OVERSEAS OPINIONS

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 80, 28 December 1935, Page 18

OVERSEAS OPINIONS

“Absolute Contriband.” ■‘ln the debate on this neutrality resolution Congress showed little intellectual honesty. Not one advocate of the measure pointed out that to make it really effective the term ‘implements of war’ should be rewritten as ‘contraband.’ If, in the event of war, the President will embargo cotton, wheat, foodstuffs, automobiles, clothing and all the 299 articles which the British in 1915 listed as ‘absolute contraband,’ then this resolution will be effective. But no ardent proponent dared to make that fundamental issue clear to his constituents.”—From the “Washington Post.”

Patlis of Glory. “Paris was singing the Marseillaise and shouting ‘To Berlin!’ And a wise statesman, driving down the boulevard in a closed carriage, said to his companion: ‘Ecoutez-inoi bien. . . . Nous sommes perdus.’ M. Thiers knew his France, and he knew Prussia. Now, G 5 years later, Rome is singing the same song of victory, drinking the same heady wine. True, Mussolini and Fascismo are of sterner stuff than the Third Napoleon and the theatrical Second Empire, but there must be Italian elders whispering cautiously, lest they be overheard, ‘Mark my words. . . . We are lost.' So many paths of glory lead to Sedan.” —The “St. Louis Post-Dispatch.”

Law and Order, and the Police. “The idea that law and order prevail in England because there exists at New Scotland Yard an organisation supernatural in its efficiency, and that the Metropolitan Police is composed of a class of men superior to the rest of the community, is widespread among those whose opinions are formed by a certain type of newspaper. The Metropolitan Police—both uniform and detective force —is indisputably the finest body of police in the world, and the systems built up to fight the criminal with so much patient research and individual and collective genius at the Yard have probably no parallel in the world. They deserve unstinted praise. But the efficiency of man and method is due in no small degree to the sanction of public opinion of the system of criminal law under which the police are called to take action. If the laws of the country did not, in general, commend themselves to the public, the police would be faced with a task which might overwhelm them.” —Colonel S. G. Partridge, C.M.G., until recently assistant secretary of New Scotland Yard.

Low on Caricaturing. “The aim of the caricaturist is to discover, analyse and select essentials of personality, and by the exercise of wit to reduce them to appropriate form. His is the art of all-in portraiture. Portraits of persons made during periods of repose before the camera —human or otherwise, may be delightful in their sugared veracity, but as records of character they are incomplete, because character does not reside in what is perceptible to the eye alone. Persons manifest themselves strongly to other senses. A prominent characteristic of, say, Smith may be that he shouts at you when speaking; o'f Jones, that he is a devoted father; of Robinson, that he smells. In any complete representation of Smith, Jones or Robinson, such characteristics must have their place. To insist that this is impossible in a graphic representation because, not being visible they are undrawable, is nonsense. It is the art of the personal caricaturist to fuse together the physical and the spiritual, to show not Smith but his quality, to lose him in his own Smithness so to speak.”—Low, in his book, “Ye Madde Designer.”

Learning From the Living. “As we grow older, we learn less from books, and more from practical life among men and women. It is a great thing, as Ben-Sirach says, to engage in public service, and to come into contact with men of affairs. It is a great thing to travel, and lose the special prejudices of Englishmen. Still more important it is to put our theories to the test of practical life,” writes the Itev. Canon H. L. Goudge, D.D., in his book, “Sermons on the Old Testament." “If we do not, probably it is but little wisdom that we shall acquire. All this is the task of maturity,’as study is the task of the young. Thus, though we never say of a young man that he is ‘a mere scholar,’ we do sometimes say it of a man of riper years; and we mean, not only that he makes little contribution to the common good, but that he is not a competent guide. It may grieve, or even annoy him, that we pay so little attention to what he says; but our reason is that he does not really know.”

Can This Be Mussolini? “We are confronted by an Italy, nationalist, conservative, clerical, which claims to make the sword its law, and the army the school of the nation. We had foreseen this moral perversion, and, for that reason, are not surprised by it. But those who think that this preponderance of militarism is a sign of strength are mightily mistaken. Strong peoples have no need to give themselves up to such a stupid orgy as that in which the Italian Press is now letting itself go with mad exaltation. Strong peoples have some sense of measure. Italy, nationalist and militarist, shows that it lacks this sense. .. . Thus it comes almost that a miserable war of conquest is acclaimed as if it were a Roman triumph.”—Benito Mussolini, in the Italian Socialist paper, “Avanti,” on January 21, 1913, when Italy was setting about the conquest of Tripoli.

Future of the Crown Colonies. “To talk of the Crown Colonies being handed over wholesale as Mandates to the League,” the Colonial Secretary said, “is to presume that the peoples can be treated as mere chattels. But we are bound to consult their wishes, and I have no doubt that, if we were to do so, we should find the vast majority of them content and anxious to stay in their present situation. To say that imiflies no criticism of the Mandate System. In fact, the sentiment of the people in the Colonies is due to our having for a long time past in our Colonial Government practised the very principles laid down by the League of Nations for the government of Mandated territories. We have acted primarily as trustees for the welfare and happiness of the peoples in (he Colonies, and they have a lively appreciation of the many benefits which they have received under the British Crown.”— Mr. Malcolm Macdonald. .

The Family the Source. “The chief educational instrumentality should always be the family. If parents do not themselves instruct, guide, shape and discipline their children, education in any true sense becomes almost impossible. The school itself, however important, is and always should be a subordinate and cooperating educational agency. If it supports and strengthens the influence of the family, well and good. If it combats that influence, disaster waits just around the corner. If there be no family education, the school, do what it will, can never take the family’s place. The school, without the family, may easily become almost an obstacle to education, particularly when accompanied by the silent influence upon the youthful mind and feeling of the sensational happenings of the moment as recorded in the press from day to day. The school becomes an obstacle to education when it subordinates or neglects discipline, when it endeavours to substitute elaborate paraphernalia for the very simple instrumentalities of true education.” —Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, in an address delivered at the opening of the 182nd year of Columbia University (U.S.A.). Waiting for the Caravan Car. “It is matter of some surprise,” says the “Times,” “that an effort has not been made to develop the caravan idea in connection with the car itself. Caravans are becoming more and more attractive; but there are large numbers of motorists who object to them because of their weight. These motorists often try to convert their cars into caravans by devices for lowering the backs of the front seats, so that these seats can be converted into sleeping bunks. A brisk demand for a car which would be capable from the outset of such conversion ought to exist. The popularity of the saloon over all other models is based upon its qualities as a ‘house on wheels.’ During the holiday season these qualities become a touchstone of success. There can be little doubt that they are capable of much more extensive development than has as yet been attempted. If the car on the road has been brought to perfection, the car off the road has been largely overlooked. It represents a very substantial element in modern motoring.” Free Government.

“The real question is whether the democratic idea is stronger or weaker to-day tba.n it was two years ago in Great Britain, in France, in the smaller countries of the Atlantic civilisation. How important to-day in France is Colonel de la Rocque and his Fascists of the Croix de Feu, as compared with eighteen months ago? How big does Sir Oswald Mosley loom to-day in England? Less than two years ago Lord Rothermere was grooming him for the role of England’s man of destiny. Who, off-hand, is General Owen O’Duffy? Well, not much more than a year ago his Blue Shirts were supposed to be a menace to free government in Ireland. What has become of the little imitators of totalitarianism who wanted to play Hitler and Mussolini in the smaller countries of the European democratic belt? They are now out of the picture.”—Simeon Strunsky, in the “New York Times Magazine.” Expanding Italy’s Deficit.

“The official Italian excuse for war on Ethiopia is that Italy is overcrowded and needs more room. The same excuse was put forward in 1911 when Italy attacked Turkey and took control of Libya. Libya, just across the Mediterranean in North Africa, is seven times the size of Italy. It has fisheries. It hag much good pasture land. Barley, wheat, olives, tobacco, mulberries, figs, dates, oranges, lemons and the vine are cultivated. Getting control of the province was easy. Keeping it has been hard and expensive. The natives rebelled w’hen the World War broke out. There have been risings ever since. As late as 1930 the Government forcibly moved 80,000 Arabs with their 600,000 head of cattle from the interior to the coast so that officials could keep an eye on them.” —“New York Post.”

The Charge Against Britain. “The charge against us is that we are sitting tight on our own ill-gotten gains—our colonial empire that is so much the better part of the swag—and pretending virtuous indignation when any other Pow’er ventures to challenge our supremacy. That view of our conduct is nearly as common in France as in Italy; we can by no means afford to dismiss it with a shrug. But what can we do to show that our conversion is sincere? Sir Samuel Iloare, with his eyes on Germany as well as Italy, referred at Geneva to the possibility of a fairer distribution of I lie world's colonial products. What did he mean? If only that we are prepared to let Germany and Italy buy all they need in our colonial markets, the Germans and Italians will say: ‘Thank you for nothing.’”—The "New Statesman and Nation.’ ” Immediate Necessities.

“While it is true that the system of government which the Constitution created has made possible the prosperity which the American nation has normally enjoyed, that is a fact too farremoved from the immediate necessities of men and women, and too little realised by them, to catch many votes. What the average voter is most interested in is making a decent living for himself and his dependents. The political party which gives the greatest promise of enabling him to do that will get his vote. And that being the case, it will be the pressing economic issues of the day, and not the constitutional issue which will determine the action of the electorate at the polls.”—“Detroit Free Press.” If at First. . . .

“I can assure the country that no isolated action will be taken by Great Britain. The object of the League of Nations is peace and not war. Furthermore, war is the last thing in the minds of the British Government, and all such talk to the contrary is bad and evil. We are always ready to avail ourselves of the first opportunity which may present itself for conciliation. The path we are treading in the League is new, but if it succeeds it will be a great triumph. I will never take the view that if it fails it will be the end of the League. In that event, let us try again, and never lose faith iu some means other than the arbitrament of war, to solve disputes.”,—Mr, Baldwin..