so many Britons been jobless. Ominous last week was a warning issued by the Government's Industrial Transfer Board that there are now at least 200,000 "permanently unemployed" British coal miners who must either be transferred to other employment or continue indefinitely half-starved upon the dole. A most drastic move to prevent further increase in unemployment was made, last week, quite independently of the Government, by the British Railway Managers Association and the Great National Unions of locomotive engineers, firemen, railway men and railway clubs. Jointly and solemnly they covenanted that for the next twelvemonth a cut of 2 1/2% in pay will be accepted by every underling executive officer and director of the railways concerned. Contrarywise, 500,000 Manchester cotton workers announced last week, that they would strike for higher pay, but were locked out before they could strike by irate employers.