THE WAY OF THE WORLD.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 239, 9 October 1934, Page 6

THE WAY OF THE WORLD.

UNIVERSITIES AND BUSINESS.

A TITHE WAR

(By NELLK M. SCANLAN.) LONDON, September 5. The world of commerce has not always looked kindly on the university man, who comes to town, with degrees thick upon him, and a very superior air. Industrial magnates were inclined to pride themselves upon their humble beginning, their limited education, and. their lack of initial finance. They spoke with, pride of night schools, of working' long hours at the age of twelve for a few shillings a week. Hardship made men of them; it encouraged thrift and fed ambition. They knew the ropes, and had worked up from the bottom rung. We have heard it again and again. Probably their attitude, when heads of vast commercial concerns, had something to do with the prejudice against the university man in business. He was too old when ho began, and they preferred to get them early. His education was classical and not practical. He suffered from intellectual superiority, a distasteful form of: snobbishness to the selfmade man.

A Changing Attitude. That attitude is changing. More and more young men with university education are finding it necessary to earn a living, and have slender, if any, private means. It was different before the war. The Army and the Navy offer a restricted field these days. There is the Civil Service, and the Indian and Colonial services abroad, but not every man wants to stew in the tropics. The professions are crowded, and, for many, not very remunerative. The City, finance and trade are becoming more popular for university men to-day. In several big shops in Oxford Street you may be served by good-looking, wellmannered public school men. They are learning the business of some retail trade. They will not always servo behind the counter; it is just part of their training for more responsible administrative posts, but they have to go through it. The Cambridge Appointment Board, which finds positions for Cambridge men who come down with degrees, has just stated that there is a striking improvement in the increase in business appointments. Every year about 800 young men go to them for jobs. Probably 100 find their own positions, another 100 stay up a fourth year, and possibly 100 go into the Civil Service or the Army. Up to date, 436 Cambridge graduates have been found employment, against 309 last year, for a similar period. And this is only one university. While Irish farmers are resisting the payment of the land annuities and their cattle are being seized and sold, with some fighting thrown in, the English farmers in some parts arc refusing to pay the ancient tithes. There have been some active protests by organised farmers when the authorities come to seize cattle and stock in lieu of payment. An amusing incident happened yesterday, already known as "The Battle of the Ducks." A Kentish farmer had refused to pay his tithes, and the authorities seized his ducks.'and conveyed them to the ecclesiastical farm, for the tithe is an old form of Church payment. That night over a hundred farmers organised a midnight raid to reclaim the ducks for the owner. They had a secret rendezvous, and the password was "Socks." They met at midnight, forty motor cars, loaded with farmers and their sons, and with lights out they crept along the lanes, a dim, mysterious procession. After several scares they got the ducks, and returned in triumph to the farmer, and liberated the quacking heroes in their own duck pond about four o'clock in the morning. There were sixty ducks, worth about GO/. Of course, the police were notified, and they set out to catch the ducks again, and return them to the ecclesiastical farm. Dozens of police arrived, and spent hours rounding up the indignant ducks, and one entirely eluded them, hiding under a pile of hop poles. And even she had the temerity to lay an egg, despite the night's excitement. Now the question is, to whom does that egg belong. It should have been laid on the ecclesiastical farm, but due to the unlawful raid it was laid near the farmer's duck pond. It is a knotty problem. Meanwhile the police are guarding those three pounds' worth of ducks to prevent a furth'r raid.

A Newspaper Strike. Probably the most extraordinary event in Ireland at the moment is that the Dublin newspapers have been on strike for about six weeks. Already the loss is estimated at £250,000, but they can't come to terms. The people who get English papers regularly may still obtain them, but no augmented supplies are permitted to enter the country. All around Dublin, not only the city itself, but in the villages and districts which depended upon Dublin for news, they now live on rumours. They have no news, and even the broadcast station does not give it. Wild stories pass from one point to another: War has broken out in Europe, Mussolini has been assassinated; a general strike in England. The wildest of the wild rumours start off, and can never be tracked down. No one knows what is happening in the outside world. They don't even know what is happening in their own country. I don't know what the strike is about, but I hear tho printers want the right to censor the editorial matter. There is a definite split between General O'Duffy and his Blue Shirts and Mr. Cosgrave, the ex-President. Mr. Cosgrave, who showed by his attitude during his fruitful years of administration that he was not to bo stampeded into reckless action, is opposed to the growing militant of the Blue Shirts. He does not want Fascism in Ireland. It is alien to their temperament. Nor docs he approve of militant measures to compel a United Ireland. The North will never join the South under compulsion. Such action only widens the breach, and stirs uphold feuds. Mr. Cosgrave believes that a United Ireland will come about only when a new generation arises, and old hates are forgotten. LEAGUE LOYALTY, Professor Gilbert Murray applies, in an article which we publish, a practical test to professions of loyalty to the League of Nations (says the "Manchester Guardian"). It is, in effect, to ask the Government of each Stat© member of the League, "What are you doing —how much are you spending—to teach your people what the League is and does?" There are very few Governments which could give an honourable reply to that question, and it is pleasant to think that ours is among them, though, as Professor Murray says, Great Britain contributes a good deal less than Prance does to the Commission of Intellectual Co-operation; and perhaps it may be argued that such teaching as there is here about the work of the League is due to the initiative and enthusiasm of the teachers themselves, supported in many cases by tho local educational authorities, rather than to any encouragement given by the Government as such. Still, tho fact remains that a great many English children are taught something about the aims and the methods of the League; it becomes a part of their political consciousness, and the psychological basis of international co-operation is laid. In far too few countries is even this much attempted. Professor Murray recalls the derisive reception given to the suggestion of the sub-committee on Moral Disarmament that Governments throughout Europe should spend" one pound on League education for every thousand pounds spent on armaments. Where their treasure is there are their hearts also.