OVERSEAS OPINIONS

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 286, 29 August 1931, Page 20

OVERSEAS OPINIONS

Radio and Democracy. “We must see that by the operation o£ broadcasting the intellectual and ethical standard of the community, low enough In alt conscience as you will agree, is not brought lower still, said Sir John Reith, head of the B B Cm at the recent Summer School of Broadcast Adult Education. “Even though, as some think, the world might have been better without the telephone • and motor-car and broadcasting, such thoughts are not altogether profitable. Let us do our best, broadcasting being here, to make it a world force, as, In- • deed, I think you will agree it is in its birthright to be. Broadcasting can make democracy safe for the world. Wo are faced with the opposition of those who would regard broadcasting merely as a means of entertainment, who resent having any good material uut before them even though they could always switch off. Their mind is a wilderness through want of care,.the plough of wisdom never entering there. They are articulate, and you are not always as articulate in our defence as you might be.” The Too-Modest British. "If you asked any American, European, or Asiatic, who flew the Atlantic, 116 Would say ‘Lindbergh.’ Even in Britain,’ while it- is generally known that someone else did it .first, .you would not find one person who knew the names of Alcock and Brown, for every den who know of Lindbergh. 'Similarly,' if you'wOre asked for the ’niost famous incident in British airship history, you would say, ,‘The RlOl disaster.’ The flying of .the Atlantic . both ways, the first crossing of the Atlantic by any airship, the first crossing of the Atlantic from East to West at all—the fact that these are all British records has almost faded out of, our minds, and certainly is not known toone in ten thousand of any other peoples.”—Major Walter Elliott, M.P. Financial Window-Dressing. “A certain part, of the .published re- . serves of the clearing banks in the shape of deposits with the Bank of England is like a stage army, the same liquid, resources doing duty four times over in the course of each week. At the end of each half-year the same practice, euphemistically known as •window-dressing,’ is followed on a grander scale. In the case of. the end-year window dressing the aggrer gate deposits with the Bank of England offered by the banks of the country as a temporary display on December 31—the only figures with which most of them supply their shareholders and their .customers—appear to be ’ about'£7o,ooo,ooo in excess of the figure normally held. We are. not aware that these practices serve any useful purpose. -We think that they are. not creditable to our banking system; and we' recommend that they should be given up at once.”—The Macmillan Report ’ ■ Melba on Happiness. -. ~ “Where is happiness? It is to be found in the world all about us, in the stillness of a summer night, in the pride of a good thing done, in the flush of a summer dawn, the following of an ideal, the strong grip of a friend, the perfect heart of a rose, or the wild sweetness of a song. It is always very /near. "You may come upon it at-the very next turn of the road. of finding it? I cannot tell you. I know that fame alone does nof bring it, and I know ths*- It Is within the reach of all, young or old, rich or poor, celebrated or unknown. Only have courage and conviction, tenacity and 'kindliness, a ready smile and a willing hand for one less fortunate in the race.. Partly it is in doing your job well, with all yohr ability, and in refusing to despair, and going half way to the next turn of the road yourself. Often if Comes tripping ' more than halfway to meet you.”—The I late Dame Nellie Melba. . . i , . To University Men and. Women. / “There is one demand that falls on all of us as University men and women—to maintain the standards of public taste and public judgment in our community. These are days of immense publicity, of appeals to mass emotion and mass prejudices of various kinds, and it is of vital importance that there should be in a community as large, a group as possible of people ..of steady judgment, accustomed to weighing evidence and to trying to decide things in accordance with the merits of the evidence presented. That general service of maintaining standards of taste and judgment Is one that falls to ail of. us, irrespective of our particular callings, and I should like to think, that as you go out from'a civic university yOu will have before you that demand of ptiblic* citizenship.”— Dr. Hector James Wright, Hetherington, M.A., LL.D., Vice-Chancellor of the University of Liverpool. ■ The New Scientific Attitude. “The light is not now against Science. In that conflict religion has won long ago, so far as living science 1# concerned. I do not mean that all men of science are now Christian believers; they are not. But they have nearly all ceased to make in the name, Of Science any protest against religion.”—The Archbishop of York in the “Daily Mall." ’ Diagnosing the Trouble. "Leaving out of account for the moment the effects of the recent heavy fall of world prices, I think the main causes of the economic troubles of Great Britain since the war have been (I) the burden of unproductive debt, (II) over-lavish expenditure by the State and local authorities, (111) excessive cost of transport and distribution and ot the products of sheltered and protected industries, and (iv) the attempt by all classes to maintain a standard of living higher than is justified by the facts of the economic situation. I am of opinion that the causes which have Impeded the development of trade and industry and led to increasing unemployment during recent, years are in the main outside the domain of banking, finance and credit, and that any reform within the scope of the terms of reference of (he Committee can, fit best, merely touch the fringe of the real problems.”—Lord Bradbury) a minority member of the MacMillan Committee. ' ‘ ‘

The Lang Plan. Behind the recent plan of the New South Wales Government to cut down all State employees to 1500 a year while adding to the pay of the lowergrade officers was an idea that the man who sweeps the streets is performing a social service equal to that of the Judge who lays down the law; that it is as socially necessary to have messengers as Premiers; and that if John Thomas Lang is Premier it is probably because he has more Intelligence than William Henry Brown, the messenger, and, as he didn’t give himself the intelligence, he has no right to be rewarded for it Out Russian friends go further. They say, or said, that the man who lays the sleepers not only does something quite as necessary to the building of the railway line as the engineer who planned It but has a more arduous job, gets more splinters . in his hands and generally has to put up with rougher conditions. As for the schoolmaster and the professor and the rest of the intelligensia, they have such a soft life, and have been so well paid for it, that they have become a menace and must be ruthlessly suppressed and given no say in the government.” —"The Bulletin’ (Sydney). Quitting India. > The decision of Sir Victor Sassoon, one of the leading figures In the commercial and financial world of India, to qnit that country is an event of extraordinary Importance. Sir Victor is • about to. transfer his vast business activities to China. He is doing this because present "political instability is wrecking industry, because he sees no prospect for any but Hindus under Gandhi’s regime, and because he anticipates “considerable disorder” when, that regime becomes an accomplished fact. There can be mo doubt that he is right—unless prompt action is taken to suppress treason in India and unless the disastrous project of Dominion Home Rule is dropped. There will be no guarantee for peace If power is handed over to a tiny oligarchy of Hindu lawyers.—“ Dally Mail.” / ; Does Fanning Pay? Mr. MacDonald’ and Dr. Addison* have failed to make farming pay. .Who; in the wide world has succeeded? The) Canadian wheat-growers, with mort-j ’ gaged holdings and an unsaleable surplus? The American farmers, turning in despair from wheat to cotton, from cotton to wheat, as the price of each In turn drops lower than the other? The Argentine stock-farmers, with dwindling exports at cut prices? The Australians, fleeced by tariff-protected secondary industries? The half-starv-ed rice-growers of India? The Kenya ‘coffee-planters, wondering how to evade the Brazilian morass? The French small holder, keeping body and soul together by labouring all-hours? Russia, it is true, is selling her farm produce, but If what tho Conservatives tell us about “Russian dumping” is true, she could hardly : be said to be making farming pay. ■, If; there . are any countries on which this universal blight has not descended, they are Holland and Denmark. — "Manchester Guardian.”/ ■ / The. Rural Amenities. It Is well to hear the implied con-, fession that there are corners of this island whose rural character'is an Irreplaceable heritage, to be saved by ( every means) that reason can devise,' though the real purpose may'be only one of official convenience. It seems even possible that, in the future, the evil may supply its own cure. As motor traffic Increases, both in. speed and quantity, the use by motorists of other than the recognised roads—which is the chief trouble of country residents—may be more and more reduced by a natural concentration upon the new motor-ways. So the time may yet arrive when did buildings at a garden’s | end will cease to be shaken to pieces by roaring. lorries, and village children to go in fear of life and limb”, and little over-arched lanes to be made unbearable for days together by the lingering fumes of petrol. After all, the analogy of the, railroad is becoming more than ever valid. This kept Itself to itself, and the country has In part survived.— “Morning Post” (London). Age and Youth. The recent unveiling of the bust of Sir Frederic Kenyon at the British Museum was a pleasant occasion for all who earn their bread by looking after antiques, for a brief survey of eminent museum officials shows how very many of them live to a great and hale old age. There is something bracing about the calm and spacious corridors of a good, musetim, and the bigger it-ls the more opportunity does it offer for healthful walking and running, and even for such spontaneous and hygienic fun as hide and seek and large-scale hunt the thimble. But the gmynustic facilities of a museum arc the smallest part of its tonic possibilities. A man, says the adage, is as young as lie feels, and youth and age are after all states of mind which are affected by environment. Preparatory schoolmasters are commonly found to develop a majesty and a deliberation of utterance which their contemporaries find quite Inappropriate to their actual chronological ■ .standing; to have parents living is a 1 great source of youthful feeling, and nobody thinks less of his years than he who Is constantly in the presence Of older things or people.—“ The Tinies” (London). The Tariff “Fear.” i . Who is with us In this great enterprise now within measure of attainment? The tariff is not the end of the work of social reorganisation which lies before us. But it is its indispensable beginning. We foresee the objections of fear-driven minds, their visions of tariff wars and of clashes bptween producing and consuming interests. But wo ask them to consider while there is yet time what must befall if those risks, anticipated and therefore minimised as they have been, are not boldly taken. The present condition of Europe, the grim prospect of the coming winter, are forcing this matter to an issue. We urge Liberals and Labour men to think twice and to think thrice before they allow themselves, in I heir blind adherence to obsolete conventions of economic thought, to be carried they know not whither by the Incalculable tides of a Socialist revolu-, tion.—"Observer” (London). •