OVERSEAS OPINIONS

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 261, 30 July 1932, Page 16

OVERSEAS OPINIONS

Tim American Heart. “It is not only against the material consequence of this decade drift i and hallucination, but against the essence Jf its spirit, that the best and bravest among us Americans are to-day in revolt- They are looking for new leaders, for men who are truthful and resolute and eloquent in the conviction that the American destiny is' to be free and magnanimous, rather than complacent and acquisitive; they are looking for leaders who will talk to the peopl not about two-car garages and a bonus but about their duty, and about the sacrifices they must make, and about the discipline.they .must impose upon themselves, and about. their responsibility to the world and . to posterity, about all those things .which make a people self-respecting, serene and confident. .May they not look in .vain. Mr .Walter Lippmann, in “Time and Tide.”

Nd National Banners. “There is no France, no Italy, no ,i Germany, no America, no Great Britain apart from the rest of the nations. There is nothing smaller than a world. There is nothing less than a system which is crumbling under our feet. 0 None of us can stay out of--the work ■ of restoration and reconstruction, because none of us can stay out of the miseries, which are gathering round about us.”—Mr. Ramsay MacDonald.

After the American Elections. ■“To-day, America,” says the “Economist,” “with her eyes blinded by the dust Of the electoral arena, is in no mood to think over much of world problems. By the autumn, the atmosphere'in the United States, will be different. If a final settlement be achieved at Lausanne, it will be impossible for the American ‘man in the street to avoid saying to himself: Tn order to remove what they conceived to be a fatal obstacle to the recovery of international trade, these Europeans have cancelled their claims in respect ot inter-Governmental war debts among themselves, although they knew that they ran the risk of still having to pay their debts to America at the cost , of a great burden to their own Budgets. Should we not'perhaps be wise to follow the same policy in our own interests?”’ ' ' .

A Modern Aesop. “Professor Einstein, on leaving London for Geneva in. connection with the Disarmament Conference,” says the / “Star,” “told this little story: ‘An American city had much crime. It became so bad that the mayor called a meeting to decide what should be done. The first item on.the agenda was what should be the size of the knife every . individual should carry for his own protection. This fits the case at Geneva? We hope the Professor will have ample opportunities of whispering his story into the ears of statesmen at Geneva.” ■

The De Valera Mentality. “I have had experience of Mr. De Valera as a negotiator, \ ; and, quite frankly, I think T have never seen anything quite like him. He is perfectly unique, and. I think this poor distracted world has a good .right to feel profoundly thankful that he is unique, because if you have anything like him in the* Council of Nations, well, no business could ever be transacted.”— Mr. Lloyd George.

Ths Free State and the Dominions. “Mr. De Valera’s course,” states the “Observer,” “implies that an agreement solemnly accepted by one Government can be repudiated by its successors. It follows, therefore, that an undertaking given by himself at Ottawa or elsewhere would be just as fragile as that which he has so lightly discarded. He would ask Dominions which cherish their word as sacred to accept in exchange tenders that on his own'showing may lose their value at any moment. Mr. Thomas describes such an outlook adequately for practical purposes when he says that it 'would make ordinary, business relationship impossible.’ If the attitude of the Free State remains unchanged, nothing can follow but a refusal to do business with it at Ottawa, withdrawal of the Preference we now concede to it, and a differential tax on its imports to Great Britain for the recovery of the defaulted Annuities.” Heart v. Mind.

“Modern physicists may count themselves fortunate in their field of inquiry. There is no society for the protection of atoms; they may be bombarded, exploded, and tortured in every possible way without evoking any protest. Modern astronomers assure us that the tortures to which atoms are submitted in our experimental laboratories are as nothing compared to what happens to them in the burning centres of the Universe. ,We. give chemists the utmost freedom to do jvith the elements as they will; we never seek to restrain geologists from probing to their depth the ancient wounds of Mother Earth.' But when we experiment with matter in that state known as living, then we find that we are confronted with a new attitude of mind ... our hearts as well as our heads are challenged.”—Sir Arthur Keith in defense of vivisection.

Bules of Success. “During the first twenty years of life, I learned simple facts like these —common sense, honesty and integrity, doing what my employer wanted in the way he wished it done; doing a little more than he expected; taking it to heart as a personal shortcoming if anything with which I was'only even indirectly connected went wrong—never go looking for an alibi when a mistake has been made.” —Sir Eric Geddes. This Democracy. Lord Ponsonby, a great grandson of Charles Earl Grey, the British Prime Minister who brought about the passing of the reform Bill of 1832, writing in “Current History” on "British Democracy, 1832-1932,” says:/‘Some may condemn democracy as it has so. far developed, call it a failure and a (laager and 'assert that its further advance must be stayed. Others may contend that in a transition stage it is not fair to judge the initial efforts of a new force which in England must be slow in its development and that this is only a momentary setback. Some may have their eyes on Russia, others on Italy. But whatever tentative conclusion may be reached in an examination of the present situation, the fundamental good sense of the British people may be counted on in the long run. They may be apathetic, stolid and phlegmatic; they may glory in being thought stupid ; but in this baffling and probably forever insoluble problem of the organisation *of human society they are not unlikely to assume the leadership in the future as they have in the past”-

Leadership in Commerce. “Commerce wants those who can in due course take the lead-those wi.h personality and initiative who will not wait for business to come to them, but will go out and get it, said Mr. H. Ramsbotham, M.P., Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education, in an address to the Royal Society of Arts; “those with the disposition to make things happen, and not to wait for things to happen, with the “telllgence to plan and foresee, to be wise before the event and. not-after it; qualities that are uncommon arid dependent as much upon character as upon brains. “Manipulation” and “Inflation.” “We are met with certain curious obsessions immediately we announce or suggest a policy of raising commodit prices; we are told that we are trying to create prosperity by currency manipulation, "'said Sir Robert Horne, M.P., in a recent speech. “But currency manipulation is no crime. It is carried on every day by the Bank of. England. The fact is that there is a deep-seated view in people’s minds that currency has been created by Providence and that it is sacrilegious to touch it pulation is not bad, but you may manipulate it badly, and then the . whole world suffers. There are other' obsessions. The word inflation is a perpetual deterrent to the just considera tion of these problems. People who tell you that you must not inflate can very seldom give you any reason why you should not do it. In . the last resort they are forced to say that you must never begin it because you cannot stop it. They are like people who would ' refuse a drop of brandy to a man with a heart attack in case he should .take to drink.”

TJie Spirit of Town-Planning. “The real secret of progress in town planning must lie not so much in complicated Acts of Parliament as-in the hearty co-operation of owners with local authorities,” writes - Sir Percy Hurd, M.P., President', Rural District Councils Association, in the “Municipal Journal.” “No one benefits 'more than owners as a result of good planning. Their wisest course lies in close cooperation: for the general , benefit, including their own. There are those who hold that it is hopeless to expect adequate planning unless you remove this question entirely from munic.pal management and place it under the care of a national council. I need hardly say that, to me, anything of the kind would be undesirable. • Much of the strength of England and. its orderly progress and rejection of extremism rests in the development of a healthy municipal life.”

What Men Are. , r .. “There is a challenge to the definite existence of a line between what is right and what is wrong," said Lord Irwin, ex-Viceroy of India, in a speech reported in the “Yorkshire Post. “Psycho-analysis tells us there are many explanations why people want to do, this and that, and that all must be taken into account. The -result is to drive individuals to pursue not what they conceive to be right, but what they think will make them happy, and the pursuit of happiness, therefore, becomes more and more the goal of more and more people, and the standard of values on which our lives depend tends to get itself built on® the fluctuating sands of convention • and public opinion, with no secure sanction to hold it in place. What men and women do in life depends very much more on what they are than upon what they know, and what they are will always,depend upon whether they have any permanent principles by which to' steer their ' course.”

National and Local Spending. • “Spending, it is true, depends quite as .much on policy as on economy of administration, and . the idea- that the nation must not ecbnbmise on its social services is preposterous.. It may also be remembered that the May Committee concentrated on a rather narrow front, and that £88,000,000 out of the £96,000,000 of savings which they recommended were derived from three sources alone —unemployment insurance, education, and roads,”'says the “Daily Telegraph” in a recent leader. “Local expenditure has not only increased pari passu with national, but it has been encouraged by* Exchequer grants, offered in too many cases as bribes and inducements to persuade loeal'authorities to plunge. The whole system of grants iw every department needs scaling down, and the same is no less true.of personal and private expenditure. Every class has been living above its real income, with no addition to its efficiency, and certainly with none to its contentment.”

What Are War Debts? ■ “What were the War Debts? They merely consisted of the supplies in aid which were passed from the Rich Allies to the Poor Allies. ’ That' is to say, the two rich Allies sent war goods to their poorer friends in order to enable them to fight. Suppose the rich Allies had not sent these war supplies to their poor friends. In that case France and Italy would have been overrun by the enemy, and the rich Allies would have been overwhelmed in the misfortunes of their poor friends. • The Germans would have quickly conquered France, and London would ' have been presented with the staggering problem of a German coast across the English Channel, frpm ’which emerging submarines would have made it very difficult to feed London. How inequitable and ridiculous it was, for the rich Allies to write down in their books the value of the war , goods they sent to the poor Allies, and after the war to demand repayment with interest! The supplies were simply a form of mutual aid in the common cause.” —“My Magazine.”

A Church Layman's View. “For what it is worth, the writers opinion 'is that the average layman cannot conceive it to be in accordance with the will of the Founder of Christianity that until Nonconformists accept re-ordination from Bishops (for which there is no authority whatever in the Gospels and practically none in the rest of the New Testament)’ they are to be treated as Christians not fit to communicate' with ourselves,” says Lieut.-Colonel E. N. Mozley, D. 5.0., Diocesan Lay Reader, in the "Yorkshire Post.” “We want to be friends with ■ them, just as we want to be friends with all Christians, and the day is long past when theological arguments from patriotic and Catholic literature in favour of telling Nonconformists to keep their distance from us in supreme spiritual matters can have any weight with us whatever.”