VOICE OF THE NATIONS

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 53, 25 November 1922, Page 11

VOICE OF THE NATIONS

SAYINGS AND WRITINGS :• •: OF THE TIMES :: ::

Australia’s Divided House. , “What differentiates the two great parties in Australia,, to-day ? Just that one thing—the National Party stands for the rule of law, the official Labour Party, honeycombed'as it is by Bolshevik doctrines, .stands for direct action.”—Mr. W. M- Hughes, In an election campaign speech. The Rule of the Air. “Something might bg done by making air forces special" weapons which the League of Nations would have the right to call upon in order to carry out ' Its duties under the Covenant and, more particularly, which the guarantor Powers would have the right to call upon in execution of the provisions of the Treaty of Guarantees.”—Lord Robert Cecil at Geneva. The Right of the Child. “Much progress has been made in recent decades in reducing the waste in human life by overcoming disease. Sut who can doubt that if every, child ad a proper physical start in life the problem of eliminating the maladies that attack in later years would be much simpler of solution? Sociologists used to be fond of speaking of the “right to be well born.” Every child certainly has a right to expect that his parents will care for him intelligently in the period when he is not capable of caring for himself.”— New York “Sun.”.

The New Spirit of Demand. “There is everywhere 'a disposition bo scrutinise, to question, to examine •minutely into social and economic institutions. \ . . We shall gain nothin" by charging, that this spirit proceeds from malevolence and testifies a disordered state of mind. ■We ought to recognise that it largely represents a sincere wish to improve conditions. History teaches that blind efforts to obstruct such ■ movements have often produced momentary disaster, but never prevented ultimate advance.”— President Harding (U.S.A.), in a letter to the American Bankers’ Convention. Authority's Children.

“Since the breakdown of the mediaeval Church hierarchy and the dissolution of a single civilisation based upon religious authority, all the chickens of the old hen, Authority, have run to the water, and declared themselves independent ducklings. Law, trade, philosophy, science, and lately even education and charity, have successively read their;declaration of independence, have become bitterly critical, of outside authority, and have claimed for their ideals an intrinsic value, and for their methods an autonomous character, determined from within by the nature of the task itself.”—G. E. Newson, in “The Pilgrim."

’•rohabodl” (American Version). “There have always been those who held that civilisation is a slow, but fatal disease, that nations and races die of old ago after a variously estimated fixed period, and. that every effort of man to domesticate himself is foredoomed to failure. Not since the fall of the Boman Empire, dr at least since the Thirty Years’ War, which swept away one-third of the population of Europe, has the Western world faced so many troubles, or had so many prophets of disaster as at present. .’. . As al reaction from our Wonderful, unanimity and self-subordin-ation ' during the war, we now have an opposite extreme of party and sectional strife. There .is also a new spirit of, independence in India. Egypt, Ireland, Poland, and a dozen more nations down to poor Armenia, with a new race consciousness in the American negro.”—Dr. Stanlev Hall in the “Century Magazine.” Australia’s Need.

“IL prosperity is io be our portion, wo shall require a str one stable, and Bound Government. Nations . are like individuals, and require a guiding end restraining hand even more in their Hours of prosperity than of adversity. If, on the other/hand, a solution cannot be found. ( of the world’s problems I. have indicated, then our material circumstances wjll decline, our surplus production will be unsaleable, and we shall be faced with a period of the gravest doubt nnd difficulty. To meet such circumstances we shall assuredly need a strong, sane, and stable, Minister to tide us over this period of stress and danger, and to prevent the growth in this young land of those doctrines, of Bolshevism, anarchy., and revolution with, which the older countries of the world will be nermeatedJ’—Mr; Bruce, Commonwealth Treasurer. Preventable Accidents.

"Within our recollection, at least, the number of deaths in battle have been very small as compared with the number resulting from accidents. Accidents are not confined to tte dwellings or railroads or shins. Thev occur in mines, in hunting and fishing localities; in fact, in every place where humanity exists. Carelessness, a mistake, thoughtlessness, . false bravery iieo'oct to protect ourselves and others —all these are more or.less responsible. Now, what are we going to do about dancers and accidents? Shall we bo indifferent, or shall we conclude that to the extent we ca.n prevent, but fail, we are morally almost as much responsible as we would be if. we caused or volnntarilv narticinated in-the preventable accidents?”—Judge Geary, head of the Anferican Steel Trust. The Naval Burden.

Our sorely-burdened people at home cannot be ‘blamed for asking why they should have to pay £60,000,000 for a Naw which, if it fights at all, will probably have to fight on the farther side of the globe. Whatever scheme mav be devised. Great Britain must inevitablv contribute the lions share, and will do so gladly if she knows that the other parties are honestly pulling their weight. We are certain, however, that most people in the Dominions appreciate the glaring Injustice of the present system, under which the Mother Country, saddled as ft is with other heavy responsibilities, has to bear practically the entire burden ,of defending the Empire.”— '"Naval and Military Record.?’

I war-sick Britain. “In this crisis the public opinion of I this country has declared itself emphatically in favour of peace and of a friendly settlement with Turkey. Neither ■'lnrace nor Adrianople is a fundamental British interest. The freedom of the Straits itself iS an international, not 1 an exclusively British, interest. This country has not the slightest desire to go to war for the sake of Eastern Thrace.”—London "Morning Post.” The voice of the Creek. ?"The Turkish Empire is being reconstituted. = Turkey is again becoming a European Power, and the Balkan Peninsula is again exposed to new dangers, *or rather to the old ones. Since the beginning of the war, Turkey has destroyed in Asia Minor between a million and a half and two million Greeks and Armenians. Surely our former Allies ars in duty boundto help in averting the extermination of yet another million upon the soil of Europe itself.” —M. Venizelos, in the London "Times.” According to Mussolini. “We must subject ourselves to an iron discipline or else we should have no right to impose it upon the nation. Discipline alone will enable Italy to make, her voice heard among other nations. Discipline should be accepted; if not accepted, it must be imposed. . .(.'We tire an army, and because we have chosen that special constitution, our life and our actions must be founded upon discipline. Italy’s voice to be heard among-other nations. Italy will no longer carry out a policy of cowardly whatever the cost may be.”—Signor Mussolini. Italy’s Fascisti Premier, in a recent speech. Mr. W. M. Hughes’s "Ego.” “Mr. Hughes cannot conceal the fact that his personal ascendancy in politics is more important to him than is the triumph of those political principles for which he and Sir Henry Barwell both stand. It is not enough for Mr. Hughes that the Labour socialistic policy should be defeated at the elections. It must be defeated by him and his nominees, and the business of the nominees later will be to cheer while he mounts the rostrum and declares ‘Alone I did it.’ . There is no evidence that the public as a whole shares Mr. Hughes’s estimate of his own importarfce or his town power.—Melbourne “Argus”,. The Appeal to the Dominions.

“The appeal which we made to .Australia and New Zealand more particularly was addressed to them because they had a very special interest in the defence of Gallipoli. They made gieat sacrifices of thousands of tneir most heroic sons in order to achieve the freedom of the Straits, and we felt that when that freedom was challenged they had a right to associate themselves with' us in any action we took to maintain what it has cost them so much to achieve. We are not establishing a sort of British Gibraltar. All w© want is'that the League, of Nations should’ guarantee the freedom of the Straits in the interests cf.idl nac tions. That is all we ask.”—Mr. Lloyd George. Win For Irish Government, “The settlement of the Irish 'Post Office strike is of enormous importance in the new conditions in Ireland. It stands as the first clear victory for the new Government in the assertion of its authority. This wag no ordinary industrial dispute. The strike was a challenge, on the part of; a largo Body of Civil servants, of the position of the Provisional Government. Had it succeeded in compelling the surrender of the new Ministers there would have been no effective authority in Southern Ireland at all. In those circumstances the Government was compelled to fight, and to insist on terms m the end which would be a clear victory for the Centra] Government. Those terms it has Won. The Government has shown its mettle; it has proved that it has the capacity to rule and the will to discharge the duties that fall upon it. Time for Science to Hustle “What are the scientists doing to foster increased interest 'in their work? Since they are urgently in need.of funds, it is vitally important that the public, the great purse-bearer, should understand that they are serving mankind better than the politicians or the economists. Science sits in the ashes like Cinderella: her elder sisters, classical learning and the Law, having all the cash and credit. The State gives her but a paltry dole, and so far as she is concerned, the .‘pious founder* is practically non-existent. Publicity is the only remedy, and our scientists, as a body, are greatly to be blamed for not devising some system of .propaganda which , would keep the public informed of their discoveries and inventions. .Some scheme is required which would do throughout the yen’ what the British Association for the Advancement of Science does for a few days in September. —London “Mom- 1 ing Post;” America’s Mistakes. “The Americans have made almost as many mistakes as any other nation would have made. ■ They have been reckless with their natural resources; they have flooded their country with undesirable immigrants, from the most troublesome races in Europe; 'they have mismanaged the negro problem. and they have allowed the relations of Capital and Labour to become worse than, in any other country .in the world. ’» Their very immunity from foreign attack greatly increases the danger of a class war, for European countries are too much afraid of each other to push their internal quarrels to extremes. But, in spite of this, tho future of America is more secure than that of any European ' country. The twentieth century belongs to the United States.’ — Dean Inge, in a review of “The Constitution of tho United States,. .by Janies Besk. LL.D.. U.S.. \ SolicitorGeneral of the United States.

The League’s New Spirit. There has beep a new boldness, a new spirit of confidence, at the assembly of the League of Nations, which has just closed at Geneva, which has greatly cheered ilo British friends. Tho authority of the League of Nations has been established. Excellent progress lias been accomplished on behalf of - disarmament, but by far the most important work has been deno In connection with tho problem of Austria. The way in, which the Austrian question has been handled is triumphant. —“British Weekly.”

New Zealand Genius. “He is a New Zealander by birth, a Cambridge man by education, a Canadian by reason of .his professorship at McGill, and he is known in this country as Director of tho famous Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge, and the successor of Davy, Tindall, nnd ‘J. J. Thomson at the. Royal Institution. It was Sir Ernest Rutherfurd who announced last year his belief that eleo tricity was not fluid but atomic, and next year, at Liverpool, wo may expect to hear more about his favourite radium.” —Tho “Morning Post.” on Sir Ernest Rutherfurd.

Visitors to Geneva. “Each felt that the League had and must have a moral claim on society and that anybody , who expressed indifference or apathy towards it . was falling short in his duty as a citizen In short, the people came as men i the street’ —they departed as missionaries.’ ’ — l ‘Head way.” The Need for Thought. “We must all do our own thinking, and wo must got nd of that fatal prejudice of an Englishman that it n a more concrete piece of idealism ti give sixpence, to than to forr i a sound opinion. It is time the gone ■ fellow we all know raised his Ito the level of his actions.’ — ‘Ch'al fenge.”

(Trials of the Country Clergy. ’ "The strain of giving sound and continuous instruction, one hundred and fifty times in the year, to a handful of not over sophisticated farmers is trying the ordinary cleric rather high/ Nor does every man receive, as part of the grace or ordination, power to feel interest in turnips and mustard, cricket, and petrol.”—“Church Family Newspaper.” Have Pity on Men! “Women who make heavy demands on the husband coming home from town only too often fail. to realise how uneconomic their policy is, for an overtaxed, irritable man may lose pounds in business in return for the. few pence he has saved at home.”— “Westminster Gazette.”