NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15951, 23 June 1915, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

\} t UNIVERSITIES..'OF TO-MORROW. >* The 'Provost of ..Oriel College i : lias published a plea for x a.simpler life =.among undergraduates of the future. Professor Phelps's idea is that now is the accepted timo for reform. .All the old university traditions arc for the moment in abeyance. The; freshmen of, to-day have no ' senior men whom they can. imitate; they look for a lead, and none being found, there will come into existenco a new order of things which it will become harder and harder to eradicate. The don has a chance which he has never had before, and in all l likelihood never have again. It is his business to set a fashion which will make for a truer realisation of those ideals which Oxford and Cambridge proudly boast to be theirs, and to abolish all abuses that .have crept in of late which tend to lessen these ideals. Professor Phelps argues that a greater simplicity of living is the first essential of tho new era. Primarily because of tho poverty consequent upon war, secondly because of. the wrong atmosphere created by the luxury of the late epoch, with its wine clubs, social dinners, and .'so on. North countrymen with impoverished purses for this reason, he says, found the atmosphere ,of Oxford poisonous in the pant. He proceeds to plead for a renascenco in industry. There have crept in of recent years many insidious attractions, all making incessant calls upon a man's time, so that he never can find occasion for work. Among the blessings in disguise of this war will be, so the provost prinks, a greater simplicity of living and an increased industry, both of which features of the new university life will cause an entire upheaval in the character, aims, and results of the graduate of the future. The universities will then attract more and more varied types of men to make use of them, in itself a very excellent thing, and they will have a more tenacious control over the country's government, and lead in reality in those very matters where they were in danger of being considered as an inconsiderable 'backwater in the river of progress. Taken by itself, Mr. Phelps's appeal is a most striking and forcible one, but when read in conjunction 1 with a recent article in the literary supplement of the Times, on " Tho New Youth " is at once inspiring and remarkable. One actn as a coincident corollary to the other. The undergraduate of 1920 will not live in the garden of charming unrealities. Where before separate frivolities kept the various strata of society apart, now a common seriousness is bringing them closer together every day, so the new youth will have a sense of beauty where we have only a sense of prettiness, a sense of duty where wo have only a' sense of honour, a faith, instead of our creed, and a joy instead of our pursuit of pleasure. What abuses there were in the educational system of the universities we see more and more clearly as the? years pass, perhaps the most noticeable being the -almost unbelievable discouragement of, intellectual ability by reason of the disproportionate relativity of values in the undergraduato mind, bred and nurtured ; in the public schools', more and more deeply rooted in at Oxford and Cambridge, so that in after days the normal Englishman-becomes almost horrified when confronted' by "the man with brains." All these must and will go in the next decade. A new age, a .new spirit, id coming quietly unseen into existence. It may be felt already in the preparatory schools. |, The universities will and can never bis the same after as they were beforo tho war. It is just conceivable that they might bo worse. After all, in spite of the multitudinous abuses that existed, no one who. had the advantage of an Oxford or Cambridge education would willingly have foregone it; each of us says quite wholeheartedly that the best years of his life were those spent at the university. '* '■{ ~

BELGIUM'S BANKNOTES. /' In view of the publication of the report of the Societe Generate do Belgique, the Financial Times recalls the manner in which this great financial undertaking filled the breach in Belgium and undertook the issue of ' banknotes after the Banque Nationalo do Belgique withdrew from the country on the invasion by Germany. The Banque Nationale first withdrew its gold and plates for engraving banknotes to Antwerp, and afterwards to London, and the German authorities, after they had occupied ; Brussels,, demanded that it should renounce its functions as Treasurer of the Belgian State, and that it should 'bring back to Belgium its metallic reserve and the plates used in the manufacture of notes. i Long negotiations took' place between the Belgian Government and the '■■ Banque Nationale, and the event which had. to bo avoided was the closing of the issuing institution, which would have involved the closing of all tho banks and the stoppage of industries which were still -at wcrk in the country. The Belgian Go"vcrancnt lightty considered thai ib was impossible to authorise that the Banque Nationale should take back its gold -and engraving plates arid place them at the disposal •cf the . Germans, ~ v nor could -it' deprive itself. of. the indispensable aid of the office of the Banque Nationale at Havre. In -the jf ace 'of. this, refusal of, the Belgian Government the German ' authorities considered two schemes. _ One was that the Germans should 'give forced currency to'their requisition notes without control or limit/which would have constituted a formidable danger, and the other was' that the German Reichsbank should bo established in Belgium, which meant tlio seizure by Germany of the finance'and commerce .of ' Belgium. In the face of these proposals, both of which were equally to be feared, the Banque Nationalo and the other large Belgian financial institutions questioned if 'it would not bo possible to reconcile to some extent tho conflicting ' interests, and the Societe Generalo de Belgique was.'asked to take the place -of the Banc Nationale for tho issuing of notes. ' This the Societe Generate consented to do, the conditions being that its creation of an issue department could only be temporary, would cease to exist immediately after the conclusion of peace, and the notes issued by it would bo pxcbangeablo three months after peace against notes of the Banque Nationalo de Belgique. Further, the issuing operations would be effected exclusively ' for the . profit of . the Banque Nationale, the ; Societe Generalo desiring to intervene only with a view to tho general welfare and without wishing. to reap any profit on the ground of the issue. Tho .Societe' Generalo de , Belgique; is eminently fitted to carry out the work. Up to 1850, it had the privilege of issue and only renounced this on. the establishment of tho Banque Nationale,-de Belgique, in the formation of which 1 it largely co-operated. Throughout the period of great trial in Belgium it has acted in tho general .interests .of that, country-'and ehown a thoroughly patriotic spirit. -I;'