VOICE of the NATIONS

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 92, 12 January 1929, Page 15

VOICE of the NATIONS

SAYINGS AND WRITINGS :: :: OR THE TIMES :: ::

A Witness Against War. “It is superlative greatness in a man to see so clearly the wickedness of what has made him renowned. Wellington’s hatred of war, his continual opposition in England to all forms of militarism, and his continual advocacy abroad of a policy of peace, are derived from the quality of realism. He, if anybody, knew what war was •> like, and he was not intoxicated by the rewards that it had brought to him. He did not allow the spectace of himself as a hero to cloud his vision of the realities of war.”—Mr. Oliver Brett, in his book, “Wellington.” The Heart of the Electorate.

“If you’ll take a wrinkle from one born and brought up in the country, you’ll make straight for the village grocer and have a real heart-to-heart talk with him. He's got all the news of the place, and if you get on his right side he will be quite glad to spend half an hour with you at the shop door. Get him to tell you about his business, for remember his prosperity depends upon that of the farmers, farm workers; small holders, and village craftsmen round about. He’ll tell you what’s wrong with agriculture in the parish probablv more accurately than anyone else. He’ll tell you what the villagers think of the Government. He’ll tell you who are Liberals, requiring no persuasion; who are Tories, not worth canvassing; who are Socialists, 'needing only the light of reason to lead them back to the fold; and who—often the majority—have no particular politics and who therefore are deserving of the bulk of your attention.” —Mr. J. Henderson Stewart in the “Forward View” on “Some Hints to Canvassers.” Industrial Co-operation.

“The criticism of certain employers is that they are required to recognise the claim, of the unions to a share in the shaping of the larger policy that determines not only this or that addition to or subtraction from the weekly wage, or this or that modification of the hours of work, but also the principles applying to all the circumstances of work and the conduct of industry. If fears like these are let loose, doubt and hesitation and mistrust will defeat any plan of co-operation. It will not be possible for the captains and workmen of industry to take a common road with companionable steps. Happily we are a practical people, not apt to be stampeded by unreal alarms or to be led away by fantasies. Co-operation in industry is a thing too obviously desirable to be lost if it is attainable. Moreover, it is a positive, not a negative, thing, and requires from those who agree to act together tangible contributions to the common good.”—“The Times” (London). Mycologists Wanted.

“Mycologists are wanted all over the Empire, to protect the innumerable crops on which our life depends from the varied and deadly fungi that may in any season ruin them. Some of our unappreciated young men might do much worse than devote their efforts to qualifying for these lucrative appointments as mycologists. Crop producers throughout the world —wheat, cocoa, banana, tobacco, wine, hops, rubber, and cotton growers—are awakening to the need for botanists on their staffs to eliminate the diseases that cause millions of pounds worth of havoc to food supplies every year,” says the “Sunday Dispatch.” “But in this new and practically unknown profession—probably the only one where the labour demand exceeds the supply—there are many £l,ooo-a-year jobs vacant, as few people have studied or even know of this lucrative and mysterious profession—the study of mycology. Without mycologists half the world’s food supply would be cut short. Millions of pounds worth of crops are saved by them every year from the ravages of blight, mildew, and smut, and all the diseases to which a plant is subject.” The Lens For New Wonders.

“It has been recently announced that funds have been provided for the construction and maintenance of a telescope with a reflector of 200 inches in diameter, double the width of the largest existing reflector, which is that of the Hooker telescope on Mount Wilson,” writes Professor H. H. Turner, F.R.S., in the “Observer.” “The man who has more than once made possible a great scientific advance, George Ellery Hale, though his health had given way under the strain of his devoted work for science, has fortunately so far recovered as to ‘take hold’: an ‘Observatory Council’ has been constituted under his chairmanship, and though the proposed diameter of the mirror has been reduced from 300 inches to 200 inches, for reasons easily understood, there is now every prospect that within ten years this giant will come into being and open our eyes to new wonders.” The Use of Statistics.

“It is not enough to seize upon the results of intermittent or continuous statistical inquiry and swallow them, with the faith of a dog in the bona fides of his beloved master, as unquestionably wholesome food,” says the “Monthly Review” of. the Midland Bank. “The process of arriving at the results must be examined, and care must be taken to ensure that no more is read into the results than they are qualified to convey, cither by themselves or in conjunction with other figures. And to this end it is very desirable that in putting forward any new series of statistics some authoritative guidance should be given as to how they are prepared and what significance they bear. The problem at the moment is not so much to increase the volume of available statistical data, but rather to learn just how to use the material to the best advantage and with the smallest risk of being led astray. Statistics are like proposals of marriage—they should be, but rarely are, studied and considered, very deliberately. UDon their all-round merits.”-

Searching Questions. "Out of all the storm and stress of the last few years over the status and work of women police one or two burning questions have emerged and women all over the country are asking ever more and more insistently: Who questions children, young girls and women who have been f i victims or witnesses of sexual offences? Again it is asked: Who takes charge of women in custody in police cells, through the day and through the night, oyer the weekend, on remand or waiting for the Court? What arrangements are . iade for young girls under arrest? -Are they put into police mils? Are the arrangements in police cell decent and humane? Can women in custody get food and sleep and wash themselves before appearing in Court? Have all our women magistrates personally visited the police cells in their area and discussed their possible improvement with the inspector, the chief constable, policewomen and Police Court missionaries—the only people who have access to the women’s cells?” —Miss Edith Tancred, speaking at the Congress of the British National Council of Women. The “Man of the World.”

“‘The man of the world’ is responsible for more erroneous opinion than perhaps anyone. He is the kind of man who says that fighting is natural to man, and that because war always has been therefore it always will be. If you sit down and wait for the next war you are sitting down to wait for the destruction of civilisation, and civilisation cannot stand another war similar to the last. It is bound to produce disaster, not only for the conquered, but quite as great for the conqueror. I do not feel disturbed by this attitude of mind, because it is the attitude which has always manifested itself against every great reform that has ever been carried out.” —Viscount Cecil.

London Newspaper Examines. Mr. Hoover.

“Mr. Hoover is not at all the man to sit idle at the White House and refrain from initiating new courses,” points out the “Daily Chronicle” (London). “All his past is against it; he has everywhere shown the exploring, organising, creating instincts. In what special directions he will leave his mark, we must wait to see. But as far as foreign affairs go—with which Europe is naturally most concerned—he will at least meet the problems with an equipment of solid knowledge and personal experience not approached by any previous President.” An Earl on Reasonable Discipline. “It is an unwise sentimentality which pampers the criminal, the thriftless, and the loafer at the expense of the honest and the hard-working. It is an unwise sentimentality which unnecessarily interferes between parent and child, and between teacher and scholar in the maintenance of a reasonable discipline,” writes the Earl of Meath in his book, “Brabazon Potpourri.” “All these influences,” he adds, “are tending to destroy the moral fibre of the race—to produce soft, flabby, self-in-dulgent, conceited, self-centred men and women—discontented with the world, and attributing their failures not to their own faults and weaknesses, but to the injustice of the world in which they live. The strong*, disciplined men and women will overcome circumstances and wrench success from the very grasp of failure.” A Hoover Interrogatory.

“What will be the effect of Mr. Hoover’s wide experience of mankind upon his attitude to world affairs?” asks Mr. A. G. Gardiner, in the “Star.” “It is suggested that it will only intensify his Americanism and arm it with the knowledge of where and how to strike in the struggle for industrial pre-eminence in the world. There is ground for this fear in the emphasis he lays on ‘prosperity’ and on the growing need of America to maintain that prosperity by external trade. And his brusque references when in office to the British restrictions in regard to rubber warned us not to look for any excessive friendliness to this country. All this is true, but"if I may trust the impression I formed of this dour'and reticent man, there is a deeper seam in his character than that which he shows on the surface. tie is by his Quaker upbringing, and still more by his terrific experiences in Europe, an intense foe of the institution of war. He knows that that institution can only be overthrown by a world organised for peace, and it is as an organiser that he has arrived at the most powerful position in the world to-day. I misread him greatly if, now that he has achieved power, he does not set himself to canalise the world into the paths of peace. Wilson had the vision. Hoover has precisely that practical genius which can give' the vision shape and actuality.” The University Degree. “There were days when a degree was a matter of no importance. A man attended the university because he wanted to learn, not because he wished to be decorated. Carlyle did not trouble to take a degree in Edinburgh University. Sir James Dewar was President of the Royal Institution —one of the successors of Faraday—and liquefied air, oxygen and hydrogen without a degree. But to-day a degree means money. It represents achievement. It is essential to the teacher who will raise himself to a position in a secondary school. And among university instructors it is easy to allow it to become a fetish. The idea that knowledge is worth having for its own sake tends to pass into the background. When the vocational conception attacks the Arts Course the student seeks not to learn all that he may of the few subjects in'which he is truly interested, but to obtain a qualification which will help him on the ladder to success.” —Principal R. Bruce Taylor in the “Queen’s