A BACKGROUND TO THE NEWS

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 94, 15 January 1936, Page 7

A BACKGROUND TO THE NEWS

The French Right Wing One of the Right Wing journals in France has addressed an open letter to King George on the subject of the dispatch of British cruisers to the Mediterranean. Organised political parties have existed for a relatively short time in France; it was not until the establishment of the short-lived Second Republic in 1848 that French political parties or groups began to acquire a solid basis. At the general elections of 1849 there were four wellmarked party groups in the field. Ranging from Right to Left, these were the monarchists, the conservative republicans, the radical republicans and the Socialists. Therefore, if an exact date must be found for the origin of the French party system this one will do as well as any other, inasmuch as the fourfold repartition of political opinion has, with some additions, ’remained until the present day. All party harmonies and discords during the past 75 years have been mere variations of this four-octave composition. From time to time, however, these four party divisions have proved insufficient to shelter all varieties of opinion among the people, and further disintegrations have taken place. At other times there has been a coalescence pf two or more groups into a bloc or working alliance. In the election of 1876, the first general election after the fall of Napoleon 111, the campaign developed into a pitched battle between republicans and monarchists, and the present main cleavage of opinion in the Chamber of Deputies is to be found in the differences of opinion among the adherents of these two parties. Among the republicans there were the three groups of radical republicans, moderate republicans and conservative republicans; among monarchists were the dynastic groups _ of Bourbons, Orleanists and Bonapartists. From these six groups has developed the present multiple party system. The names of the Right Wing, the Centre, and the Left Wing and their _ variations were taken from the position the different groups occupied on the floor of the National Assembly. The three republican groups came to be colloquially known as the extreme left, the left, and the left centre, and the monarchists took the other three positions, until the Right Wing was occupied by the conservative monarchists, who, once they became convinced that the republican party was in the saddle, preferred to be known as the "Party of the Right,” though most of them continued to be royalists at heart. Today the Right wing has several factions, differing only in the degree in which they are reactionary iu sentiment. Sir Ernest Wreford. Under the name of Mr. E. Henry, Sir Ernest Henry Wreford, a director of the National Bank of Australasia, recently spent several weeks on holiday in New Zealand. Sir Ernest Wreford is now 70 years of age. He served in South Australian, Western Australian and London branches of the National Bank of Australasia from 1882 to 1909, and was assistant chief manager at Melbourne from 1909 to 1912, when he was appointed chief manager. He is a member of the council of the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce and a' foundation member of the Australian National Committee of the International Chamber of Commerce. He is also a member of the council of the Royal Empire Society, Victoria Branch. A Cloudburst. Two cloudbursts, it is reported, have caused much damage in Australia. Though the name is often misapplied to a heavy rain squall, a cloudburst is actually a sudden and violent storm of rain. The name probably originated from the belief that clouds are solid masses full of water which occasionally burst with disastrous results. A whirlwind passing over the sea sometimes carries the water up in a twisting vortex; passing over the land its motion is checked and a deluge of water results. This is the true cloudburst. Or else it happens on high lands far from the sea, when violent storms occur, with rain that seems to fall in sheets, sweeping away bridges and culverts and tearing up roads and streets, being due to great and rapid condensation and vertical whirling of the resulting heavy clouds Olympia.

The British Industries Fair is to celebrate its coming-of-age next month, when it opens at Birmingham and Olympia, London. Nowadays, the name Olympia is chiefly associated with the great British motor show and with other industrial exhibitions that are provided for by the spacious quarters which have been built for this purpose in London. But the original Olympia was a city much different in character. It was the fairest spot of Greece, a national sanctuary which had been specially embellished with the contributions of.all forms of art for the purpose of holding within its great arena the famous Olympic Games. Even now the praise of early writers seems hardly excessive to the visitor who, looking eastward up the fertile and well-wood-ed valley of Olympia, sees the snowcrowned chains of Erymanthus and Cyllene rising in the distance. The valley, at once spacious and definite, is a natural precinct. Its importance In the history of Greece was at once both religious and political. The religious associations of the place date from the prehistoric age, when, before the States of Elis and Pisa had been founded, there was a centre of worship In this valley, which is attested by’ early votive offerings found beneath the still-standing Heraeum and an altar near it. As for the Olympic Games, there were various traditions as to their origin. According to one of them the first race was between Pelops and Oenomaus, who used to challenge the suitors of his daughter Hippodameia, and then slay them. According to another, the festival was founded by Heracles, either ‘•he well-known hero or the Idaean Dactyl of that name. At any rate, Olympia became the centre of a federal league under religious sanction for the west coast of the Peloponnesus, as Delphi was for its neighbours in northern Greece. In time the contests became so enlarged as to invest the celebration with a Panhellenic character and to the last Olympia always remained a central expression of the Greek ideas (bat the body of man has a glory as well as bis intellect and spirit, (.'but body and mind should alike be disciplined, and that it is by the harmonious discipline of both that men best honour Deus.