WHAT THE PAPERS SAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 17, 20 January 1934, Page 8

WHAT THE PAPERS SAY.

POINTS FROM THE PRESS.

PROTECTION' FOR BATHERS. On nearly nil the hotter-known heaches, .from Auckland to Invercargill, there are now fully equipped and thoroughly trained surf clubs whose members guard the public safety and carry out rescues from time to time as a matter of course. It is a little over a year since surf life-saving work on the beaches was placed on a properly-organised national basis by tho formation of the New Zealand Surf Association. This body has set itself tho task of standardising ' equipment and rescue methods with a view to ensuring that no matter liow isolated tho location of the surf) club it will be able to give to bathers on its beach tho very best protection that experience elsewhere has been able to evolve. The irony of it is that surf patrols not only perform a magnificent service for the welfare of the community, but they also pay for it themselves. The great majority of the people who benefit arc city folk, and plain, common sense suggests that the city should bear the greater part of the cost- of maintaining permanent beach patrols and, if need be, providing suitable surf boats for rescue work. — "Christchurch Times."

DO WE LAUGH ENOUGH? It is well, on occasion, to see ourselves as others see us. New Zcalanders have endured some twitting from outsiders for wearing long faces during the economic depression, and perhaps they merited it. ißut it is not a phase so much as an aspect of our national deportment that was indicated by a distinguished Australian visitor, who, in the course of an interview at Christchurch, said he had 'been much struck by the absence of laughter among the people of New Zealand, and particularly in tho 'South Island and Wellington. Is tho criticism just, and do wo as a people fall short of Australian standards of liglitheartedness, and do we generally exercise too little those facial muscles and those vocal chords which produce laughter? It is rather curious that wo have not been pilloried as a nation of sobersides many a time and oft ere this if our Australian visitor has shrewdly touched upon one of our temperamental deficiencies. When our visitor implies that in New Zealand the absence of laughter is especially noticeable from Wellington downwards he_raises a more significant and controversial aspect of the question than perhaps he realises. There is a popular idea, and there is 110 doubt something in it, that laughter and sunshine keep company. Gaiety among peoples is largely associated with environment. —"Otago Daily Times." * » » • LITTER ON BEACHES. The Health Department recently published an admirable set of hints for campers. The aim was to preserve health and comfort by attention to simple rules of hygiene and tidiness. Some picnickers need similar instruction. More or loss there is danger 011 most beaches, especially where strong tides do not make a quick clearance of litter. Broken glass, and old tins are to be found under water and in the dry sand, and it is surprising that there are not many more complaints of cuts where hundreds of young children play. The, remedy is largely in the hands of the picnickers themselves. Tho beach-controlling authorities can help by providing rubbish receptacles and displaying warning notices —strongly worded— but the public must enforce the observance. It is 110 hardship to carry away an empty bottle, or meat or cigarette tin if one lias the habit of tidiness. At the old Ball Hut at the foot of the Tasman Glacier, where hundreds of tourists lived mainly 011 tinned provisions, £here was not an empty tin to be seen, becauso there was a rule (and guides saw that it was observed) that all empty containers should bo carried to a dump. It is not merely a question of preventing unsightly litter on the beaches. There is positive danger to bathers and young paddlers.—"Evening 1 Post," Wellington.'