NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 17696, 3 February 1921, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

ITALY'S FOREIGN POLICY.

" One word is sufficient to sum up Italian policy," said Count Siorza, the Italian Foreign Minister, when interviewed recently. "We want peace everywhere, and we shall do our best to facilitate resuming normal conditions throughout the world. The future of Italy is certainly a glorious one, and my country is. I think, assured of most brilliant economic development. We shall not, however, allow ourselves to permit Italian interests to interfere in the settlement of present quesfons and hamper the real re-establishment of peace. We want peace and nothing else. The Italian policy is noticeable for its disinterestedness,' but this disinterestedness may be called interested self-denial, because we Italians consider the welfare of one country is entirely dependent upon the welfare of all."

THE WORLD'S POPULATION. Addressing the statistical science section at the recent meeting of the Australasian Association for the advancement of science, Mr. G. H. Knibbs, the Commonwealth statistician, said the populations of the countries of Western Europe, the United States, Canada, and ' Australia, from 1790 to the present time, verv closely agreed with the population of China between the years 1705 and 1835. The rate of growth which had) characterised the last century was about 1 per cent, per annum, so that the population doubled itself in slightly under 70 years. Such a rate could not possibly continue, because of the limitations of food and water supply, already in many large towns the latter was becoming a difficulty. Population was also making demands upon food and water; it was using up various materials at a rate which was increasing much more rapidly _ than population. In modern civilisation the demands per inhabitant on the supplies of coal, iron and steel, copper, zinc, tin, gold, and especially aluminium, were unprecedented, and were still rapidly growing. Hence statesmen must perforce take account in the widest possible way of the rates of development and of exhaustion of supplies. The acceleration of the rate of production was astonishingly great, and could not possibly long continue.

THE JUVENILE OFFENDER. Lecturing on the importance of health conditions in regard to juvenile delinquency, Dr. W. A. Potts, medical adviser to the Birmingham Justices, said crime nearly always began s.t an early age and the most important person to be considered was the juvenile delinquent. Crime was a form of contact, and the organ of contact was the mind. How could we possibly conclude the real guilt of an offender unless there was an examination of his mind ? For some time past there had been in Birminghan a mental and scientific examination of certain offenders. Nearly 37 per cent, of the cases ne had examined there showed mental defect to be the cause of the crime. Classifying mental defective people as idiots, imbeciles, and feeble-minded, Dr. Potts said the latter Were the greater source of danger. It required special knowledge to detect such cases. Many cases of crime could also be accounted for as the result of physical suffering—such as consumption—or through a combination of this with mental defectiveness; and it was necessary that there should be individual examination of the offender. He emphasised the importance in regard to juveniles, of keeping a strict watch over sexual conditions, the absence of this resulting in much harm. There must be proper social development. It had been shown that among juveniles who lived in the vicinity of public parks, crime was not so prevalent as among those who lived a distance away.

BOLSHEVIK METHODS. Perhaps the most crushing criticism of Bolshevism yet published is contained in Bertrand Russell's book, " The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism." The author went to Russia with no prejudice against Bolshevism, but rather with a disposition to hail it as a new and liberating force. • But, alas! for " the freedom of the human spirit " —nowhere did he find the human spirit oppressed more than in Russia. He believes that Communism is necessary to the world, but the best he can say of Communism as practised in Russia is that we ought to be grateful to the Bolsheviks as they have shown us how not to promote it. When he threw off his guides and went about among the people, he never once, he tells us, met a Communist. No conceivable system of free election would give majorities to the Communists either in town or in country. But the Bolsheviks have a very simple way of surmounting this little difficulty. The voting is by a show of hands, 60 that all who vote against the Government are marked men. Moreover, no candidate who is not a Bolshevik can have any printing done, since the printing works are in the hands of tha State. Finally, the non-Bolshevik candidate cannot address any meetings because the halls all belong to the ,State. How fanatically a theory can be pursued by Russians seems to be most vividly proved! by a casual "remark of Mr. Russell's, that the produce of allotments is taken over by the State and apportioned among the population generally. The result is, cf course, that very few people think it worth while to spend their spare time, when they are free from conscript labour, in tilling a patch of potatoes or cabbages. The owner's share of the fruits of his toil might be a quarter of one potato. Yet the Russian towns starve. A hungry man in Moscow pointed to the Kremlin, and murmured to Mr. Russell : " In there they have enough to eat."

HOMELESS AMERICANS. The fact that the United States emerged richer from the war than she was when it started has not prevented her from suffering from an acute bousing problem. New York, with a population of over 6,000,000, is estimated to lack quarters for something like 500,000. The plight of the miserable home-seeker in the great flat districts, whose gaunt streets gridiron the upper part of New York, has been accent us. ted by threats of strikes by the drivers of moving vans, by plumbers, painters, and others. His regrets for the good o]d days of a few years ago, when there were 50,000 too many flats in tse town, and a month's free occupation was the rule, are the stock-in-trade of the comic papers. There are, roughly speaking, two types of housing in different cities. New York goes in for fiats, and flats mean a great deal of steel construction. Smaller cities go in for rows of wooden houses; in fact a vast majority of Americans must live in wooden houses. Larger cities sometimes rely partly on flats and partly on houses. Washington is an example of that, and Chicago another. Baltimore most nearly approaches the British system of rows of small bouses, and very picturesque they arej with their neat brick faces and their white-washed steps or " stoops" wherey'oo hot evenings,, families sit and fan themselves. Philadelphia, as befits its position, is a cross between New York and Baltimore. As one goes west the wooden house grows commoner. The price and scarcity of wood - and steel havo thus been a major factor in the problem. Labour troubles como next, and then, perhaps, the restriction of credit in the interests of deflation. Whether the Federal Government will take up the matter remains to be seen. If they do, it is pretty certain that they will go first for schemes of concrete and steel construction, and then for brick. It. is not that there is any prejudice against the wooden house. Wood has been successfully tried in the United States through the centuries. One finds in the pretty elm-shaded streets of any New England city dwellings of wood that hav» been steadily ÜBed for 100 or even 200 years, and are as good as new. But there is anxiety about the future timber ropF*yj and the concrete house is rapidly becoming a not uncommon farm of pxL, T«te venture. i