NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 15167, 5 December 1912, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

THE WANTS OF THE SOUL. After the • great scientific discoveries of the nineteenth century, after all the conquest that man had made of the-forces around him, yoking them for his own advantage, has come in the. twentieth century the inevitable reaction. Once more (says a London. paper) the old maxim is re-discovered: "What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" Despite materialistic theory, the one certain fact is that the soul, however wo interpret the term, refuses to be eliminated. _- Material prosperity is won, great fortunes are made," all the ordinary necessities of human creatures are satisfied by ingenious mechanisms—and yet happiness is not reached. Classes begin to be ranged against classes, the unenfranchised yearn for the privileges which franchise is supposed to confer, workmen claim the right to gam full fruition of their labour, and throughout the whole body politic passes a wave of unrest and discontent. And in these changed conditions the task of the Church begins once more, though in a newer fashion. A Christian State is bound to give to every man and woman in the country decent living conditions, healthy houses, education, industrial training, and a sufficient wage. In this department, too, the Church has to bear her share, and proclaim the rights of humanity as such, championing the case of the weak against the strong. But this is only the beginning of her task'. Then comes the other side, the inevitable problem for humanity which the spiritual teacher, above all, must grapple with. What kind of New Jerusalem is it desired to establish in the land? Is the millennium, after which the Democracy so greedily hankers, a merely material prosperity, a mere matter of having sufficient wages and a decent roof over one's head? The constant cry for the satisfaction of "rights" belongs to this material aspect of the problem. The Church confronts this mad vortex of material ambitions with the suggestion of another inquiry. It tells us of the wants of the soul, it lays stress on the conception of duty. It points out that the duties incumbent on various classes are at least as important as the rights which they so noisily demand, if not a hundred times more important. The man of property has his duties towards those below him in the social scale ; the trades unions have their duties in the regular performance of the contracts into which they have I entered ; the workman has his duty, a solemn duty, towards tho State, not to wreck the social fabric by the anarchy of strikes.

SHOULD (RUSSIA HAVE CONSTANTINOPLE?

It is recognised that one of the chief difficulties of the Balkan problem is to reconcile the claims of Austria and Russia to special advantages in the case of any dismemberment of the Turkish Empire in Europe. The London Spectator suggests that a remedy might be found by acknowledging the Russians as the heirs to the Turkish capital and its surrounding territory. Might it not, remarks that journal, be possible to say to Russia, This remainder piece of Turkey in Europe, including Constantinople, shall be earmarked as to fall to Russia, if and when circumstances make it impossible for the Turks to remain any longer in Europe, aid they are obliged to become a purely Asiatic Empire, or, again, if Austria goes to Salonikawhichever event shall first occur." In that case the situation -would be something like this. Austria-Hungary would not at once go to Salonika, though she would be placed in a position to take it whenever she was ready and circumstances permitted. At the same time, Russia would not go to Constantinople, but she would feel that it was reserved for her and that she could claim her inheritance if ever the Austrians did des-, cend to the iEgean. In this way the two great Powers most intimately concerned with the problem of the Near East would be satisfied, or at any rate would be enough satisfied not to fly at each other's throats and force their allies also to go to war. ''We shall be told," adds the Spectator, "that it would be most unnecessary and most dangerous to allow Russia not only to have Constantinople.

but the European side of the Dardanelles and of the Sea of Marmora. On, the contrary, we think it would be most natural and most reasonable and entirely consistent with the interests of Britain and also of the peace of the world to give Russia, as the chief representative of the Eastern Church, the prestige which from the possession of Constantinople, ana also the right to one side of, the straits which give access to the Black Sea. But it is to thinking-out of this kind that the statesmen of Europe must at once turn their attention if they are not to run the risk of being found barren of a policy it even* should move more rapidly than they now think likely in the Balkan Peninsula.".

THE NEED OF OBEDIENCE. Authority is slowly extending its claim, writes. Mr. ft. P. Jacks m an English magazine under the heading or "Democracy and Discipline." We are moving towards a type of society which confers greater authority on the one side and requires more thorough obedience from the other. Is our social discipline,' he asks, adequate to the strain? "To win political'power is one thing; to retain it, when won, is another, in these times any lawless horde sufficiently numerous, any group of wire-pullers sufficiently astute, can thwart or wreck a democratic Government. But power so won is doomed to be immediately thwarted or wrecked t by its own methods. It may issue commands few will obey. It may create 'social systems,' they will be disregarded. ' Many things are mighty, but man'is mightier than them all;' and never is the might of human wit more manifest than when it turns to works of disobedience. So when the saying goes forth that 'the people are going to rule/ the question instantly arises—' For how long?' And the answer is that they will rule for precisely so long as the spirit of obedienco keeps them in power."

NOT A "SINGLE TAXER."

Mr. George Lambert, M.P., speaking to his constituents, gave a,message from Mr. Lloyd-George on the subject of the land: — " Ho authorises me to say most explicitly that he is not a 'single taxer,' he never has been a single taxer,' and nothing that he has ever heard conveys to his mind the .remotest possibility that he ever will be a "single taxer." More than that, he does not believe that you can. regenerate any industryleast of all the agricultural industry—by taxing it. Further, when he entered into his land inquiry it was certainly not with a view of increasing, but rather of lessening, the burdens that weighed on the progressive cultivators of the land. The view ho strongly holds is that food cultivation should be encouraged, not penalised," " There is nothing in this at all uurprisiug to Liberals," remarks the Westminster Gazette, " but it is well that it should be clearly and explicitly stated. Even the land taxers themselves have been busy ridding themselves of the heresy of the single tax."