OVERSEAS OPINIONS

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 48, 19 November 1932, Page 16

OVERSEAS OPINIONS

Advice to Hikers. “A word of advice to those who intend to spend their holidays on foot,” writes Peter Simple in the “Morning Post.” "Nearly everyone who packs a rucksack makes the mistake —acquired by' years of experience of packing trunks —of placing heavy articles, such as shoes and books, at the bottom, and the light articles on top. This is fatal; it upsets the balance of the rucksack, and may wreck the success of a walking holiday. All the heavy articles must be at the top, and the bottom should be stuffed with shirts, socks and so on. I speak as one who has had bitter experience in this matter; and my advice is corroborated by nd less an authority on walking than Mr. Hilaire- Belloc.” Gandhi’s Hunger-Strike.

f'Mr. Gandhi would admit that the practice’of sitting dhurna is liable to abuse, and will draw a fine distinction between. that practice and his own action bn this occasion and when formerly he fasted on behalf of certain factory hands to secure them better terms. He can also, and with more dearness, distinguish the prolonged fast he once imposed on himself to assist in promoting peace between the Moslem and the Hindu communities. But we need hardly trouble our heads about these distinctions. For the springs of Mr. Gandhi’s actions are usually to be found not in the lawyerlike reasonings which he elaborates to justify them, but in the traditional mythology and philosophy of Mother India. Mr. Gandhi does not even claim that he will ‘die for India.’ He will die,for Hinduism. This is neither worthy of him, nor on the level of his claims in the past It Is unfair to us because if he wishes to die on our doorstep he ought to have died long ago at the door of the Mohammedans.” — An Anglo-Indian in “The Manchester Guardian.” Peace’s Peril.

“We pray. We utter pious speeches. We weep at -the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. But when it comes to money we Americans spend one billion dollars as interest and principal on our debt (chiefly the cost of the last war), neatly one billion dollars in pensions and service to the veterans of former wars, and more than seven hundred millions Ao the Army and . Navy. But only a 'fountain pen for peace! Meanwhile, 'time pass®; a new generation of boys 1 grows up, filled with outworn ideas of glory. A new generation of girls grows up, with admiring eyes for uniforms. And the bands play on.”—Mr. Bruce Barton, in the “American Magazine.” Hospitality. “There are many species of Hospitality, or so-called Hospitality,” writes 'Mrs. Hew Wardrop, in “Chamber's “There is the ‘Breathless ’'Hospitality/ the ,'House-Proud Hospitality/.. ,the ‘Society Hospitality/ and the *Roland for an Oliver Hospitality? Yet how rare are all good things, how rare is the true Simple Hospitality. Simple Hospitality—you I know it and feel it instinctively whenever its presence is near. It pervades the whole atmosphere, .for it breathes in all the hundred and onelittle things . which thoughtful and loving hearts have arranged for your comfort. Artificiality cannot live in its' presence; thus you are not for ever pretending to be somebody else. You know you are welcome for yourself alone. Simple Hospitality sets you at your ease and makes you feel at home. You thus think naturally, act naturally. Therefore you are happy.’’ Wartime Courtesies.

“It is interesting to recall a secret of the war,” said Sir Graham Bower, the authority on naval affairs, in an address at the International Law Association. “On August 16, 1914, the German cruiser Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse met a Union-Castle liner homeward bound from South Africa. The captain of the cruiser stopped the steamer, and found there were passengers on board, including women and children, for whom he could not provide accommodation in Ids ship. He said to the captain of the liner: U apologise for giving the ladies an unnecessary fright. All I require is that you will destroy your wireless. Then you may go free.’ The wireless apparatus was destroyed, and the ship proceeded on her way. On the same day the German cruiser sighted a Royal Mail steamer bound from Buenos Ayres to Southampton, and exactly the same thing happened. In the same month the German warship Dresden met three ships in similar circumstances, and the same thing again happened. In Oxford the names of German students who fell in the war are placed on the roll of honour. If you have a roll of honour for the heroes of international law, I hope you will inscribe on it the names of these two German captains. It was an example of chivalry on their part.’’

A Bishop’s Dream. “May not the world reach a condition tn which there shall no longer be any nnemployed men because the amount of indispensable human labour has for the mass of mankind been so reduced, that ■vastly greater numbers of men working for much shorter time will be requisite for the work that has to be done, Let us suppose, I say, that, in the saner world of a not too distant future, a five-hour day will be normal and by international agreement secured throughout the entire area of manual labour. In that event the question must needs present itself with menacing insistence. How will the people employ the large leisure which they will actually possess? When the work of the day begins at 9 a.m, and, with an interval of an hour for dinner, ends at 3 p.m., what will the workmen do with themselves during the many hours of their free time?”—Dr. Hensley Henson, Bishop of Durham.

National Health and Economy.

“Strict national economy is as binding on the' health services as upon public expenditure on Army and Navy, on education, on insurance and pensions, on roads and social amenities,” comments Sir George Newman. “It is therefore incumbent upon all local authorities to be vigilant to ensure a public health administration which is both frugal and judicious. We must scrutinise our arrangements to see that there is no waste or duplication, that we postpone all expenditure which can be postponed without’ impairing the public well-being, and that for all money spent we obtain a dividend in positive health result. Through public health services the country is buying the three articles of survival, health, and capacity. It may he that we are paying too much for them.”

The Break in Soviet Agriculture. “Often the peasants of the Soviet*collective farms do not receive their advance payments in foodstuffs, and, accordingly, refuse to work, or work very reluctantly,” says the Russian journal “Pravda.” “Thus, in the regions of Kherson, Beryozovka, and elsewhere, it often happens that in the busiest time of the harvest campaign, when not a day can be lost, only or 65 per cent, of the peasants belonging to a collective farm go to work. Worse still, enormous amounts of grain are being lost in the field due to the criminal negligence and apathy with which the work is being done. Such losses are a general rule for the whole of the Soviet Union. So we lose an amount of grain equalling the amount which the Government buys at fixed prices from the peasants! Also, in many places harvest time found the collective farms absolutely unprepared. Machinery remained unrepaired since last year, and often brand-new reaping machines would break down after having been used for only a few days.” Conversation— A. Lost Art.

• "Conversation is nourished in the home and we are seldom there to nourish it. It goes to pieces in a crowd, and we are apt to go to pieces out of one. It must be smooth, and our occupations are spasmodic. It demands more concentration than we can comfortably give it Everything is against it. This, again, might be different if we felt any kind of urge to think, but we do not We have reached a stage where we are pathetically dependent upon our senses and most satisfactorily independent of our brains. Of course we do not talk any less on this account. Far from it. Probably no generation has talked half so loudly or so long. The speed-struck have a horror .of silence, and we see to it that there is none. There is no fear of talking intelligently until one has first learnt to be silent, and the modern substitute for conversation is as innocent of interplay as certain of the modern substitutes for symphony.” —Miss Betty Inskip, in the “Evening News” of London. A Reminder.

An unpleasant, cynical touch concerning the Franco-German war, Von Bulow writes in his latest book: "I will, not deny that as we rode over the corpses on that Christmas morning, despite my war enthusiasm, I thought of the angel who, after the birth of the Saviour, 1870 years before, praised God and spoke these words: ‘Glory be io God in the highest, Peace on earth and goodwill toward men.’ ” Commenting on the above in the “News-Chronicle,” Mr. Stuart Hodgson says: "There's a picture for you—‘As we rode over the corpses’—‘despite my war enthusiasm’ —and yet he thought of the angel. He will not deny it. I wonder what the angel thought of him.”

Too Many Railway IJncc. “Of late years in this country (the United Kingdom) we have suffered from onr leaders not having the pluck to grasp the nettle. I venture to say that if the men could be found to treat the railway problems as if they were some great commercial problem, the result would be of permanent benefit to the country as a whole, and of ultimate benefit to the railways themselves,” writes Sir Maxwell Hicks in “Modern Transport.” "To gain an insight into the proper co-ordination of road services and rail services, it would be illuminating to take a map of England to-day; assume_that there were no railways in existence; and then sketch in the railways that one would like to see, and that one would be prepared to finance as new undertakings. I do not suggest that this should be followed literally, but it would show to all concerned that a great part of the trouble of the railways to-day is due to working, at great expense, entirely unnecessary lines which do not provide a sufficient amount of traffic.”

A Retreat From Peace? “The League of Nations,” says the “Sunday Times,” “was established to prevent war. By the Kellogg Pact the Powers all vowed they would never again use war as an instrument of policy. Is the. League impotent? Did statesmen all over the world sign an undertaking without being resolved to honour it? If the League cannot do its work, and if the Pact does not mean what it says, shall we not inevitably drift back to the old order, or disorder, with hostile groups of States, competitive armaments, and the dread shadow of war hanging over all? If we ourselves have lost patience with the snail-like movement toward disarmament, is it to be wondered at that Germany revolts against it?”

Japan’s Big “Bite.” “The Japanese nation,” says “The Times,” London, “has indeed become involved in an immense undertaking. The former provinces of Manchuria are as large as France and Germany together ; and the -Government of Tokio are being forced to send continual reinforcements of troops to support the puppet Government of Pu Yi and io suppress hostile risings in all the corners of his territory. The Japanese Treasury is not in a state to stand this drain if it continues much longer; and the Japanese people may in time share the conclusion reached by the commission that disregard of the feelings of the Manchurians will not ultimately serve the permanent interests of Japan. Already the ‘serious irredentist problem’ foreseen by Lord Lytton is being created, and the friendly collaboration of the; Chinese and Japanese peoples, which is so much to be desired by the rest of the world, is being rendered almost impossible.” To the Point.

“More than a quarter of a century ago a British-made calculating machine was put on the market,” writes Lord Strathspey in the “Aberdeen Press and Journal.” “After several years of fruitless attempts at pushing it, a famous engineering firm was persuaded to give it a trial. It was found that the machine would provide information about costs in various departments and operations which could not be obtained otherwise. The firm discovered that among different phases of manufacture of a certain steel part the drilling operation was costing an inordinate ainounr. They immediately stopped drilling, and had holes made in the original casting, which answered the same purpose. This enabled them to make the part at 25 per cent, of the original cost and sell cheaper. Now listen! The firm has a number of branches. Yet to-day, some twenty-five years after it was put on the market, they are only using this invaluable machine in the same works where installed nt first.”