NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 17894, 23 September 1921, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

NEW ZEALAND* VERONICAS. Among the plants wbica oceupy a. prominent place in the New Zealand flor.i., the veronica is probably pre-erpinent for the great number of varieties of the genus, and for the carious characteristics of many of these and their attractive flowers. In h's Manual of New Zealand Flora, Mr. T. F. Cheeseman described 84 varieties, but since the publication of his work in 1906 many new varieties have been discovered. A remarkable collection has been made by Messrs. H. Hart and H. L. Darton, of Lawrence, Otago, who, in seeking to preserve the indigenous varieties, have coland propagated no fewer than 250 varieties. They have, however, up to the piesent, been unable to procure specimens of four species enumerated in Mr. Cheeseman's manual, tetrasticha, qnadrifaria, tumida, and gilliesiana. Messrs, Hart and -Oarton have one small root of tetrasticha, but of the other three species ng specimen is in their collection. They have visited many parts of New Zealand in their search for _ new varieties of the genus, and in their endeavour to find the localities where others of the rarer kind are still procurable. A suggestion has been made by them that suitable varieties of the veronica should be planted in the cemeteries of England and France—perhaps also Gallipoli —in which New Zealand soldiers are interred. Since this proposal was made Mr. James Speden, of Gore, an enthusiastic collector of native plants, has prepared a long list of New Zealand plants which he considers are suitable for the beautifying of the cemeteries of England and France.

THE VALUE OF PUBLICITY. From the American viewpoint and that of the smaller nations—for the outlook end interests of both were much the same—one of the mistakes at Paris was the lack of publicity." says Colonel E. M. House in the chapter he contributes to " What Really Happened at Paris." " If the American purposes could have been known, a moral backing and stimulus would have been given our representatives which was almost wholly lacking. This sustaining force migEt have come from the entire world, and would have had a double effect inasmuch as it would have weakened the opposition and strengthened us. We had taken the position of overthrowing the old order and bringing a new and different diplomacy into play. 'Open covenants, openly arrived at,' was one of the popular slogans of the day, and it was clearly to your advantage, as well as our obligation, to carry it through The failure to do this left us in the attitude of reformers working in the dark. Darkness is conducive to secret covenants secretly arrived at, and what we needed for success was light—all the light which could properly be thrown about the subjects proposed and discussed. It may be entirely proper to have conferences in groups of two or more in which no one but those vitally interested may appear, but when the meetings begin to be official and take on an aspect of final decision, then the public should be given the test of the entire discussion. In this way,_ and in 'this way alone, may the public of every country know and fairly assess the motives of each participant and bring to bear, if need be, the power of public opinion.''

POST-MORTEM EXAMINATIONS. A great deal of discussion has followed the statement by Professor David Dramrnond, president of the British Medical Association, that post-mortem examinations are necessary after all deaths. His declaration has been heartily approved by hospitals and other authorities in England. The case of a girl who died in a London hospital from a baffling internal growth is thus reported" The case lingered on, and every effort was made to save life. The child eventually died, and it was regarded as of the utmost value to medical knowledge that the hidden cause of the death should be discovered. But all appeals for permission to hold a post-mortem—and the hospitals cannot hold such without tbe consent of the relatives—were met with refusal. Thus the secret of this bafflin" malady, like that of a thousand other problems that medical science vearns to solve, is hidden in the grave.'' " It is indeed remarkable, says a writer in an T£ngglish journal, that the advance of medical science should in these days be obstructed by the immense difficultv that is experienced by doctors in obtaining knowledge of the greatest value by the one method in which it is obtainable namely, by examination of the body after death. Operations on the living are not repugnant to us; why should the sentiment against the inspection of the body from which spirit and personality have flown be so strong? Diagnosis is the essence of medicine, yet it is in its infancy. and must remain so until its conclusions can be checked; and there is no way of checking them except by the postmortem examination. The feelings of relatives a ro fully guarded by law, but the unanswerable point remains that, iri many instances, it is probable that'the patient peed not have died if tha medical profession had been able, in previous and similar cases, to investigate after death the real nature of the physical condition to which death was due. IS DEFLATION WISE? The advisability of measures aiming at the deflation of currency has been questioned by a committee of the Federation of British Industries, which has recommended a reconsideration of the report of the Cur.liffe Committee—which advised a policy of gradual deflation. It declares that conditions have so altered since 1918, when that report was issued, that a reconsideration of the whole matter is imperative. These changes include : (1) The decontrol of foreign exchanges; (2) the unwillingness of any other country to incur the loss of a policy of deflation; (3) the continued rise of prices through 1918-19-(4) the already enormous burden of taxation on industry, which would become intolerable if it had to pay back war debts with a pre-war standard of currencv. The spectator states a growing body of'financial opinion takes this view. ft has the powerful support of Mr. McKenna, who pot the case with clarity and vividness: — the declared policy of monetarv deflation is a public warning to the trader that he must be prepared to lose on every contract for the future delivery of goods. Owinsr to the general fall in prices the market price of the goods when he gets them will be Lower than at the time when his contract was made. A policy of gradual monetary deflation, but deflation s0 guaided as not to interfere with production, is a policy impossible of execution " As against this there is undoubtedly a portion of the city which still supports the Cunliffe policy, as was emphasised by Sir Jjelix bchuster in a recent speech, although even he warned the Government against too rapid deflation. The Spectator adds:—From a theoretic point of view the arguments against deflation seem unanswerable. When the value of the currency itself suddenly changes, we seem to get all sorts of new values for commodities which have really changed only in price and not in value. We get the sort of result that would be obtained if one uned to measure oil cloth with a tape measure which was continually expanding and contracting m length. Hence the essenhal need m the currency problem is the nefcd for stabilisation, and any measure which necessitates a change in the vaiue ot money, even if it is i n the direcHon of deflation, is an unmitigated evil sure to have the most detrimental effects on trade ind industry. Lord Melbourne was wont to declare that it did not matter what the Cabinet said so long as they sa,a the same things. So, with the exchange value of money it does not much matter what it is as long as it is always wi© same. J