NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 169, 12 April 1930, Page 10

NOTES OF THE DAY

Useful results should be obtained from competitions to determine farming efficiency such as are proposed in the Manawatu and West Coast districts. The difficulty will be to devise standards by which efficiency can be measured but the committee which has the matter in hand should be able to produce a workable scheme. Apart from any prizes which may be awarded, the importance of the scheme resides in its educative value. It should introduce ideas oi business accounting to farmers and assist them in deciding what is and what is not good farming. In the daily pressure of farm work it is often impossible to separate the wood from the trees. The competitions should help to clarify many problems and enable producers to distinguish more surely between false and true economy.

Democratic government was by implication claimed by Lord Thomson, Secretary for Air, speaking in the House of Lords, as some guarantee against nations taking the offensive in war. It may be doubted, however, whether democracies are less bellicose than autocracies. The verdict of history is anything but clear on the point. Republican Rome did as much fighting and to more purpose than Imperial Rome. France after the Revolution plunged into an orgy of militarism. In fact, democracies are sometimes indicted as paving the way for the most terrible of wars, people’s wars.. By comparison the soldiers’ wars conducted by kings were mild affairs. In August, 1914, Demos raised his head in every European capital and applauded the return of Mars. The conclusion seems to be that it would be to nourish a sense of false security to trust a democracy as an antidote to war.

Those who have the best interests of Rugby football at heart will survey with some uneasiness the heavy list of interprovincial fixtures published this morning. These extend over four months and do not include the 21 matches to be played against the British team. Some concern was professed by those in authority as to the fate of club football if broadcasts of “bigger” games were to compete. But those who sanction so crowded a programme of outside matches must have little concern for the conduct of club football. This multiplication of interprovincial fixtures is a tendency that should be carefully checked because it means much travelling, occupies a great deal of time, necessitates the grant of leave from ordinary employment, and may trend toward professionalism. Club football is the mainspring of Rugby, its healthiest and most constant sponsor, and should on no account be allowed to languish.

By a coincidence there was published yesterday some strictures at the City Council on the speeding mania of motor-cyclists and also a return showing the growing death-roll for which these young men are responsible. Most of us, incensed by the effrontery and irresponsibility of youth on *two wheels, have considered with Councillor Mitchell “stretching a rope across the road, firing a bullet in their tires, or putting tacks on the road.” And then there is the racket, the explosive, night-wrecking din of these small but infernal engines. An insufferable test is applied to community endurance. Yet it is possible to see into the brain (most motor-cyclists are devoid of mind) of these youths and understand how they are intoxicated by the sense of release, of power, conferred by the internal combustion engine and the speed of which it makes them master. Speed is intoxicating like strong wine. Nevertheless these benzine bibbers .should be protected against themselves and against endangering other users of the road. The Mayor gives assurance that “special efforts are being made.” The public desires that the efforts be extra-special and sustained. Moreover no one can read unmoved the simple digits of the past year’s death-roll. New Zealand cannot afford to immolate so many young men on the altar of speed.

Conviction and fine have followed the prosecution of the master of a steamer in Auckland dor allowing oil discharge from his vessel to pollute the harbour. Oil pollution of rivers and harbours, consequent on the great development in the use of oil fuel, has assumed such a serious aspect that most maritime nations have taken measures to prevent it. There is evidence that the presence of oil has caused the seagulls to desert the beaches, and also destroyed the marine insect life which, with the sea birds, are Nature’s scavengers of the coasts. On the initiative of the United States, arrangements were made for an international conference to discuss the more difficult problem of preventing the dumping of oil waste in the sea outside territorial waters. This, it has been found, ultimately floats to the shore. Agreement was reached as to co-operative action, both within harbour limits and the open sea. The Auckland prosecution shows that this country is doing its