NOTES AND COMMENTS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 58, Issue 37, 23 November 1937, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS

A STEADYING FACTOR. So long as our European militarists, writes Mr J. A. Spender in the “Yorkshire Observer,” continue to talk in mediaeval language about the glories of war, and to educate their youth for the battlefield as if it were a romantic adventure, we must keep them reminded of the realities of the world in which both they and we are living. One of these realities —and it is on the whole the most comforting—is that there is not at this moment a general staff in Europe which would assure its Government of victory in war, or even of a measure of success which would not be neutralised by more than the equivalent destruction. The art of war was never in such a chaotic condition or its hazards more incalculable. I do not say that this is a final guarantee against reckless folly or madness, but it is, I believe, a steadying factor of much higher value than is generally recognised. No one who tries to inform himself about European affairs can fail to be aware that the advice given by military and naval experts to their Governments is of a very different nature from what the shouting and flourishing of the political protagonists might lead us to suppose. FEAR AND FUSS ABOUT FOOD. Fear and fuss contributed a lot toward “the dis-enjoyment of food,” said Lord Horder, the eminent physician, in addressing the "Wine and Food Society’s conference in London. “There are many people who are not actually unhappy,” he said, “but they have no food-sense. They eat because of some idea. I would include among them some vegetarians, people with ‘anti’ minds, and people with a lust for being peculiar. A gaunt thin woman once consulted me. She complained that she Avas not feeling any better for a diet of raw root vegetables which had been prescribed for her by her doctor. I suggested that he had not gone far enough. ‘Hoav do you know,’ I asked, ‘that these carrots and turnips Avould not suit you better if you went about on all fours?’ These people rarely have a sense of humour. She asked me if I thought that would make an improvement!”