VOICE OF THE NATIONS

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 223, 20 June 1925, Page 13

VOICE OF THE NATIONS

SAYINGS AND WRITINGS :: :: OF THE TIMES « ::

Where Revolution May Sprout. “While the solution of the housing problem tarries, the emergency increases in intensity before our eyes, and if it is not confronted now it will soon become unmanageable. Revolution is far more likely to break upon us out of those damp cellars, those broken-down garrets, those overcrowded and verminous warrens, than out of the theories of doctrinaLv Bolshevists. It is only the conditions that give the doctrines’ life and power. We quote Ruskin commending his doctrine to all who have ears to hear:—‘Our God is a household God as well as a heavenly one; He has an altar in every man’s dwelling; let men look to it when they rend it lightly and pour out its ashes.’ ” —The “British Weekly.”

Educational Films. “Teachers and children who have appeared before the Commission had little to say in favour of the educational film as it is at present shown in a mixed programme, though some mentioned the possibility of such films proving of educational value under favourable conditions and in close association with the work of the school. We were also told by representatives of the trade that the public would not tolerate a greater admixture of educational films than 10 per cent, in a mixed programme. . . . The Commission was thus driven to the conclusion that under the existing conditions the educational film had failed to make an appropriate appeal to the school child. It would appear to the Commission that, in the exhibition of films which combine matters of general with great educational interest, and which from their nature are not capable of direct observation by children, the kinema may prove a valuable adjunct to the school. This function of the kinema should, however, be clearly distinguished from that of its use as a means of direct education and as a part of the apparatus of the school. The confusion of the two functions has led to much misunderstanding. In the opinion of the Commission, no film of _ purely educational interest, which for its successful emnlovment needs preparatory work in the school, can serve any useful purpose in a mixed programme for adults and children.”—Report of a Committee of Investigation set up by the National Ccvucil of Public Morals. Crime in Statistics.

“Since the war crime appears to have assumed new forms. There has been a' great increase of certain descriptions of crimes of dishonesty accompanied by violence, of which breaking into unguarded shops and warehouses bynight and removing the goods or merchandise in motor-vans is a typical and frequent example. Crimes of this character have increased so extensively as to raise the total of all crimes. Frauds and commercial dishonesty have also flourished, and it may reasonably be suggested that both classes of offences are in many cases assignable to the long-continued debasing effects of the war on conduct and character. On the other hand, crimes of violence against the person and crimes savouring of habitual criminality tend to. diminish. Putting aside crimes against property, the opinion may be hazarded that crime in general has steadily diminished over a considerable term of years, and, in addition, the reduction is greatest in the more serious forms of law-breaking.”—A British Blue Book. The White Man in South Africa. “The white man’s function in South Africa at present is to act as trader, employer, teacher, or director of native labour. The unskilled and semiskilled work available for the white worker in other lands is done in Africa by the native at a scale which is several times lower than the white man’s meanest standard of existence. South Africa from end to end appeals, for more white people, but her practice is takings with natives, and to pay them o fill her factories and all her undera wage which keeps the white worker out of Africa as effectively as if he were not allowed to go there. There can be no objection to the black man doing the work for which his capacities are suitable. No British democrat would ever think of erecting a barrier against the development of the African native; but South Africa cannot have it both ways. She cannot at the same time have a satisfactory increase in the number of her white residents,, and pay for her work at a price on which the white man cannot live.”—Mr. H. Snell, M.P., a member of the British overseas delegation which recentlv visited South Africa.

Vanishing Flowers of Oratory.. “Such a splendid field for the exercise of eloquence as the Law Courts provide, coupled -with the stories told of great lawvers of the past who held audiences spellbound bv their oratorv, leads naturally to the expectation that at the Bar silvern speech will be found in its highest development. The facts somewhat contradict that idea. Hard would be the task of finding a single practising counsel of the present day of whom it could truthfullv he said that, by reason of his gifts of speech alone, he enthralls listeners. Forensic oratory is not only a sadly neglected but a rapidlv decaving art. The law makes no demand for rhetoric, and has remarkable few even moderately good rhetoricians. The law student may be advised, but he is not compelled, to study and practise elocution. He daily sees around him men at the Bar who have achieved success, not through their oratorical powers but in spite of a verv unworthv substitute for them, and. drawing the moral, be avoids the study.”—London “Dailv Telegraph.”

A Lost Impulse. “Work to-day is killing in so many cases creative impulse. The workers need not exert their ingenuity or their imagination, the} - merely do mechanically their allotted piece It is estimated that only a quarter of a normal intelligence is ever required, and the daily monotonv keeps the mind inactive. The pride in creative hand-work of earlier days has unfortunately been supplanted by the unbroken sameness of doing over and over one part, and not getting its relation to the finished product. For example, there are seventy different parts to a shoe, and having a limited area of work, like doing j nothing but evelets, dulls the mental- , ity, narrows thought, saps vigour, and I requires stimulating recreation to offset I it.”—Olive A. Colton, in “Scribner’s 1 Magazine."

Dole Addicts. “Drugs are a benediction, but they can become a curse. What was discoveied as a cure became a disease, and the menace was of such urgency that the Legislature passed the Dangerous Drugs Act in 1920, which imposed stringent regulations on the use of the specified drugs. The ideals associated with the dole are just those associated with dope. Both were intended as instruments of healing, and both became instruments of disease. For the new social disease we want something analagous to the Dangerous Drugs Act.” —Mr. J. A, Cairns in the “WeeklyDispatch.” The New Ifymnary. “Lately a revolution in hymns, hymn tunes, and even in hymn singing has been slowly and imperceptibly going on. It has been fostered by, and indeed is chiefly owing to the editors of the many new hymn books and new editions of old hymn books which have appeared since the beginning of the twentieth century. Pamphlets, lectures, hymn festivals have drawn attention to this new spirit, and there is no reason now why any choirs and congregations should go jogging sleepily on in the old, bad -ways.”—Lady Mary Trefusis, in the “Church Assembly News.” Leave it to the Birds.

“The belief that birds in a garden are mischievously destructive is an error that arises from lack of observation. For the most part they destroy only what needs destroying, and must be destroyed somehow if a garden is to become a thing of beauty and a joy to its owner. The great enemies of the gardener are insect pests, and to a less degree weeds. In annihilating the former birds are far more effective than insecticides. The latter may be sprayed on a tree with no other result than to wash down the outer bark. But the bird seeks in crevices and crutches, for it is in search of food and knows by instinct where to look for it. If you want your roses cleared of green fly and your beds of grubs, let the birds do the job.”—A contributor to the “Daily Mail.”

Fiction or Sewage? “Looking at modern fiction in a rough sort of way, there are evident two depressing sets cf symptoms—one is internal, the other is external. The internal symptom ,s a horrible emptiness. There is nothing there. So much of what is called the ‘modern significant fiction’ of our time seems to be hopelessly empty, and there is in some cases a rather dreary trickle of impropriety. As oue who has spent a good part of his time as a lawyer, I am not squeamish, but much modern fiction is like the overflow from the gasworks, or like going for a walk with an interesting companion and being reminded, at intervals, that over the hill was a sewage fatm."—Philip Guedalla, in the “Sunday School Chronicle.”

England’s Population. “England is increasing from her lower classes, and to them, as a whole, the English home has never been more than a dream. Two or three generations of bad housing, of evil surroundings, of daily confinement in stuffy and clamorous offices and workshops, do not produce the happy children of a home. In England arid Germany. that question of unemployment is tragically acute; and it is the foundation of the population question. If England cannot maintain the people she produce* she must export them. But the old passion for emigration, which made the British Empire, hardly exists to-day. England’s population inhabits the long lines of unventilated sordidness, and # learns no enterprise from the dead monotony of its surroundings and the mechanical round of its work.”—Robert Sencour, in the “Atlantic Monthly.”

A Huge Tax on Industry. “Alreadv industry bears a charge of £36,000,000 a year for unemployment insurance. It has to provide £26,000,000 a year for health insurance. The new burden is estimated variously at £14,000,000 to £20,000,000. This may not look a very big thing, but at a time of strain even straws may break the camel’s back. We cannot agree that it is a straw. In the coal industry, for example, the burden would be close on a million, a sum quite _ sufficient, in the desperate state of mining, to produce the direst effects.” —“Evening Standard.”

The Cogs in the Machine. “The next time you eat a caramel think of the girl who wraps nine thousand of them every day in those little papers. Would you care to put twenty-one hundred cakes of soap a dav in wrappers, or drill thousands of holes in a tube and then thousands and thousands more, only to find more thousands to be drilled each. morning if vou are to make your living? A young worker in a canning factory, who had no adjustable stool and whose back was consequently round from stooping to reach the lever that drilled through small strips of tin, heard the others tell a new hand who spoke of being tired that she would get used to the work. ‘No,’ she protested, ‘it ain’t that, you get used to being tired.’ Overwork does two things: rt breaks and it hardens; and when. I see a calloused working woman with the coarse laugh and the sharp tongue that denote a defeated life, I see also a vision behind her, the woman she might have been had a wiser generation directed her to the things that are lovely and of good report.”— Olive A. Colton, in “Scribner’s Magazine.”

To the Highest Bidder. “The sad fact has to be confessed that few, if any, men in this country can compete financially with wealthy Americans in the art market. The sale of a picture, like the sale of anything else, is not necessarily affected by any sentimental considerations. The picture goes to the highest bidder, and our Peers are not so rich to-day that they can be blamed for accepting the largest price. The suggestion that such sales should be subject to a tax is not, perhaps, a happv one, for such a tax, to be effective, would have to be extremely high. There is only one way of preventing great art treasures from leaving this country, and that is for the nation to become the purchaser. If the nation makes a fair effer, no Englishman could verv- well reject it in favour of an America’n bid. But, in face of American wealth, this nation might well hesitate before competing as a purchaser of art treasures.”—-“Daily JJewa/’