VOICES of the NATION

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 257, 26 July 1930, Page 21

VOICES of the NATION

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

The British Constitution*, “One leading feature of our Constitution is its flexibility. In so far as it consists of rules of law, it is liable to modification. to any extent by an Aet of Parliament, passed in the ordinary way without any special formalities of any referendum to a popular vote. In so far as it is dependent on convention, it can be altered by the adoption of new usages. In this important matter of flexibility it differs from written constitutions, such as that of the United States of America, which are said to be rigid, and can be modified only by some extraordinary process of legislation laid down in the Constitution itself. The principle of the Rule of Law is really the security for what are often called the liberties of the subject—the right to personal liberty, secured by the writ of habeas corpus, except in case of a contravention of the law; the right of freedom of speech, subject to the law of libel, sedition and slander; the freedom of the Press, and the right of public meeting and public • discussion.” “Bonny Talkers.”

“I am a profound pacifist, I belong to a'party of pacifists, but the greatest pacifists I have met have been soldiers and sailors,” said Mr. Tom Shaw, Secretary for War, at the dress rehearsal of the Royal Tournament at Olympia. I have never met a pugnacious soldier or sailor in my life, and I have never met a politician or a pacifist who was not,” continued Mr. Shaw. “The men whose profession it is to fight arc generally the men who talk least about it, and those who hate fighting are generally those who talk most about it.” A Bowler on Umpires.

“Umpires are human beings. That fact is too often forgotten,” writes Mr. C. V. Grimmett, the well-known Australian bowler, in his book, “Getting Wickets.” “The umpire’s job requires a tremendous amount of concentration. Think what this means, especially over a period of seven or eight days, such as Test matches take in Australia! 'Think of the strain involved! It is, therefore, the duty of every cricketer to make the umpire’s lot as easy as possible. He gets many of the kicks and few of the ha’pence of the game, and it should be our alm to avoid harassing him by appealing Unduly, or by questioning his decisions. I think, however, that umpires should get together and discuss the interpretation of the rules, particularly the vexatious question of leg-before-wicket. I think there would be no need for the wider wickets introduced into English county cricket if umpires were instructed in the proper interpretation of ‘leg-be-fore.’ ” The Third-raters.

“Most churchmen owe their reputation largely to the conditions in which they are compelled or permitted to do their work. It often happens that the credit or the blaine they receive is due more to their environment than to the men themselves; they are not really tested and their actual ability is not proved. Men who are regarded as having made their mark are seldom sent to desperately difficult parishes where everything will be against them. It is customary Jo send them to places of importance where .hey can hardly help being a success. ‘Leading’ chufches expect the ablest men and would give but a poor welcome to a man who was counted as third-rate. Is it a libel or is it a sorry fact that the ablest men expect to be appointed to ‘leading’ churches, and would not feel that their merits were being properly recognised if they were appointed to a parish that is in the background of church life and can give no certificate of importance to the man who ministers in it?” —“W.C.8.,” in the “Birmingham Bost.” A National Theatre.

“If w’e have to wait until men are muttering angrily in the street about the absence of a National Theatre we shall wait for ever. But the doctrine of the general will is founded on the assumption that minorities may be acting with a genuine consent when they do that in the public name for Which there is subsequent approval. No majority ever asked for Westminster Abbey, the City of Oxford, or the British Museum. Minorities imposed them, and if anyone now proposed to put them Up to auction there would be a degree of indignation certainly extending to all people who ever think of anything beyond the literature of crooks, sheikhs, and starting-prices. If it be alleged that there is no general demand for a National Theatre, the answer is that there is as much demand as ever there was for our other national treasures before those treasures were created.” — “The Week-End Review.” Tito Navy Eternal

“It is no belittlement of the deeds of the Army and Air Force to point out that, though without an army we could not have taken part in the war on land, without a navy strong enough to command the seas we could have taken no part in the war at all. We should have been starved out in a month, without the landing of a single hostile soldier, condemned to accept abjectly any terms imposed on us, including the loss of any of our overseas dominions which the enemy might covet. No army or air force, however strong, could help us. It was the Navy which, in a terrific struggle against un-dreamt-of methods of warfare, kept the British Empire secure and made it possible to raise, transport, and use those splendid land forces to help in the destruction of militarism and brutality. It was also the main instrument which, by blockade, broke the morale of the German nation. With an adequate navy we are secure, without one we exist purely on sufferance. We must see that nothing, is done to deprive us, alone of the nations, of our vital means of defence." —Mr. Geoffrey I’arratt, in his book, “The Royal Navy.”

Impressive Fulfilments. “At the beginning of this century, anybody who suggested that Lancashire’s supremacy in the cotton industry was assailable would have been brushed aside as a fool; and the same impatient scorn visited anybody who dared to hint that Free Trade might not always be the impregnable rock of Lancashire’s prosperity. Yet a generation has been enough to fulfil both predictions. Those unmatched advantaages of which Lancashire was wont to boast have not sufficed to counter the increasing competition of the East; and Free Trade, which was reckoned as among the most signal of those advantages, has lost its magic power.”— “Morning Post,” of London. Manchester Changes Its Mind. The result of the referendum of members of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce on the question of fiscal policy is announced. Altogether 3,9-11 voting papers were issued, and 2,343 votes were recorded. The voting was as follows:—In favour of Free Trade CO7, in favour of'Safeguarding 9SG, in favour of a general protective tariff on imports, including raw materials and foodstuffs 232, in favour of a general protective tariff on imports, excepting raw materials 196, in favour of a general protective tariff on imports, excepting foodstuffs 27, in favour of a general protective tariff on imports, excepting raw materials and foodstuffs 295. These figures show that 1,736 votes were cast for a change in fiscal policy. British Prime Minister and the Press. “To-day the Press is a mighty business organisation, with enormous capital behind it, and tremendous fighting and crushing power. May I, sitting in the seat I occupy, impress upon you all that the more your powers, the greater the. mechanical and materialistic forces you can command, the heavier lies upon your backs the responsibility of using that power for Imperial interests and the good of the Commonwealth to which we all belong? There is no form of property to-day that has more obligations placed upon it to serve than the Press of the Empire. 'We can easily engage upon a reckless exploitation of public emotion and public ignorance. Let the politician and the Pressman, the statesman and the editor, insist on the circulation of good, sound coinage in opinion, ideas, and ideals.”—Mr. Ramsay MacDonald. President Hoover’s Weakness. “The weakness Mr. Hoover has displayed as President is a specific, not a general, weakness. He is weak in the presence of polities and politicians. If inteligence and the capacity to learn are enough, Mr. Hoover may master this weakness of inexperience. If it is possible to acquire the art of politics late in life by rational induction, instead of through one’s pores, as the natural politicians like Roosevelt and Al Smith acquire the art, then Mr. Hoover’s first year may turn out to have been, not a mere series of considerable failures, but a very intensive, rather expensive, political education.” —“Harper’s Monthly.” i

Ten Thousand Other Remarks. One enters a great library with a feeling of buoyant expectation; one is rich —beyond the dreams of avarice; one strolls serenely, glancing at titles and names, pulling a book out here and there, passing by many hundreds one has never heard of before, lingering over a few one lias read, a fewone has always wished to read, a few more one knows by name; then one sits down a little bewildered; one’s feeling of expectation has ebbed away and a sense of resignation has taken its place: ‘I could spend the rest of my life in this library,’ one says, ‘and never hope to read half the books of which it is composed.’ It is like trying to discuss the soul of a nation: one can make a few random remarks which one feels to be relevant, but there will always remain ten thousand other remarks, all relevant, which one can never hope to make.” —Mr. Desmond Harmsworth, an Englishman residing in Paris, in “The Essence of the English.”

Authorities Who Are Not ‘Authorities. “The curious thing about our generation is the kind of authority we choose and the kind of authority we reject, especially in religion. Some young people treat the authority of the New Testament very cavalierly, but defer in the most abject fashion to the opinions of Mr. G. Bernard Shaw. They will tell you, with a touch of bravado, that they absolutely repudiate the authority of St. Paul, and in the next breath they will quote with genuine reverence some utterance about religion by Mr. 11. G. Wells. Our newspapers will publish series of articles on any religious question that may be to the fore, and half the articles will probably be written by people like Mr. Hugh Walpole and Miss Rebecca West. What a singular choice of authorities 1 It would be extremely funny if the issues were not so serious. Why in the world should popular novelists or dramatists or journalists be accepted as authorities upon religion?” —The Rev. Henry Bott, M.A., in the “Methodist Magazine.” The Future of the Novel. “What is the future of the novel?” Mr. Shaw Desmond asked towards the close of his lecture. “I will make two or three prophecies. The novel of the future will leave plot and mere story and pass more and more toward philosophy. Novels in the future —already the tendency is beginning to show itself—will, I think, divide themselves more and more definitely into two classes. One will be the purely realist novel, the other will be the novel of fantasy. Stark realism and fantasy, of those twins, one heavenly, the other unhcavenly, the future novel will be born. There is also creeping into the modern novel, particularly in that of the post-revolutionary Russians—as, for example, in works like ‘Cement,’ by Feodor Gladkow, a book extraordinary to a degree—-a new technique, starkly effective, despite its recitativencss, for whatever' may be the art of the novelist, it is assuredly not recital.”