OVERSEAS OPINIONS

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 154, 26 March 1938, Page 1 (Supplement)

OVERSEAS OPINIONS

Body and Spirit. “Our view of life is all wrong, and our view of the physical body, the mind, sickness, and disease, is no less mistaken. It is all wrong because we make a wrong start. It is not possible to start wrong and finish right. Therefore, we are wrong from start to finish. Our. wrong start is the belief that the nature of the body is physical or material, that it is under material law. We say that the substance of matter is matter, and matter is governed by natural or material laws. But the substance of what we call matter, is not matter. Matter is Hot a substance; it is an expression; the substance is spirit, and the laws which govern the expression of spirit are spiritual. Jesus did not use physical or material weapons to overcome sickness and disease, and yet He healed every sickness and every disease, and He had no failures. The trouble is that we are never consistent. We know perfectly well that sickness and disease are not caused by phj’sical or material things, but we imagine that we may use remedies which have no affinity with the causes. How often the body is made sick by such destruclive forces as fear, hate, anxiety, jealousy, and the like; yet we never think of using faith, love, justice, and hope to heal bodily diseases.”—The Bev. John Maillard, in “Disciples of Jesus. Mr. De Valera’s Ireland.

“The aspiration to a united Ireland must be taken as sincere and deep, seated,” says “The Observer.” “The chance of its ever being realised depends on its supporters coining to un derstand the only conditions that would make its fulfilment possible. What Mr.’ de Valera and his friends have shown little sign of appreciating so far is that their demand is for the reversal of one ‘partition’ by the perpetuation of another. Northern Ireland feels itself an integral part of the tlnited Kingdom. (If there are minorities that would prefer to belong to the Free State, the latter also has its dissidents who would rather owe their allegiance to London.) The spirit of Ulster is firm in its attachment to the British Monarchy, to British civilisation, institutions and justice. The sense of separateness from the South is deepened by very recent memory of the blood-stained prelude to the treaty of 1921, and cannot have been lessened by the persistent efforts of the Free State to disparage the Crown and every political symbol and association that the North holds sacred. It is understood to be recognised in Dublin that the recovery of the lost province by violence is out of the question. Is it imagined 'then that it can be regained by slights and pin-pricks, by token of an animosity as petty as it is powerless.” Cliina and Japan.

“To non-Japanese minds,” says “The Economist,” “it is neither surprising nor reprehensible that President Chiang Kai-shek should have refused to play the Japanese game by handing over his country, body and soul, to Japan and thereby saving the Japanese Government the effort and expense of a conquest Of China. Indeed, we may guess that, in the unlikely event of his having acquiesced, it would have been still more unlikely that he would have ever been able to deliver the promised goods. A capitulation to Japan would have been the signal for the President’s downfall and replacement by other leaders with the will to carry on the national resistance to the Japanese invader. Japan has now lost all hope of being able to make herself mistress of China with the help of Chinese hands. If Japan means to rule China in the name of some collection of puppets, she will have'to do all the dirty work herself. And so it turns out that the decisions taken at the Tokio Imperial Council have been, after all, not trivial, but momentous. The Island Empire has taken on an unlimited continental liability.” Ettropean Birth Rates.

“Statistics gathered by ‘The Daily Telegraph’ an'd ‘Morning Post’ correspondents in three countries—Prance, Italy and Germany—where marriage bonuses and subsidies for large families are paid; show that the fall in the birth rate has been checked, and that in Germany the rate has actually increased,” says “The Daily Telegraph.” “These figures are compared with those for England, where neither bonus nor subsidy is given, and where the birth rate has shown a fairly steady decline for the past quarter of a century. For purposes of comparison the five years 1932-36 have been taken, as being the most recent for which statistics are available. Figures of the births per 1000 of the population for, the year 1910, typical of a pre-war normal birth rate, are also given. The bonuses and allowances vary in amount and method of application in each country. In France a bonus has been given for each child of a poor family since 1923. In Germany marriage loans haev been granted since 1933, and in Italy the first attempt to increase the birth rate by means of loans and bonuses was made in 1928.” Britain’s Overseas Capital.

“We cannot allow British capital to go abroad to finance the manufacture of weapons which might be used against us; nor can we lend money to States which are unable to offer reasonable security owing to their self-im-posed impoverishment in preferring to spend their resources on guns instead of butter. But discriminating foreign investment has always been‘a prolific source of trade and income to this country, and even under the present restrictions it is still of great value in reducing the gap created by our permanent excess of imports over exports. As Mr. Edwin Fisher, the banker, remarked in a speech some days ago: ‘We should aim at maintaining our external capital and keep before us the’ desirability where possible of providing funds for sound development abroad, which in itself would do much to increase world trade.’ Owing to numerous and widespread defaults since the war the traditional habit of British capitalists has been considerably weakened. Credit-worthy borrowers are not easy to find; confidence has been badly shaken; and the risks are much more onerous than in normal times. In such circumstances exceptional caution is absolutely necessary, but it is of vital importance that past losses should not prove a permanent deterrent to further foreign lending.— The “Western Mail.”

Tlie Guaranteed Prices. Under the terms of the Finance Bill now before Parliament cheese suppliers will receive a much more substantial benefit in the additional payment of one farthing a pound which the Government is giving them to bring the premium for butterfat for cheese over the price for butter supply, up to the promised figure of lid. a pound. Owing to an error in the calculations of the Government’s expert advisers —a costly error, it has proved—butter suppliers received more than the price they were guaranteed while cheese suppliers received the bare guarantee. This meant that the differential of lid. a pound was upset; the additional payment of id., according to the Minister of Marketing, will restore it. The total cost of this reimbursement, which is promised on all the season’s cheese graded before March 18, is unlikely to be far short of £150,000 and may exceed that figure. Thus the ultimate deficit for the year may reach £700,000. —’’Southland Times.”

The Folly Of Mankind. “I must confess that the spectacle of this vast expenditure upon means of destruction instead of construction has inspired me with a feeling of revolt against the folly of mankind. The cost is stupendous, and the thought of the sacrifice that it must entail upon us, and upon those who come after us, drives the Government always to search for a way,out, to seek to find some means - of breaking through this senseless competition in rearmasnent which continually cancels out the offorts that each nation makes to secure an advantage over the others. We cannot hope by ourselves to discover a of escape. It can only be done by frank and full discussion with others who share our desire,. and by showing our readiness to make our contribution to the common cause of peace if others will do the same. All I would say is that the Government has given, and is giving, anxious thought to this question, and that insofar as goodwill and an earnest desire to succeed can contribute toward success, those qualities will not be lacking.” —The British Prime Minister, Mr. Neville Chamberlain. Decking Horses.

“The advocates of docking contend that a full-length tail is, under modern conditions, liable to cause trouble, for it may become entangled in reins or harness and so start a horse bolting in the midst of crowded traffic. On -this

view the horse should, no doubt, regard the amputator as a divinity that shapes his end to the best purpose. But this view does not prevail in the Army, where the docking of horses is against the King’s regulations, nor'in most of the police forces in the country. The average man will take a good deal of convincing that there is no way of keeping the horse’s tail out of the harness, except by cutting it off, and. the House of Lords is to be congratulated on giving a second reading by a substantial majority to the Bill designed to end the practice.”—“Manchester Guardian.” The Two Clerks.

“Two young Clerks were lately overheard talking politics,” writes Lord Gorell in the “Cornhill Magazine.” “One, a Socialist, was expounding his creed, to which the other exasperatingly kept rejoining: ‘Nonsense.’ Finally, the Socialist, angered, demanded: ‘Well, what are you? ‘A Conservative,’ answered his companion. ‘Why are you a Conservative?’ demanded the Socialist; the other didn’t know, but, pressed, said at length that he supposed it was because his father was. It is no doubt a good reason, at any rate in the British eyes, to advance for many things: is it quite satisfactory as a justification for opinions, which are—or surely should be—a man’s own individual mental equipment? The point which is too important to labour is that the one knew why he held certain opinions, and was not only able; but eager to give his reasons and seek to convert his associates; the other did not know, could not state, and was indifferent to, his—that is by no means uncommon, and it is at once the strength of the Socialist and the weakness of the Conservative, which, if not recognised and foughr, can have, in the long run, but one end.”

Expectation of Life. The Government has wisely retraced its steps in decreeing that where negligence causes death the negligent person, though he may have to pay damages to dependants, will not be liable for damages for the pain and suffering of the person killed or for the loss of expectation of life. This is a partial restatement of the principle that a personal right of action dies with the person, at least in respect to the losses that the victim may be assumed to have sustained. Such losses are incalculable, for it is arguable that a man may escape a fatal accident by a miracle to-day and be attacked by a lingering and fatal disease to-morrow. In a strict legal sense, too, a man has no expectation of life beyond that which fate has in store for him. Even insurance tables of the expectation of life are based, as much on the fact that a given number of persons are killed by negligence as on the fact that a given number live to be centenarians.— Christchurch “Star-Sun.”

National Planning. Mr. H. J. Manzoni, city surveyor of Birmingham, in an address on “Industry as a Factor in Town and Country Planning,” said :—“National planning is a subject to which very little constructive thought has hitherto been given, and without much study and research it is almost impossible to lay down any rules for procedure; but at the moment-we are lacking the very essentials of such a scheme. There is no one charged with the duty of studying it in a responsible manner, and the whole of our present system of planning by units is directly opposed to it. The subjects that will come under the scope of a-, committee set up to deal with national planning will include national highways; the conservation of the open country; the manner in which urban areas shall grow and expand, and the relationship between one such district and another. National parks and the preservation of beauty spots will be its concern, and not, as it is now, the concern of private organisations working under, extreme difficulties and with no real power. National lines of communication of all kinds will be its care—railways, water, air, will all benefit by having been planned in relation to the districts they are to serve.”