NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 287, 31 August 1931, Page 8

NOTES OF THE DAY

Details of the Government’s proposals for the future control of broadcasting in New Zealand will be awaited with keen interest by listeners. It is not very informatdry to be told that a scheme has been adopted on the model of the British Broadcasting Corporation. An organisation handling a revenue of over one million pounds annually will require a great deal of adaptation to the restricted field in New Zealand and listeners will be well advised to watch closely the rearrangements made to suit local conditions. They and the general public should also ask why the State should in present difficult times add this new financial responsibility to' its many other cares and assume an undisclosed liability, especially when the present company had offered a practicable and democratic alternative scheme. Moreover, however stringent the provision to make the new board ■ independent, the public knows from experience how difficult it will be under public control to exclude political influence. A great many-* other objections could be raised to the Government’s general policy but it is sufficient at present to advise both listeners and the general public not to relax vigilance at the mere sound of what some people think to be the magic password of 8.8. C. * * * *

“Some of the idle believe the State owes them .a living,” remarked the Prime Minister of Canada last’ week, as if the belief were a strange one. Probably it is a, new idea in such strongly individualistic nations as Canada and the United States- but in many other countries, Great Britain and New Zealand included, the “right to live,” or to “work or sustenance,” has for so long been asserted that by reiteration it has gradually become accepted. That is, the .belief has been established not by reasoned argument but because, owing to our intellectual sloth, it has never been challenged, examined and destroyed. Sir Ernest Benn recently wrote: “ ‘The right to live’ is a soft, comforting, easy lie. Constantly’repeated, it will lead us deeper and deeper 1 into difficulty. As a civilised people we can use our political power to say that when we are prosperous we will devote some of the fruits of our prosperity to the care-of the unfortunate, but such an attitude. is necessarily governed by' serious i practical limitations. Our ability to care for the suffering depends entirely upon.' our prosperity, and that prosperity must not be thrown away in the supposed interests of our social failures, for in that way we merely defeat our own charitable purpose.” In other words, we must not put a premium on idleness or make the industrious and provident bear the burden of the indolent and improvident.

It is rather significant of the injustice of the situation regarding the prices of wheat and flour in this country that the chief public reactions when the subject is mentioned are impatience and irritation. These feelings are likely to be intensified by the perusal of the statement made to the Press by the president of the New Zealand Master Bakers’ Federation. Mr. Burton points out that there will be no prospect of cheaper bread for a community that is demanding it unless the Government’s present policy of bolstering up the New Zealand wheat-growers by a high protective tariff is very considerably modified. He suggests the abandonment of the present sliding scale and the restoration of a fixed protective duty. To-day, he points out, the f.o.b. price per ton of Australian flour is' £5/10/-' at Melbourne and £7/10/- at Sydney. At these rates shipments could be delivered in an Auckland bread factory at £7/10/- and £9 respectively whereas Auckland flour costs £lB/7/6. There is no need to go further into statistics to show that on such a basis of protection, cheap bread is out of the question. * * * *

At 'long last Mr. Gandhi seems to have resolved his doubts as to whether the India Round Table Conference is entitled to the privilege of his attendance as a representative of the Indian Native Congress, and has departed for London. Although the change of Government that has taken place in the meantime should not in theory affect the Conference in any way, since the negotiations with India on the question of her political status have been conducted on a strictly non-party basis, it may probably be found that there has been a subtle change of atmosphere. The difficulties of the problem are fully appreciated by the new Secretary of State, Sir Samuel Hoare, who was a member of the first Round Table Conference, and he sees very clearly the importance of disencumbering the realities of the case from such impracticable idealisms as are almost certain to be sponsored by Mr. Gandhi. In a message of -goodwill to India, he points out “ideas and phrases” are not enough. “That,” he says, "is the spirit in which I shall approach the problem. With a realistic attitude, goodwill on both sides must be combined.” In more homely language, Sir Samuel Hoare will insig that the visionaries “get down to tig gut sjU feul/