OVERSEAS OPINIONS

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 59, 2 December 1933, Page 20

OVERSEAS OPINIONS

The Radio Listener. . ‘‘Broadcasting demands a special (technique, both in the artist and the listener,” writes Mr. St. George Kittson in the “Bookman.” “The perfect wireless artist is a man who gestures With his voice, and ignoring studio audiences, announcers and all other immediate ornaments, however attractive, concentrates entirely on the listener. ;The listener is an individual, not one of a crowd. There are no boisterous galleryites or luxuriously comfortable seats to put him in a good Inimour. He is not enveloped in soothing darkness. Surrounded by the familiar objects of his household, he does not experience any of those enjoyable thrills that are part and parcel of a -night out.’ The perfect listener realises that wireless variety is a unique form of entertainment. He uses his imagination. He turns a blind eye to this environment, visualises the broadcaster whose voice he hears, and supposes that the' artist is in his room, talking or singing to him alone. By thus creating an air of intimacy the listener ceases to regret the absence or (sympathetic company. These underlying principles are the secret of all good listening; irrespective of the nature of the broadcast.” The Ethics of Advertising. „

“Advertising is the voice of business and is an essential factor in the making of profit. To think of it as a regrettable expense and look forward to the day when it might be eliminated from your accounts is to misunderstand Its function and its power altogether, said Sir Francis Goodenough, at the recent conference of the British Commercial Gas Association. “It is as essential for an industry to learn to advertise as it is for a child to learn to talk. It would be as costly a blunder for a business not to spend money on ■advertising as it would be for a parent to refuse to spend money on his boy or ■girl learning to speak and write. By some business men, advertising is looked upon as an expense mainly connected with putting a proposition or a product before the public, and they hope to ‘cut it out’ as soon as the business has got running. You injght as well cut out the petrol supply when you’ve got the engine running—and you could if you were only going down hili all the time.”

Who Leaves the Litter? “The littering of the countryside by careless holiday-makers is a serious nuisance, but it is disputed where the chief blame lies. A great many motorists, ii» their incursions into the countryside, undoubtedly leave their mark by the road in the way of sandwichwrappings and bottles and cigarette packets. One would imagine that the more strenuous pedestrian, who loves the country enough to strain and toil and carry his lunch uphill, would love it enough also not to deface it. Ihe walking party might be expected, on the average, to give more thought to the countryside than the motoring party; not because the motorist is a depraved character and the walker a saint, but because of the law which makes us prize a thing more highly when we have worked for it. This reasoning the walker may be expected to make. Unfortunately for the perfection of this hypothesis the pedestrian does not always support it. M deserves the greater blame, neither class is free from it, and both may contribute to remedy the evil, bow that the country is more accessible, to alVor ms than it has ever been, it is a pity that we cannot enjoy this freedom of access without doing our share to mar its pleasantness.” —“Manchester Guardian.” The "Clumsy Lout.”

“In Germany the radical writer and the original honest writer are hunted, man-handled, and lied about,” said Mr. 11. G. Wells in a recent speech. “To me it seems more than anything else the revolt of the Clumsy Lout against Civilisation. It is the Clumsy Lout’s revolt against Thought, against Sanity, and against Books. Progress is too much for the Clumsy Lout. Where it will take Germany nd one knows. It is not only in Germany that the wide tolerations with which this century opened are disappearing. It is going on all over the world. The Clumsy Lout is rampant everywhere, with his idiotic symbols, his idiotic salutes, and contriving his imbecile cruelties. Are we safe in England? Personally I do not feel a bit safe for ten years ahead. Luncheon parties for literary men may give place to lynching parties before my time is out. About one thing Ido feel safe—in the long run books will win. The Clumsy Louts will be brought to heel. In the long run sane judgment will settle all the braying and bawling heroics of these insurgent louts.”

What Locarno Means. “The signatories to the Locarno Pact,” points out the “News-Chron-icle,” “must demonstrate that they ho’d by their pledged word. It must be made crystal clear that this count!'.* intends to give unstinted aid to Prance in the event of any aggression upon her. There must be no repetition or the doubts and suspicions of 1914. To those who urge that never again must British blood be spilt on a war-vexed Continent, the answer is that for good or ill this country is now irrevocably linked to the Continent. There is no safety in ‘isolation.’ The aeroplane has ended that illusion. Our only hope of avoiding war is to deter anyone from going to war, and if we leave any doubt about our position, there is a real risk of Prance and her Allies seeking to secure themselves by preventive action against Germany.”

A Need of To-day. "What is needed is generosity. I pray that you will not tire at my in sistence on this strange and interesting parallel. For generations in South Africa war destroyed all endeavour, threatened ultimately to pervert the very character of our people, and succeeded in separating the two races in the country by a gulf which no device of man seemed to be able to span. All policies were tried —the policy of might, the policy of conciliation —but they all failed, and then, as it were by a revelation, generosity, a new factor in our political life, entered Into our politics. To-day my country has recovered that which It lost in the war. It stands an independent nation, the equal of other nations, and with its people united within its borders, for generosity breeds goodwill, which is the so 1 - rent of ail disputes.”—Mr. To Water, the President of the League of Nations this year, at Geneva.

Eating to Live. “It is well said that man Ilves not by bread alone. Modern bread used alone is a slow poison. The baker’s cry is ‘Eat more bread.' Probably we should do better to eat potato; that can only be used whole,” says Dr. Henry E. Armstrong, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry in the City and Guilds College. “The secret of, health in all living things is balanced feeding. The main fault in our dietary to-day is probably lack of balance. We are specially ill-served in the supply of fresh, uncooked vegetable food. The simplCs are going,” Dr. Armstrong added. “In my childhood we were regularly dosed with brimstone and treacle before breakfast. Sulphur is a lost chord to the majority to-day. Is this why the spirit of adventure —any spice of the devil —is now so lacking in our society? The onion, unless it be the spring variety, no,longer has the sulphur savour it once had, which made it of real digestive value and gave to tripe its peculiar charm after the play.” Hitler and the League.

“Herr Hitler’s defection from the League of Nations,” says the London “Star,” “is the sign of his bankruptcy as a statesman. For Herr Hitler, with the denial by the Conference of his demand to re-arm, has met his final failure. His promises of social reform have fallen flat. The rich are still rich. The big estates remain undivided —except that President Hindenburg has had one given him. A distressful winter lies ahead, with only Goering’s promises as cold comfort. Austria remains independent. The world, which was to be compelled to admiration of the success of Power, remains of the opinion that the treatment of the Socialists and Jew’s is a world outrage. Finally, the Reichstag prisoners whom Hitler promised to have publicly executed cannot be found guilty of any crime at all. The Nazi regime has done less for Germany than Stresemann and Bruning, the men on whom it has vented the baseness of its own imaginings.”

Subsidised Shipping. “The subsidies to which objection is taken are, of course, not those granted to maintain services on routes which would otherwise be neglected, but those which are intended to enable the shipowners of the subsidy-giving Governments to compete at an advantage on routes which are already adequately served. Foreign Governments are, it is estimated, spending something like £30,000,000 a year in promoting this uneconomic competition : and the result has been enormously to accentuate the glut of .shipping, which in any case would have been an inevitable consequence of the decline in international trade. In spite of much scrapping the gross tonnage of the world’s steam and motor shipping is to-day nearly fifty per cent, greater than it w’as in 1914, although there is a smaller volume of trade for it to carry. Unnecessary tonnage has been created and kept in operation, and the working of the freight market on an economic basis has been made impossible.—“ The Times,” London.

Equality of Armaments. “Equality is the only ultimate condition of European peace; but ultimate equalization was always implied in the terms of the Peace Treaty, and equality was actually promised in the FivePower Agreement of December 1932. Neither the British nor any other Government have gone back upon that promise. Nor have the British Government, as stated by Baron Neurath, ever proposed “fundamental alterations” of the Draft Convention. What they have done is to express their agreement with the proposal that the date when it should come into force should be postponed. The British Draft Convention was intended to cover a period of five years, and the destruction of heavy material by the States which possessed it was to begin within twelve months of its coming into force. And there was no suggestion of a preliminary trial period. It may be argued that the British Government should have adhered to their original intentions, and the introduction of the preliminary period of waiting seems to be particularly resented by Baron Neurath. But the precise period of transition was still under discussion when the breach occurred.—“The Times,” London.

The Modern Christian. “I am prepared wholeheartedly to defend the modern Christian as 1 picture him, and as I have known him in real life. His is as truly a surrendered life as any recorded in the pages of evangelism. Inward quiet, steadfast courage, a life resting upon the love of God and ruled by a ceaseless instinctive reference to the light that shines from the life of Christ, a world thoroughly mastered becaused it is lovingly served: these are possessions only of the fully dedicated, and the purchase price is a secret between the Christian and his God. There are in all the churches men and women who have thus surrendered themselves, and the beauty of their lives is as a benediction upon all. Many tongues are tied today, and it is a mistake to set it down to mere shallowness of relgious experience. Some of the finest Christians amongst us must halt in their testimony because phrases which were once the current coin of Christian witness seem no longer an exact description of the thing experienced.”—Mr. Ernest Jeffs, assistant editor of the “Christian World.”

Three-Tear Budgets? “I think that your annual Budget system is not the best in the world. In Hyderabad we arrange our Budget over a three-year period,” says Sir Akbar Hydari, Finance Minister in the State of Hyderabad, in an interview in the London “Evening Standard." “If I were asked to advise your finance departments in this country, 1 would suggest to them that they also budgeted on the three-year period. They could then take a long view and the departments receiving the money could also take a long view. I would divide my budget into two parts. The first would cover what I would call the steady expenditure. I would first reckon upon how much I could depend regularly every year for the three years. I would decide how much each department would require and having allocated the money I would then dismiss it from my mind. The second part of the budget would cover variable expenditure and income. That would narrow the discussions of my advisers. I would then see what could be cut and would allocate the variable sums on a three-year basis. This is how we do it in ITyberadad” (which has no income fax and a surplus).