VOICE of the NATIONS

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 52, 24 November 1928, Page 17

VOICE of the NATIONS

SAYINGS AND WRITINGS S: s QE THE TIMES ::

British Election Prophecy. “We remain of the view that the Unionist Party will lose more seats than its managers suppose. But we see no sign whatever o£ a Unionist debacle as in 1923, nor anything like it. We believe that at the worst the Unionists will number half the House or so nearly half that the result of the General Election may very well be in effect—under the three-party system—more like a tie than anything known since the memorable situation at the end of 1885. That situation changed the whole face of politics for many years, and so, though in an utterly different way, it may be again. At least we must all begin to prepare our minds for that possibility.”—Mr. J. L. Garvin, in “The Observer?’ Free Trade and Tariffs. Both free-traders and tariff addicts are given to greatly exaggerating their case. That free-trade made possible the enormous growth of the country in wealth and population during the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth should be self-evi-dent ; but that It contributed at the same time to a lop-sided and unhealthy development of. national life is not less so. In the same way, protective tariffs in certain countries have visibly hindered the growth of wealth and population in some countries and benefited theni in others. The truth seems clear that tariffs have not necessarily the magic results for good or evil that protectionists and free-trad-ers respectively attribute to them. Whether the fiscal policy of a nation should proceed in one direction or the other Is a mere question of the balance of expediency, and must depend on the circumstances of the time and the place. Looking at the: matter from this point of view, I would not refuse i the benefit of the “Safeguarding” Act to the heavy industries in the abnormal circumstances of the present day. There Is a certain amount of plausible argument for it as well as against it, and when things are as bad as they are at present reasonable people will not refuse to try an experiment which offers any chance of Improvement But such a step should only be regarded as an experiment, the full consequences, direct and indirect, of which will be reviewed within a limited time.”— “Scrutator” in London “Truth.” A National Opportunity. "The first demonstration of the talking film has been successfully made and favourably received in England,” says the “Sunday Dispatch” (London) “and it may be said that the new art is now launched on its career. Where that’ career may lead we can but speculate, but he would be a bold man who would place limits on its possibilities. We have called this a new art, but it is also a new industry. Great Britain made a bad start with the kinema, for in the critical years of its development we were deeply engaged in the.great war. So the United States secured an enormous lead. There is no reason why we should not lead in this new race, where we start fair. We believe that Britain can out-distance all competitors by the superiority of natural talent, and more particularly because the elocution of our actors and actresses will be preferred in all lands where the purity and beauty of the English tongue retains its appeal.”— “Sunday Dispatch.” Christian Economics. ‘‘We must try and change men’s attitude to the acquisition of money. Let us show them how small a thing it is after all to acquire a fortune. It does not demand any of the higher qualities of mind or heart Shrewedness is not , exactly a Christian virtue. It takes a ■ higher type of ability-to write a beautifiil hymn, or paint a beautiful picture, or preach a good sermon, than it does to make a mint of money. As a Accessary corollary to the attitude of Jesus.- towards wealth we must teach Christian Christian Economics is as vital as Christian Ethics. Economics is not a positive science whose laws are fixed by nature. An economic law is. just a description of the way men act in the ordinary business of life. If they acted differently the laws would be different. Buying in the cheapest market and selling In the dearest is not a law of nature, but a statement of what you may expect men usually to do. The true end of economics is the wealth, the well-being of the whole community. Its first law is first things first. We should rightly blame a mother who, to gratify her vanity, bought an evening dress before ehe-bought a winter overcoat Tor her son, and a father who spent money on drink when his children were needing food. In the same way, we are bound to blame society for building luxurious hotels and palatial klnemas while thousands and thousands of its members are housed in dirty slums.”—Rev. 8.. Smith, chairman of the Leeds Congratlonal Union, at the Union Assembly. The Coal Wasters.

~~ “If a commercially practicable method exists by which coal can be separated into its various constituents •and the .full value of each separately .extracted, the public should, and no doubt in the course of time will, Insist that' such a' method be compulsory, and that to burn coal in the present fashion is an offence against the State, punishable by law as a criminal wasting of the nation’s chief asset. When that time comes, our ships and locomotives will be burning pulverised carbon;-we shall be exporters instead of importers of oil; . our grates will be supplied with carbon briquettes; the "mining industry will be as prosperous ’.aif/jn l the nineteenth century, and our ■*4radS.will heed no protective barriers against competition. Science has proved that coal can be so separated by Igw temperature carbonisation, and private enterprise has at last arrived of separation which is commercially practicable.”—“The New

Workmen as Partners.

“I never go into the mills in the West Riding and look at a girl working at the looms without wondering whether those who spend their lives in that way fee! the monotonly that I know I should feel if I had to do it. I think there is no system which we can devise in this country which will make occupations interesting to everybody, but what we can do is to revise and promote the relations between the different partners in industry so as to give the individual workman more of a sense that he is a partner in the concern than he is to-day.”—Sir John Simon.

Modem Leadership. ... “Leadership to-day is largely a question of technique. If you know the science of your job you become a leader. If you can guide a discussion at a board meeting you become a leader. The old autocratic leader Is disappearing,” said Miss Mary Follett, the writer on sociological subjects at a recent Oxford Conference. “The successful leader now trains his subordinates to control the situation themselves. He teaches them to use their own ideas, not his. I belong to a generation which was taught that the leader is born, not made. We must teach modern youth that to-day, more and more, the world gives them their chance according to their ability. I know there are 1000 instances of personal domination by aggressive men, but it is true at the same time that there is a tendency towards group leadership in this new world of ours which is steadily growing.” Party Politics.

“We are sometimes told that the party politician surrenders his soul and sacrifices his principles when he labels himself Liberal or Labour or Conservatives,” writes Mr. Robert Lynd in the “Daily News.” “But he does this only in the sense in which every man. who joins a committee does the same thing. He undoubtedly gives way on some points in order that he may win the assistance of his fellow-members on others. The people who denounce party politics have, as a rule, far more partl-» san minds than the most confirmed party hack. They mean by the abolition of party politics the abolition of the party of their opponents. Party politics,.on the other hand, was born of the spirit of tolerance. To believe in it is to believe In fair play for the other side. It was Introduced into England when ‘the country’ got sick of executing and exiling men merely for the difference of a political opinion. You can abolish party politics only at the price of reintroducing the penalty of exile or worse, as has been done in Italy. Hence I believe that what ‘the country’ wants most is the revival and perpetuation of party politics, and a general election as exciting as general elections were In the days of Gladstone and the days of Chamberlain.” Great Mothers. “As to character being due mainly to one’s mother, I base my belief on those of my own personal friends who have become celebrated," writes Sir Alfred Yarrow in the “Dally Chronicle.” “I have known many, and have no hesitation in saying that, according to my observations, their characters are mainly due to their mothers and their physical qualities to their fathers. At any rate, one does not find eminent men with a fool for a mother!” ( Aristocrats and Democrats.

The disappearance of aristocratic influences in European life will have much the same effect in all countries.. We doubt if it will lessen the possibility of war. Aristocrats are, no doubt, militarists; .but they have also a good deal of shrewd common-sense, and count the odds, whether it is a question of beginning or continuing hostilities. The bourgeois politician is far more likely to be swayed by the passion of the hour and to yield to an outburst of jingoism. Politics will almost certainly be more corrupt under a democracy than under an aristor cracy. On the other hand, they will be more humane, and new experiments will be more readily tried. The danger is that, as in ancient Hellas, democracy will, in the end, give place to an oligarchy of wealth. Religion will not, in the end, lose. Aristocracy was no creation of Christianity. It is, in fact, a pagan survival. Catholicism sought to purify it by teaching it chivalry; but the lesson was in the best of times imperfectly learned, and the principle of aristocracy, with all its charm and attraction, remains pagan.”—“Church Times.”

Elections and Public Opinion. “Elections and Parliament do not primarily serve the purpose of determining public opinion in arithmetic terms; they constitute an elaborate system of political tests which, just as Civil Service examinations, are irrelevant in most of their apparent searchings, and yet fundamentally effective. The capacity for expressing in an articulate form that which germinates in the minds of other people, and for co-operating with other men, is continually tested in British public life. Undoubtedly most dictators have public opinion behind them when they first seize power, and they usually plead this for their excuse. But dictatorships offer no possibility for change or for a free renewal of the mandate; they realise the precept which Machiavelli gives to prophets to acquire power while men believe in them, so as to be able to enforce faith after it is gone. It is change which constitutes the very nature of representative and responsible government, and, curiously enough, under the present system of party politics the chances of change decrease with the arithmetic accuracy of election returns, for the great mass of the electorate always votes the same way, and changes occur only in a narrow margin, whose oscillations acquire under our present system a conveniently disproportionate importance.”— L. B. Namier, in “The Nation.’’-