VOICES of the NATION

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 80, 28 December 1929, Page 17

VOICES of the NATION

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

Medicine as a Career. “As regards medicine as a career, it may be said that a living wage can be obtained by practically all properlyqualified persons who run straight. On the other hand, it is not a lucrative profession! the big prizes are few and the life is not easy. Exposure to infectious diseases is part of the doctor s privilege, and so the average span of life among medical men does not equal that of the Church and the law, which have been said to see the best and the worst sides of mankind respectively. Medicine, however, has special attractions to those interested in human nature when seen as it really is; it appeals’to those who love their fellowmen and to those willing to remain students all their days, for there is no chance that the knowledge with which a man begins practice will be sufficient to keep him efficient twenty years later. It has been said forcibly but truly that medicine is a fine profession, but as a trade £is negligible.”—Sir Humphrey Rolleston.

Factory or Granary? “It is true that Canadian yield of farm produce is still stupendous, and, despite occasional setbacks such as in the wheat crop of this year, tends to increase,” says the "Canadian Gazette.” "The wheat yield in the past five years has averaged well over 400 million bushels, and the average annual value of the crop has been something like £B6 millions sterling. The value of all agricultural products has been more than fourfold as great as five years ago. But the fact remains that Canada’s manufacturing production far exceeds her agricultural production, and will so remain. It is futile to go on arguing as though Canada was still a producer and seller of foodstuffs only, or even mainly. She has come to rank among the manufacturing nations of the world. To-day agriculture still leads in net volue of product, but the difference is rapidly disappearing. Manufacturing has increased 700 per cent, in output over that of 1901, and agriculture 400 per cent. Coincident with the development in manufacturing has been the construction of powerplants to furnish energy for- their operations. Hydro-electi-ic installation in 1900 was less than 200,000 horsepower, and to-day’s installation has a capacity of 5,500,000. In 1901 the value of Canadian mineral production was less than £lO millions; in 1929 the total will be close to £6O millions. Indeed, Canada now ranks first among the nations of the world in.the production of nickel and asbestos, third in gold, and the output,of copper, lead and zinc and other minerals is rapidly increasing.”

Money a Good Servant but Bad Master.

“There must be somthing wrong, and something which needs attention when an orgy of speculation in a country 3000 miles away should dislocate the financial system here and inflict grave suffering upon the workers in practically every country in the world. This is a matter to which our serious attention must be directed. We must try to devise a system where finance will be the handmaiden and the servant of industry, and not its master. I doubt if anything effective can be done except by international co-operation, and ' I am hopeful that the International Bank, which is to be set up under the Ybung Plan, will be able to carry out what was intended in the Genoa resolution—to devise international co-opera-tion for the purpose of economising the use of gold and some machinery for preventing the unnecessary shipment of gold. I hope it will be able to fulfl that function, but we cannot tvait for that. We must see if anything can be done within our own control. There is a large amount of public support for inquiry. Industrialists, many financiers, bankers, economists, and Labour organisations have all asked th .t such an Inquiry should be set up.—Philip den. t

Disarmament Problems. “Britain is an Atlantic, a Pacific, and a Mediterranean Power,” asserts the “Manchester Guardian,” “and has to regard the Mediterranean States us well as Japan and America. Prance and Italy have regard to each other and to Britain. Andethere we reach the real difficulty which will underlie the Five-Power Conference as it, has unlerlain all discusions since the war. Progress may be slow, France and Italy may refuse to abolisn the submarine (it seems too much to hope that they who have refused to limit will suddenly consent to abolish), and they may insist on tonnages for each class that will seem to us excessive. But if they can be brought even to consent to limitation within each class, that would, for a first step, be a considerable victory. For even arithmetical limitation will be fruitful. It feeds, so to speak, on itself. It. can be progressively increased, _ as Is now to be done with battleships. Because, after all, if only equality, or a fixed ratio, is allowed, one may as well have it as cheaply as possible, while the scaling down of armaments and the absence of competition tend in themselves to help the growth of the confidence on which we must depend for the major results.”

A Blessing on Wheels. “Difficulties of housing and social contentment • are being solved by the car. The charabanc, to which many people have taken such violent exception, has been the instrument of more industrial goodwill, more education, and more happiness than all the lectures. soup kitchens, and free legal advice ever afforded to a long-suffer-ing public. Let us encourage comfort and avoid waste of physical energy by every means known to science. The motor-car is the best of all weapons for this purpose. Does anyone grudge the educational possibilities ofc the motor tour to young people, who have far more to learn than their grandparents in a much, shorter space of time? The motor car is the'poor man’s yacht, magic carpet, Riviera, and school all rolled into one at the cost of a little monthly economy to the benefit of a highly successful British Industry.”—Professor A. M. Low, in the "Sunday Dispatch.

The Reformer and the Social System.

“It is not enough simply to say, ‘Change men and they will change society.’ The reformer has to reckon, not only with the lower impulses of human nature—with the natural man, as he is called—but with a closely knit social system organised on a materialistic basis in which economic considerations are paramount. Again it is easy to say, ‘Ethicise your economics,’ but the question as to how it is to be done still waits an answer,” says Principal W. B. Selbie, in his Beckly Lecture on “The Christian Ethic in the individual, the Family and the State.” “There is’need for Christian statesmanship,” adds Dr. Selbie, “as well as for Christian idealism. The churches must play their part here. They need to be reminded that nioie is required of them than passing pious resolutions in their assemblies on crying social evils. Such resolutions accomplish nothing save a salving of uneasv consciences and ‘a folding of the hands in sleep.’ Reform, like charity, must begin at home, and the Churches need first to set their own houses in order. They can do much ‘in the way of saving human wreckage and inspiring men and women to the service of their kind. But they must do more. Much of the disrepute in which they ar) held to-day is due to their apparent impotence to live up to, or put into practice, the principles which they profess.” Reforming the Coroner's Court. “While the coroner’s court is neither equipped nor regulated in the manner appropriate for a criminal trial, yets its proceedings are apt in certain circumstances to take on that form. The coroner does not try a ease; he merely holds an inquiry, as a result of which some person or persons may or may not be arrested. In practice there arise situations in which his proceedings inevitably become a sort of preliminary trial. There is, to be sure, no prisoner in the dock, but there is a witness in the box whos is in a position of hardly less anxiety and jeopardy. And this person, be it remembered, is one against whom the police have,not been able to find sufficient evidence to justify an arrest. The inquiry, therefore, resolves itself in a general exploring expedition to discover, by methods whica .could not be used in an ordinary criminal court, whether such evidence may not exist. But the faults of the system are now so apparent that there ought to be no delay in remedying them.” —“Evening News” (London). Wanted—More Aerodromes!

“As far as focilities for flying are concerned, with the exception of Croydon Aerodrome, we are almost as we were ten years ago. We have simply stood still,” writes Sir Alan Cobham, the famous airman, in the “Daily Mail.” “I find that enthusiastic private owners of aircraft are selling their machines, not because they did not enjoy flying, not because there was simply because they could not use then craft. They had nowhere to go. The few places where there were aerodromes they did not want to visit, and where they wanted to go they could not land. They were tired of landing in farmers’ fields, clinibing over hedges and ditches to the nearest road, asking passing cars for a lift into the town where petrol could be bought, and then finding their way 'back to discover that cows had chewed the tail of the aeroplane. I have come to the conclusion that until every town and village in the British Isles has its own aerodrome and it would be possible for one to fly from anywhere to anywhere in a straight line flying could not prove its utlitiy. Britons are born flyers, and now is out chance to lead the world in air transport as we have lead the world in shipping and railways in the past. The Cost of the Cottage.

“The cost of the cottage could be substantially reduced if the land speculators were restrained from gaining for his own pocket the increment values created by public demands; if land now wasted by unprofitable and obsolete development were replanned; if capital a: low rates of interest could be attracted in invest in weekly rented property on a large scale; if architects would devote the same skill to planning a cottage as a cinema de luxe; if building by-laws wede revised so as to allow of freer play to ingenuity; if'railways freights were reduced, and the savings reflected in the cost of materials; if more mechanical and scientific handling during every process of manufacture and building could be introduced; if there.were more standardisation of bricks, tiles and other materials; if a greater output were encouraged by the offer and acceptance of enhanced wages based on results; if labour were organised so that the best craftsmen could be sure of regular work in all weathers.” —Mr. B. S. Townroe, in “The Realist." The Marvel of Shakespeare.

“How many readers has Shakespeare' every day? No one can say, of course. But it is safe to say that he has three times as many, and perhaps ten times as many, as any other dramatist whatever. And probably, too, more than any other poet. Thatis the proof Of his independence of time and country, which is another wayy of saying tfie proof oft his genius. And, being that, he will always continue to bp discussed by voice and by pen. Men of his order of universal genius are at once the same and not the same to each new century. Indeed, every generation—one may almost say every man and woman —rediscovers them, finds in them the old things but also something new and peculiar, something which seems to have been written precisely for peoples or individuals who are separated by centuries from the original writer of the words. We all want to get into personal relation with such a man as Shakespeare; and such, is his magic, such is his humanity, that we all feel we can.” —Mr. John Bailey.