MUTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 14301, 22 February 1910, Page 4

MUTES AND COMMENTS.

IS BRITAIN DECADENT?

In his recent work, "National and Social Morals," Mr. C. . Read, M.A., Professor of Philosophy in. the University of London, treats, among other questions, of moral degeneracy as connected with national decadence. In examining the symptoms of decadence he finds social incohesion to be one of the most prominent. The close analogy between physical decay and social incohesion is indeed so striking that it has often formed the subject of historical comparison. • "Incohesion and its correlative moral failure," writes Professor Read, "alsO ( exist wherever persons or classes, though selfmaintaining and on tho whole socially useful, nevertheless avoid some of their

social • responsibilities. . . . Military

service . . . has been expected of every free man, and for the most part cheerfully given by him, in every country and tribe known to history, except where a condition of unusual safety has made it needless. . . . But is there not more in military service than the safety of the country? To be sure, there can be nothing greater than that. But is it not a school of manners, an occasion of comradeship, a means of culture through the acquisition of skill and participation in a great tradition? Must it not mitigate the clownishnes's of those engaged in heavy labour, and the danger of effeminacy to those employed in softer tasks? Does it not make everyone think of his place in the nation's life and history?" Professor Read, whose pre-eminence in the world of philosophic thought is well known to all students, is a strong and convinced advocate of individual liberty. It is, therefore, the more striking to find that, like John Stuart Mill, the author of the essay on "Liberty," he fully recognises the justice of the legal enforcement. of military training upon all citizens of a freo State where the needs of common defence call for it. But he also sees' that military training, when accepted as part of civic duty, carries with it a high moral and educational value. .

WASTE OF NATIONAL VITALITY.

Professor Irving Fisher, of Yale University, has prepared a report on "National Vitality Wastes and Conservation," for the Washington Government, in which the professor shows an extraordinary increase in the waste of human life from kidney, heart, brain, and other noncommunicable maladies in recent years, and he urges free medical examinations by the States and the adoption of other .methods for the early detection and prevention ■of diseases, says the San Francisco News Letter. Professor Fisher commences, his report by tho startling statement that over. 600,000 human lives are needlessly sacrificed in the United States every year. This is the equivalent of saying that over 40 per cent.; of tho an-, nual death roll is chargeable to diseases which could be avoided or postponed by the application of reasonable and timely preventive measures. He also estimates that - there are constantly about three million persons seriously ill in the United Stites, more than one-half of which illness is preventable. Another surprising statement in the report is that the loss of adult American life from the more, important non-communicable diseases has increased with extraordinary rapidity in recent years. That is to say, about two persons die where one died as recently as in 1880 from preventable or possible diseases of . the heart, arteries, kidneys, and brain. This statement allows for. the increase in population meanwhile. The reason given for the greater mortality in the - United States than in some other countries, notably England and Wales, "comes from the early wearing out of the vital organs involved due to excesses in eating, drinking, working, playing—in short, intemperate living and the 'strenuous life.' " ■