VOICES of the NATION

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 75, 21 December 1929, Page 21

VOICES of the NATION

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

John Bull as Creditor. “What acids to Snowden's difficulty is the view in England, which is his own view, that France has fared ever so much better than Britain in the postwar liquidation. -France has no unemployment; French foreign trade is greater than before 1914. French credit is stronger than British, as witnessed by the embarrassing withdrawal' of gold from London to Paris. France has obtained from the United States and from Britain herself, a debt settlement on terms one-quarter more favourable than Britain has obtained in Washington. Almost every Englishman'fe'ts his country has been caught between American rigidity and Continental evasion, that he has had to bear a disproportionate share of the costs of the war, that his statesmen have been stupid and his ' financiers inept, and that as a result he has been left to hold the baby. This mentality, reminiscent of the French just after the Peace Conference, renders excessively difficult the task of any statesman who represents Britain in an international cont'cence. Snowden, having won popular attention and applause by leading the pack tn this outcry against past performances, suffers now, as did Poj,neure after Cannes, when he had to try to collect reparations.”—Mr. Frank IL Simonds, in the American ‘•Review of Reviews." , What is '* X Scuse of Humour”? V “He only has humour in the real sense who knows how to give expression to a' profound and even tragic opposition from the point of view of a benevolent and serene mind. His is the quality of divine laughter of the man inwardly superior to those things ordinary people take with such fearsome seriousness. Accordingly, there Can be no high quality of humour unless intellectual understanding acts as the keynote. This is why ancient Chinese humour must be appraised as the highest mankind has as yet produced. This is why real humour is not merely a sense of proportion as such, as the English would have it —it is a sense of proportion ruled from within by a keen appreciation of spiritual and intellectual values.”—Count Hermann Keyserling, in the September “Atlantic Monthly.” Why Trades Unions Help Trusts “I would support 100 per cent, trustification of industry,” declared Mr. Walter Citrine, secretary of the Trades Union Congress, at the London Labour Women’s Summer School. “I take no notice,”, he said, “of those who say that collaboration with employers will stabilise capitalism. That is fuddled speaking. Our idea of collective bargaining has hitherto stopped at wages and hours, but that Is only a minor portion of collective bargaining. The trade unions must turn their attention to making industry more and more efficient, so that it will be capable of giving them a higher standard of living. I would support 100 per cent trustification of industry, because I believe that unless the control of industry is in as few hands as possible trade union control is impossible. How can you control the policy of firms that are fighting one another? At present the law of industry is the law of the jungle. I say quite frankly that before you can arrive at the point of the socialisation of industry it must be preceded by the economic co-ordina-tion of capitalism.” The Duke and the Dole.

“We hear a lot about the demoralising effect of the dole on the working classes; but it is probably less demoralising and less disastrous to the nation than the effect of high taxation and rates upon the employing class. We are, in fact, nearing, if we have not yet reached, that stage which always precedes great political and social changes, \vhen there is no longer a sufficient incentive to the producer to continue to produce wealth. The principal cause of the French Revolution was economic: the basic industry of France, agriculture, was ruined because the peasant had lost heart; the exactions of the tax-gatherer were such that it did not pay him to grow more than would suffice for his own needs. How many of our basic indus? tries are to-day in a similar position? And could a more ridiculous solution be found than to tax the rich in order to maintain in idleness the poor, whom they would gladly employ if the means i were not taken from them? If to-day employers of labour were told that an allowance off income-tax and supertax would be made, equivalent to the wages of any extra labour they employed, there would soon be no unemployment problem in this country.”— The Duke of Northumberland. Britain’s Bill for Unemployment. “Since 1918 to the end of last year In unemployment insurance alone more than £650,000,000 were spent—spent without any return whatsoever. .At least another £100.000,000 were spent In Poor Law relief. Our municipalities have heavily mortgaged themselves and undertaken liabilities, and to-day many of them are prevented from doing more because of the enormous liabilities they have already undertaken. And in addition to all these figures I have given you, £106,000,000 has been spent by different Governments since 1918, and yet we are entrusted, in face of this colossal expenditure, with the formidable task of still dealing with nearly 11 million unemployed. Tested by every experience up to date, for every £1,000,000 of public money spent, It does not provide work for more than 2000 directly and 2000 indirectly. The pouring out of money is not a solution of the unemployment problem, and I am in a position to say that when Parliament meets there will have been sanctioned over £6,000.000 for municipalities. The Government sanctioned a five years’ road programme costing £10,000.000. Almost the whole of that expenditure has been agreed on and sanctioned. There is a £28,000.000 programme for classified roads sanctioned. In agriculture, land drainage, field drainage, rural water supply and afforestation progress is being made at this moment.” —Mr. J. 11. Thomas, British Minister of Unemployment.

Germany Means “Business.” “I have motored nearly two thousand miles in different parts of Germany without seeing a single army officer or more than half a dozen soldiers of any rank in uniform. That is the most striking external change in Republican Germany. Business success, not military glamour, is now the nation's fetish. The ‘Excellencies' have disappeared; the glory of the generals has departed. One title only confers prestige in Germany to-day. It is the commercial one of ‘General-Direktor.’ Out of her home population of 41,000,000, France keeps 413,000 young men constantly under arms. She also maintains,in Northern Africa a white army of 60,000 men, in addition to 110.000 coloured troops. In their new frame of mind the Germans look on these forces with complacency. They involve the French Government in huge annual expense, and they entail the withdrawal of a large proportion of the man-power of the nation from productive work. Sixty-five million Germans with an army limited to 100,000 men are clearly in a much more advantageous position than the French for the development of their country’s trade and manufactures. .They would not have cqnscription again even if the Peace Treaty permitted it. After ten years of freedom from the burden of military service the whole nation would revolt against the bare idea." —Lord Bothermere. The Trappings of Death.

“I read with much pleasure an address of the Bishop of London in which he told his hearers 1 that he regarded death as one of the greatest blessings we have, and asked them to think of the state of the world to-day if no one ever died. In his view such a state, of things would be absolutely intolerable. I have long been of the Bishop’s opinion about the mercy of death. 'Death is a friend,’ as Lord Bacon says, ‘and he that is not ready to entertain him is hot at home.’ Slowly, like the grain of mustard seed, the Bishop’s idea will prevail. We have already done away with some of the tawdry trappings of •our funerals. If we really accept the truth that death is a blessing, we cannot, with any reason, continue to show our sense of out, friends' blessedness through the medium of black feathers, black horses and hearses, and the undistinguished art of the obelisks and memorial sculptures that linger and decay in our churches and graveyards. For if death is a blessing, why these dismal graveyards with gratings and vaults, stone lids and headstones, tumbling, this way and that amid tussocks of rank weeds? All this old-world affection for knells and shrouds and mattocks and mould and worms was utterly unwholesome and evil." — Mr. Justice Parry. pic Diplomatic Bridge to Moscow. “If we are ever to reach agreement in regard to such matters as the draft commercial treaty, the various iuterGovernmental and private debts claims, fisheries, the application of previous treaties and conventions, and so forth, it must be through the instrumentality of regular diplomatic machinery,” says the “Birmingham Post.” "If the exchange of Ambassadors were held up pending satisfactory adjustment of all the complicated problems arising out of these issue, Ambassadors would nevr be exchanged at all. On the other hand, it seems hardly worth while to invite an Ambassador to this country for the purpose of re-opening discussions unless there be at least some prospect of their ultimate success. We have seen enough of international conferences failing through ‘inadequate preparation,’ which is to say by reason of failure fl-’t to ascertain the existence of a common purpose, and the possibility of discussion upon common ground.” A Hint to the Town-planners.

. “There will be few. people to dispute the statement that the day is not far distant when civil and commercial flying in private and public aircraft will become an established national habit, if only as a means of escaping from the congestion of the roads,” says the “Yorkshire Evening News.” One of the pressing needs of our time is the provision of land suitable for the erection of aerodromes in the immediate vicinity of our towns. And, unfortunately, it is a need that is in danger of being overlooked by the town-planner. The development of civil av.iation is bound up with the provision of suitable flying grounds near centres of population. Yet it is ignored in most townplanning schemes. Stretches of open country are being developed at a remarkable rate. Suitable open spaces are being scheduled as sites for mainroads and by-ways. Soon every piece of vacant land of any size near our towns will be in use. As the supply of suitable land becomes smaller, the cost of securing it for tile benefit of the public will become greater. Some day we shall have to pay for our present neglect, as we are paying already for the lack of foresight in our predecessors in the matter of town-planning.” Dipping Deeper.

“There is nothing like a sip of somebody else’s philosophy. The biography of some great man or woman, or a collection of letters or memoirs—are so scandalous — gives just the right incentive to go- and do likewise when the holidays are done. ‘Contact with great minds,’ it is familiarly called, and it has in truth as bracing an as a draught of fresh air. It also serves to counteract the false ideas that the novel may have set agoing. Here is something milled from hard experience, not the wiki dreams of a romantic. Something rather hard to bite on may prove more welcome than you think on a wet day. Everyone hates the waited feeling that a wet day in the country brings. Novels only make it the more irksome, and belles lettres are apt to seem a little futile, too. The wet day is often the day for something practical. A book, then, on political economy, bird lore, or ancient history—the subject matters less than its serious treatment—may prove a godsend.”-—E. F. Osborn, in the “Morning Post.”