THIS WEEK'S TASK .sx IN a few days' time we shall know the best and the worst of what the Government has in store for us .sx Its plans are now complete .sx Various sections of the community are already looking nervous and uneasy ; rumours are plentiful .sx The purveyors of this and that luxury are beginning to search their pockets and their hearts .sx Nothing is definitely known , because the provisions of the Emergency Budget are a secret as well kept as most Budget secrets ; so , too , is the programme of cuts .sx But whatever the actual details turn out to be , one thing is certain , and that is - as that high financial authority , Prof .sx Henry Clay , shows in his cogent and convincing article in another column - that every citizen in the country will be affected by them .sx The Government has given repeated assurances that the new burdens shall fall as equally as possible on all classes .sx No one , therefore , need suppose he will escape .sx It is essential that this principle should be rigidly enforced , so as to satisfy the instinct of the people for justice .sx The nation will give willingly if it is convinced of the need and if it is satisfied that no section is being put upon .sx If the demands were to fall unfairly the Government would ruin its case and lose half its moral purpose .sx Correspondingly , if the promise to treat everyone alike is faithfully fulfilled , its case and its purpose will be doubly strengthened .sx When the whole nation finds itself in the same boat there will be a corporate rush to man the pumps .sx The best will be brought out of the population .sx Once workers and workless see for themselves that employers and the middle classes are sharing in the sacrifice , the drive will largely go out of the Socialist argument .sx The best , indeed the only , way in which the Government can combat the misrepresentations of trade union propaganda , can knock the bottom out of the Opposition case , and can quell the disturbing risk of class feeling , is for it to demonstrate this week to the country and to the world , by the nature and scope of its proposals , that it is a National Government in deed as well as in name .sx This done , it can turn to Parliament and nation and demand their support as a right .sx The emergency is not yet ended ; time is still an important factor , and in putting through its programme the Government will be justified in having resort to any methods compatible with safety which it may deem necessary to overcome merely mischievous opposition .sx That this opposition will in any event be powerful and relentless is one of the certainties of the situation .sx The trade unionists are not going to give up their case merely because it has been exploded .sx The pound has to be strengthened , not only temporarily but permanently .sx The first need is still to convince the foreigner of our ability and determination to do this .sx It is therefore of the utmost importance that in accepting the sacrifices demanded of it this week the nation should as far as possible present a united and ungrudging front .sx If the world is convinced by our bearing during the coming days that we are really and truly in earnest , that will not only strengthen the hands of the Government , it will greatly strengthen the standing of the pound .sx BURYING THE CUSTOMS UNION .sx THE verdict - by a vote of eight to seven - of the Court of International Justice against the validity of the proposed Austro-German Customs Union , had become even before its announcement a matter of purely historical interest .sx The minority finding declares that the Court was set to decide the issue on strictly legal grounds , without any speculations as to political implications or future possibilities ; and that on these grounds the contemplated Union was valid .sx But before the verdict of the Court was published , the Austrian and German representatives at Geneva had already informed the Commission for European Union that their two countries did not propose to proceed with the project .sx It is possible that Austria and Germany were influenced in their decision by foreknowledge of the way the verdict at The Hague would go .sx However that may be , they have largely themselves to blame for the disturbance their proposal caused when originally made :sx it was launched with a minimum of tact or appropriate timing .sx But now that the projected agreement is to be put in the rack among the files of so many rejected international agreements , it becomes the duty of those who have killed it to offer something constructive in its place .sx Opposition to the Customs Union chiefly took the line that it would put an obstacle in the path of wider international understandings .sx If that is so , then , now that it is out of the way , there is a clear field for the promoters of those wider agreements to proceed with their plans .sx THE SCHNEIDER RACE .sx THERE is a natural disappointment that the race for the SCHNEIDER Trophy next Saturday will be robbed of international interest .sx Much of the thrill will necessarily go out of the event when Britain - barring a whole chapter of accidents - is the certain winner before she starts .sx There is something not too edifying about the way in which the race for this trophy is regarded by some of the projected competitors , and perhaps when this year's race has been technically " won , " and the trophy becomes the permanent property of the Royal Aero Club , there will be no particular lamentations if such contests come to an end .sx These races do much for aero design , and add great flying prestige to the winning country .sx There was good reason why , when Britain had won the SCHNEIDER Trophy twice in succession , she should not default this year , but should go on to win it a third time , and finally .sx The nation is grateful to Lady HOUSTON who supplied the funds , and to the pilots who have risked their lives in training , and - if rumour is correct - may be expected to beat the world's air speed record next Saturday by a shattering margin .sx Let that be theirs and the nation's reward ; and if the coming race should prove to be the last of its kind for some years , no one need sigh unduly .sx FLOOD .sx LARGE tracts of the English countryside lie at this moment under flood , as though the season were high winter .sx The libellous cognomen of February " fill-dyke " would seem more appropriate to this year's September .sx A summer of almost unexampled wetness would give way , one felt sure - with the invincible optimism of the English to a warm and beautiful September .sx But now that this fickle month is upon us it is outdoing all its predecessors in the fury of its downpours .sx The outlook is not exhilarating for the English people at a moment when a little sunshine would help them to bear with a more confident smile the sacrifices that are about to be demanded of them .sx But there are some to whom these continuously weeping skies mean more than mere mental depression .sx To farmers , hard hit already in more ways than one , the rain comes as a last blow to their pockets .sx The hopes of many of them have been washed away in the floods , and to them the rest of us - damp and chilly as we are - must extend the warmth of sympathy .sx THE GREAT UNWASHED .sx " BATHS ?sx " said the head of an Oxford College sometime last century , " baths ?sx What d'ye want with baths ?sx " The inhabitants of Mexico City would certainly sympathise with him .sx In Mexico City at 6 a.m. every day a stout bath-house squad tours the streets , and any person found unwashed is taken to the public shower baths and soused .sx Appalling , the degeneracy of the modern world .sx - Let princes revel at the pump , .sx Let peers with ponds make free - .sx but at least the foreigner , sir , used to be innocent of the taint of the bath .sx It was not washing made England what she is .sx Water was kept in its proper place at Trafalgar .sx But at this rate we shall soon be told that Waterloo was won , not on the playing fields of Eton , but in the baths of Peckham .sx THE WORLD AND RUSSIA .sx BOYCOTT OR NOT ?sx WHAT man living outside Russia can say he understands the Russian people to-day or the tyrannous system under which they are living ?sx Russia is vast enough and composed of divers enough elements for the most contradictory conditions to exist there side by side .sx Investigators who have returned from Russia and have made an honest attempt to remain impartial tell us that there is room in Russia for everything .sx The worst horrors , the starvation and the slavery are true , and , side by side with them , the stories of remarkable technical achievement and student enthusiasm are true also .sx On the one hand , reports of irreligion and licentiousness are correct ; on the other , there exists among many of the workers a quite extraordinary spirit of puritanism .sx The only truth about Russia , in fact , is that there is no truth about Russia - only a number of contradictory facts .sx Yet the only way in which Britain and the world in general can hope to understand her and meet the mighty problem which she poses to existing civilisation is to try to learn everything possible about her and not to be swayed by prejudice or indignation .sx This is difficult , because , as the BISHOP OF DURHAM eloquently put it in the debate in the House of Lords , the suffering and slavery now being endured in some parts of Russia arouse in us " sorrow , consternation , and shame .sx " " Moral disgrace , " said the BISHOP , " is what the British nation will be guilty of if it continues to tolerate these conditions .sx " There are many who will feel with him .sx But what is to be done ?sx Mere protest is of no avail ; we learned this at the time when religious persecution in Russia aroused such deep indignation among Englishmen .sx The only effective protest is not by words , but by deeds ; and this may be both difficult and dangerous .sx Let us pause in the argument for a moment and consider what is apparently happening in Russia .sx Through the maze of conflicting evidence it appears that a considerable measure of success seems likely to attend the Five Year Plan .sx In agriculture the Plan seems going well ; in industry less well .sx But the thing is on so colossal a scale that it can afford to fail in a number of particulars and yet achieve very formidable results .sx It is achieving them , it appears , at an appalling price in human suffering ; the dictators of Russia are pushing forward the Plan with a ruthlessness that shocks the conscience of a world trained to freedom and humanity .sx The State is all , the individual nothing :sx that is the doctrine , and in the process of its performance STALIN and his associates are building up before our eyes a colossal new national organism .sx Can it endure ?sx That is the question this country must ask itself if it is to find an answer to the other question - the question of what is to be its attitude to Russia .sx What does Russia mean to the world , and what will she mean in twenty or forty years' time ?sx Behind the Plan , the rulers of Russia have probably another plan .sx They have never abandoned the dream of proselytising the world for Bolshevism .sx The idea of the Plan , then , is not merely economic , but political ; Russia is building up a great new industrial organism , not only that she may be strong and self-supporting economically , but also that she may press her political beliefs upon the world .sx Bolshevism is a faith as well as a theory , and among the generations of Russians now growing up it seems to have something of the moral force of a religion .sx Deeds not words , we have seen , are the only effective means of protest .sx What does protest by deeds imply ?sx It can only imply one thing if it is to be effective , and that thing is Boycott .sx We can refuse to deal with Russia , diplomatically or economically .sx