NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 82, 31 December 1928, Page 8

NOTES OF THE DAY

Though they opened badly in the Third Test cricket match at Melbourne on Saturday the Australians have made a splendid recovery. With two wickets down for 15 runs matters looked gloomy, but at the close of the day’s play the score-board showed 276 for four wickets, and this in spite of the splendid fielding of the Englishmen. This is quite a good position, and is due to the splendid stand made by Kippax and Ryder, each of whom scored - over a century,' the latter still being at the wickets. With the Englishmen holding two matches in hand out of the five to be played, the Test game now in progress is of vital importance to the Australians, and indeed to .all who love to see a keen struggle for supremacy. Should the Englishmen win on the present occasion the interest in the remaining two matches will be practically killed. It is, therefore, very heartening to the supporters of the Australians to see the stand that is being made. A big score will be needed to keep in front of the English team, for the bowling of the Australians up to the present has been below past standards, and Chapman and his men are capable of great things with the bat. With the luck of the toss in their favour, however, the Australians now look like •setting a merry pace. * * * *

It would be absolutely fatal to the progress of aviation in this Dominion if it were permitted to go ahead haphazard and uncontrolled. A few unnecessary fatalities, a few courts of inquiry, and a few rumours might well cause public opinion to check progress for many years or even force the newly-formed clubs to disband. Our tiny seed of aviation might well receive a serious, set-back. With these facts in view it would be absurd not to agree with the Minister of Defence in his attitude to newly-fledged civilian clubs. On the other hand, we do not want to see the modern equivalent of the man with the red flag walking solemnly in front of the early cars repeated in the case of aeroplanes. Let us have stringent regulations laid down by experts and carried out with thoroughness. But there is nothing more deadly than over-cautious Government control. It is a disease that can be guaranteed to sap the vitality out of much, more vigorous babes than our new-born aero clubs. Whilst unnecessary risks should be cut out at the very beginning we do not want to see a repetition of the motherly hen trying to cluck her family of ducklings away from the terrible dangers of the village pond. Every encouragement should be given to these clubs, for few can deny that New Zealand is deplorably behind-hand in aviation when compared to the rest of the world.

One cannot but marvel at the seeming spirit of submission with which the Turks are accepting orders to master a new reformed language. Undoubtedly it is for the best this new era in Turkey. But that does not necessarily mean that those affected appreciate what is good for them. It was for our own good, we were told when we were very young, for us to drink a particularly nauseous draught of Gregory Powder; it was for our own good that we had “green stuff” or “fat” verbally rammed down our throats. It was for our own good that we were encouraged to master the mystery of Algebra, which after school was over seemed to have little social standing iff the world; We meekly submitted to be examined in the tricks of the trade as set forth by that misguided gentleman, Euclid. All these things of undoubted benefit to anyone, intruded themselves into our lives at an early date and were put to one side in not a few cases with a thankful sigh when schooldays were over. But nobody dared, some twenty or thirty years later, to order us to relearn our own mother tongue; to forget the niceties of words ending with “ough” and master a brand new reformed assembly of hieroglyphics. Indeed there are many quite sensible people who would have politelv told the reformers that what they had learnt at school was not to be lightly put aside. It is rather curious that the Turk, who is thought to be so conservative and wrapped up in his past, should prove amenable to discipline pi this nature