VOICE of the NATIONS

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 81, 29 December 1928, Page 13

VOICE of the NATIONS

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

A Sermon in Stone. “The Cenotaph is triumphantly our sermon on the Great War, because it says so little outwardly, and thinks so much inwardly, the perfect Englishness of speaking, yet being silent. Here is the Penseroso of London, the grave Thinker who, amid the traffic of the day. or the quiet of the night, sits in counsel with Londoners, with Britons overseas, nay, with the peoples of all the earth. We could not now fancy ourselves without the Cenotaph, because that would be to lose our high altar of glorious death, and so our high altar of faith in this life and hope for another life.” —From “Travels in Hope,” by James Milne. Benes on Balfour.

“Out wardly he produced the impression that, like other Englishmen, he was slow in taking in the points that had been explained, but he grasped the essentials of questions with exceptional rapidity, with equal rapidity he discovered his opponent’s weaknesses, and in the course of debate he managed to direct the argument straight towards them. He had a brilliant capacity for finding his way about when dealing with a problem, and particularly for forming a rapid and final judgment about persons....

To the psychologist it was a sheer joy to observe how Mr. Balfour, in moments of excitement, dispute or heated argument, by his composure and by uttering a few words contrived to restore matters to their true proportion. He applied, so to speak, cold poultices to the heads of excited politicians.”— Eduard Benes, Czechoslovak Minister of Foreign Affairs. "The Pact of Paris opens wide the gate to international peace. To enter at that gate and to travel the path to peace there are several things which the responsible leaders of civilisation should quickly do. These constitute a veritable Programme of Peace:— “To maintain (amongst other things), and multiply those contacts, intellectual, moral and spiritual, which so greatly promote international sympathy and understanding, and -which at the same time advance national pride and satisfaction. . Science, literature, the fine arts, together with visits by representative and guiding personalities, are the most potent instruments with which to develop and to safeguard the International Mind. All this the Pact of Paris suggests and makes possible. It is a Programme of Peace for the constructive statesmanship of to-day and to-mor-row.”—Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Columbia University, in a statement issued by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Read in the Pulpits of America. “On August 27 of this year of grace, fifteen sovereign nations sent plenipotentiaries to the city of Paris to affix the signatures of their respective governments to a solemn covenant unreservedly renouncing war as an instrument of national policy and mutually pledging one another never to seek the solution of their international disputes, whatever their nature or origin, except by pacific means. We rejoice that our nation was there represented and that, on our behalf, the honour of the United States of America- was pledged to the faithful keeping of the solemn vow there made. We rejoice also that, since the date of signing, more than thirty other governments have officially indicated their purpose to adhere to this covenant. We wait in prayer and expectation for its ratification by the Senate of the United States and the Parliaments of all nations. The effect of this universal treaty will be completely to abolish the institution of war, making it a crime under the law of nations.' Thus a firm foundation in international law will be laid, upon which mankind may erect a noble and enduring structure of justice and peace.” , The Moral of an Experiment.

“The National Health Insurance funds may be likened to the water in a cistern which supplies a thirsty population of 13,509,000. At present the cistern is fairly full, but the people outside are demanding more and more drinks. One way of dealing with the situation is to educate them to a sense of responsibility, to make it clear that there js only a certain amount of water, and that if they do not use it carefully there may not be enough later on. In an ideal community this caution would be sufficient, but here in England it is essential to see that water is strictly withheld from those who do not need it Panel practitioners are in the unenviable position of being the taps through which it is distributed, and there is not the least doubt that a few of these taps work much too easily so that there is always a crowd round them to profit by tlie- flow of sickness certificates. The system is faulty because the practitioner is paid according to the size of the crowd he collects, and because the patient moves off to another tap if he encounters any stiffness or opposition.” —"The Lancet.” Success in Business.

"There is no set of rules that one can follow with the assurance that business success will be won. Success is elusive and fickle. It attends the efforts of the undeserving as well as the deserving: it baffles the clever and yields its prizes to the dull: it comes as the reward of ceaseless toil, and it crowns the light labours of a few hours. Most successful men arc quite sure that they can account for thenown success, but their explanations are singularly unconvincing. At the end of an unsuccessful day's fishing a brother angler once solemnly handed us a flv that lie declared was infal-* lible. '-With that in your box you never need take home an emptj cieel. he said. His own basket was empty, but his faith in his favourite fly was unshaken. And so ii is with business maxims. They are the fruit of ripe experience, and thej- contain much that is worthy of acceptation, but thej- are not Infallible.” —"Times Engineering Supplement”

A Momentous Year for Britain. “In domestic politics 1929 may be as momentous as 1914 was in world politics. • Let. no one think this an exaggerated comparison. We make it deliberately. Whatever you may think about the merits of either argument, the Socialist or the non-Social-ist, at least do not mistake the supreme magnitude of the issue itself. We believe utterly in the co-operation of Capital and Labour. The theory of the class-conflict we reject root and branch. The spirit it excites is surer death to the interests of the masses than to those of the classes. Let us put it still more simply. In this country, with its incomparably delicate fabric of credit and confidence, with its unparalleled dependence on foreign trade, even the first attempts at real Socialism would be as fatal as Bolshevism itself amidst the far cruder conditions of Russia.” —Mr. J. L. writing in the "Observer” (London). The, Peace Omens.

“I do not think that the omens for peace are unfavourable.” writes. Dean luge in the "Evening Standard.” “Improved means of transportation are bringing the nations nearer together; and we do not dislike foreigners in the concrete, when we see then at home The horrors of another war can hardly be imagined, but they would probably surpass anything that the world has yet seen; and it is almost certain that there would be a ‘conscription of wealth,’ so that all who had anything to lose would lose it. To win such a war would be almost as ruinous as to lose it; it would be simply collective suicide. Except in Russia and Italy, the increase of population is slower ■than it used to be, and thus one potent cause of wars—over-population— is being removed. There is very little glamour or romance about fighting under modern conditions.” Three Great Rights.

“If you ask me,” said Professor H. B. Dixon, of Victoria University, Manchester, in a recent speech, “what conclusion I have come to as to the need, and the advantage of secondary education to the community, I- would reply that our higher education is bound up with and is essential to the three great rights and corresponding duties of our race;—(l' the right to live; (2) the right and the duty to work, and (3) the right for leisure to think. We all grant the first—the right to live; but to do so we must both work and think. Mere manual strength and willingness will not suflice in our crowded world; we must have skill, organisation, and the inventive faculty to subdue or control the forces of nature to our needs. Above all, the mind, when trained and sharpened for its day’s work, must be tempered by humanity, or our lives will be hardly worth living.” What the Three-Year Old Hears. “A father and mother are having what is technically known as ‘a few words,’ and a small boy three years oC age is a passive witness of the scene, ■The parents little think that the silent observer is pronouncing judgment on what he has heard and seen, writes Dr. C. W. Kimmins, in the “Sunday Express.” “He may, ho*ever, have come to the conclusion tljax ' mother was quite right and that f er although he fails to recognise it, was absolutely in the wrong. He may. also- think that mother, with . much greater intelligence, was in this verbal dispute much superior to the rather irritable and bullying father. Further scenes confirm this opinion, and in his infantile wisdom he decides that father is what he learns to describe in later life as ‘rather a ass.’ It may, of course, be the other wav about. . Parents fail to recognw* that their children are extraordinarily clever little people, and that they form, fairly sound judgments long before they have sufficient of speech to describe them.” The New Turkey.

"The only way in which the Turkish nation can overcome iffi? IS through education, and this can be made possible only by a new Turkish nlnhabet The adoption of the new; characters in the form of law will constitute one of the greatest reforms in our struggle towards P rO J will assure the entrance of Turkey into the great family of the peoples. The parliament res P°» slbl ® for its adoption will make for itself privileged place not only in Turkish history, but in that of the universe. I look to everyone who already how to read and write the new letters to get to work and teach all with whom he comes in contact to do the same, and thereby assure the fulfilment in the space of a few years of a need which has never yet been satisfied. The freeing of our compatriots from the bondage of ignorance will be a revolution which will give our existence a new and exceptional vigour and mean the opening to Turkey of a new world of light.”—Mustapha KemaL Trust Better Thau Words.

"For all their fine words and goldpenned signatures, not one of the nations will trust the other the question of national safety arises, writes "Scrutator in -Truth. It is not only France who will not trust Germany and will not accept the security of any treaty in place of her army. I asked a naval expert the other day why the British Government attaches such supreme importance to the limitation of navies by categories of ships, while the French attaches equal importance to limitation by total tonnage with freedom to each power to distribute the total it pleases among ships of different classes. He answered, in effect, that the defence of our Dominions and the trade routes requires every class of warship, while the French policy now is to let her overseas possessions take their chance in war with a superior naval power, and to put all her navaS strength into light cruisers, destroyer* and submarines, which can things unpleasant for the enegg . at home.”