NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 17964, 14 December 1921, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY. As the result of a wireless telegraphy conference which sat in Paris for several Weeks and was attended by representatives of the principal companies in the world, an agreement has been signed which, it is hoped, will materially facilitate operations. The main object which the conference had before it was to organise international wireless telegraphy in accordance with the scientific .progress achieved by all the companies. A feature of the agreement and a-recognised advantage wi|l be the rational allotment of the length of waves to prevent the disturbance of long-distanco commiaiicationa. To organise these communications the discoveries made in the laboratories of the companies will bo used in common, and it ia believed this procedure will result in the recent wireless stations being perfected, and consequently in an increase in yield. It is confidently expected that this cooperation will ensure an improved commercial! service and a quicker. press service at reduced rates.

THE CASE OF TRANSYLVANIA. Returning from a fairly extensive tour in Transylvania, which, as a result of the war, passed from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, under the role of Rumania, Lord Newton has made, in a letter to the Undon Daily Telegraph, sejrious charges against th e Rumanian ; Government, which, he says, is endeavouring to Ruman. ise the country,,with.the least possible delay, and, as a result, there is great oppression of the Hungarian minority, ine country is in great measure governed y j e 'iuWl" (secret police), under which system any 'individual of either sex is liable to be arbitrarily 'arrested, imprisoned without trial, and barbarously beaten; The* -footestaut and Catholic ohurches and schools: are in process of disappearance in consequence of the confiscation of buildings arid the'withdrawal of grants. An agrarian law, infinitely more drastic than that ia operation in old Rumania, serves the double purposo of ruining HungarianMandowners as well as tb e Hungarian schools, which are dependent largely upon landed ■property; and an arbitrary requisition of dwellings, carried out with great harshness, has deprived great numbers of their homes, practically Without compensation. These are some of the chief grievances, but there are plenty of others, such as the wholesale expulsion of many thousands of Hungarians, the dismissal of officials, the compulsory use of U th e Rumanian Janguage, the restrictions on travel, severe censorship,,the. almost complete isolation bf the Hungarian population from the Western world owing to postal restrictions, the prohibition of the possession of any kind of, firearm, the prohibition of work ; upon' Rumanian feast days, the widespread corruption m officials, etc ... . . The main point lis that the Minorities Treaty is flagrantly violated. Either the Supreme Council, which enforced the Treaty upon Rumania, ought to take steps to see that it is carried out, or the League of Nations, whose authority is also recognised under the treaty, ought to intervene. Hungary, helpless, impoverished, and more severely treated than any of our ex-enemjcs, is nevertheless, entitled to elementary justice, and if her former subjects have been p'aced under alien rule as the result of decisions taken at Paris, it is the dnty of the Allies to see that they, are fairly treated.

i THE SCIENCE OP ECONOMICS., i Economics is one of the easiest branches . of knowledge, so far as absorbing a bqdy • of doctrine is concerned, said Sir Josiah i Stamp, in a lecture at the autumn conference of the Society of Incorporated Accountants and Auditors, but it ■ is also one of the hardest in its application, because , of the power that it requires of assessing and bringing together in one completed result so wide a range of different forces, varying both qualitatively and quantitatively. That is to say, economics strictly is not so much a ; body of knowledge,as a mode of thought. It is in an unfavourable position 7 compared with other branches of knowledge, in that'it po* Besses' to hardly any extent '•at all the power of experiment, and the testing, of any hypothesis is a (matter of extreme difficulty. The economist 'is hampered on all sides by well-meaning charlatans. Everyone would recognise that to become a chemist requires years of dose application and the mastery of a special terminology and a special technology. The same resnect is paid to physics, and engineering, but no such barrier exists for economics. It is about the everyday affairs thai men are.all mixed up in— and most men pride themselves on being both practical and businesslike—and it uses their everyday terms. But the reading of such excellent books ,as Clay's "Economics for the General Reader" or "Gides' Principles" will no more make a. man an economist than reading- Balls' "Story of the Heavens" will make him an astronomer, and the one will no more entitle him to pose / as an oracle on the remedy for the present exchanges than the other will to foretelhan eclipse. It is one thing to be acquainted with the latest teaonings and conclusions in any body of. knowledge and quite another to possess its technique and be able to appreciate those results by a daily sense of their true application. So the:serious economic worker finds to an extent that is quite unknown to the chemißt and the astronomer, his way both, in discussion and literature, encumbered wtyh the litter made by dabblers land terribly, positive people who "know from practical experience." Your practical man is often lie most unguarded and dangerous theorist of all, because of his habit; of cqeksure , generalisation from isolated and"inade-! quate data, and his pronenesStd mistake i visible and superficial currents for domin- • ating forces. matter .of fact}.; Sir \ Josiah Stamp added, no science demands i for its most successful pursuit so constant a humility as economics, and the j personal experience of each man has: to 1 be kept in its-place V.as merely one item, i in a large mass of/data from which alone, i the truth can emera. ■ , UH-,-' I