NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 228, 9 July 1941, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

MOBILISING MANPOWER. “In fighting a war of this character the proper use of man and womanpower is absolutely vital,” said Mr Ernest Bevin, British Minister of Labour, in a recent address. “The forces, civil defence services, production departments and industry all make their claims upon the Ministry of Labour and National Service to supply them with their requirements. First we have to obtain this labour power and then distribute it so that it may produce the most effective results for the prosecution of the war. It is a complex problem. There will be from now on a tremendous call on man-power, and much readjustment is necessary. The Navy. Army and Air Force must be brought up to strength ; the civil defences must be completed in their organisation and personnel and simultaneously the demands of war industry must be met.”

DIVORCE OF ARTS FROM LIFE,

While condemning the view that the man in the street should be the judge of poetry and the arts, Mr J. A Spender does consider that there should be some consideration for the tastes and opinions of the moderately welleducated, and not wholly ignorant, middle-class of intellectuals through whom in almost all ages those arts have had their influence on the great majority. Owing to the almost complete capture of criticism by the. “advanced” belligerents, he writes to “The Times,” wo of this class find ourselves flattened out and voiceless. Almost everything that comes within the range of our understanding is condemned as “traditional” and out of date. This, in our view, is one of the main causes of the divorce between the arts and the common life which is a special feature of those times. The modern poets may he widely circulated in their own circles, hut they have none of the influence which the acknowledged poets had on the whole reading public 50 years ago. Nor are we consoled on the political side. It is quite true that the advanced young men have fulminated against Fascism, but they have also been unstinted admirers of Communism, which in the one country in which it is practised appears to ho indistinguishable from Fascism in its effect upon the things that wo value and think essential to the good life of intelligent men and women. This, in our view is not a useful wav of correcting reactionary tendencies. Wherever Communism lias gained a footing it has brought Fascism in its train.