NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18295, 11 January 1923, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

RURAL BANKING. An extension of the Government savings bank in New South Wales is the Rural Bank which continues former lending operations and conducts general ' banking operations, the scope of which' depends on the deposits in the savings bank.' Reporting on the first year's operations since the reorganisation, the commissioners state that the extent to which the new department has been supported by cheque accounts and fixed deposits in city and suburbs, as well as in the country, is regarded as satisfactory, especially, when it is remembered that advances can be made only to agricultural and pastoral primary producers and industries associated with primary production, thereby confining business in the city and suburbs to deposits. A complete banking service has been given to customers, and the commissioners are satisfied the bank will hecomo a big factor in financing the primary producers of the State. As the demands for accommodation have greatly exceeded the available funds, it has been found necessary to reduce the available loan limit to its present limit of £1000. This was to spread the funds available over as wide a field as possible. At one stage the limit was £3000. Advances made during the year totalled £2320,865, representing 3157 loans. Of these 1774, for a total of £1,340,490, were by way of long terra loans, repayable by half-yearly instalments, over periods up to 31 years, and 1383 for £980,375 by overdrafts on current accounts. The number of loans current at the close of the year was 9947, representing a total of £5.253,933. .. PROGRESS AND SCIENCE. Is the world improving, is the lot of mankind becoming better in this modern age of science? asks the London Times. Even last century, during the flood-tide of belief in the melioristic tendencies of science, doubting voices were raised. There are, indeed, strong arguments to be adduced against those who believe science to be bringing the millennium. Can it be reasonably maintained that railways and motor-cars, wired and wireless telegraphy and telephony, synthetic dyes and ferroconcrete skyscrapers are making men better or happier? Is medical skill, by saving the unfit, not lowering the standard of the race? If tanks and poison-gas. airraids and submarine sinkings be weighed against field sanitation and plastic surgery, did science make the last war more or less terrible? Greater knowledge, moreover, as to the material progress reached *by civilizations long since extinct has strengthened doubts as to the fate of the present ordes. But the indictment may be wrongly drawn. Science has provided the tools of material progress but has not directed their use. The last word as to whether they are to be employed to the advantage or to the detriment of the people rests with administrators, legislators, and politicians. So far as we know, there is not a modern country in which the opinion of science is decisive in any matter affecting the welfare of the people. In our own country there is an almost steady diminution in its "influence. - To the new Parliament, for example, not a single person distinguished in scientific research has been returned by the electors. Even the universities have sent politiciansThus scientists may hold the charge against them " not proven." After all, the real question maybe the old question ; whether man is to be the master or the ■ slave "of his tools. "To that question the : answer lies with man himself; and if he be, as in the main he is, an optimist, it , is because he is confident of his own power : ultimately to subdue all known things to i his will. J STATE HOUSING'S FAILURE. [ The suspension of the State housing i schemes in Britain last June has been confirmed by the new Government. Its , policy was defined by the Solicitor-Gen- . eral in the House of Commons after a de- , bate in which member after member rose from the Labour benches and propounded , Socialistic schemes for dealing with the • problem, such as the seizure of sites at the ' price stated in the Valuation Roll and the j supply of building materials by means of . State factories. The Solicitor-General J said that four years ago there was a large, ] almost reckless, expenditure by the Stat© and municipal authorities in the hope of solving the problem. The result was that for an enormous outlay of public money there had been a comparatively inadequate return. Only 200,000 houses had been provided. In the opinion of the present- Government houses could be more .< advantageously provided by those whoso ; business it was to supply houses than by the State. The Government was most anxious that \ private enterprise, which had provided houses, should be encouraged to develop its great resources. It would consider provisions under which private builders might i borrow' money atreasonable rates if that would assist. There were already signs of a revival in building by private enterprise, and local authorities were also showing a readiness to undertake such work. The present system, under .which the liability of the local authority was fixed at a penny rate, while the Government contribution was unlimited, could certainly not continue. The scheme had already involved the country in an annual charge of £9,000,000 a year for 60 years. That could not be continued. . UNIONIST PRINCIPLES. ' A reply to Mr. . Ramsay Macdonald's taunt that the name of the Unionist Party no longer bore any relation to the facts" was made by Mr. L. C. Araery, First Lord of the Admiralty, in an address to the Union Society at King's College, London. He said that even in regard to Ireland the party was still standing for the absolute union of Great Britain with Ulster, so long as Ulster wished to remain in such a union. As regarded Southern Ireland, any attempt to withdraw it from the Commonwealth of British nations would meet with their resistance to the utmost. At the same time they must endeavour by active goodwill and" loyal co-operation to make the status of Ireland in the Empire not only acceptable, but whole-heartedly welcome to the people of Southern Ireland. But the name "Unionism" stood for a very much wider principle. It stood for the principle of union within the social relationships of the country, for the opposite of the principle of class warfare, for the very opposite of the idea that a great party should exist as a group of sections advocating the interests of thoso sections. They believed fundamentally that all interests in the country had far more in common than they had in the way of differences ; that it was by union, by co-operation, that the welfare of the whole and each part could best be achieved." On such a subject as the League of Nations they were no less interested in the future unity or brotherhood of man, but they believed it would be disastrous to imagine that they could substitute that in a. moment for existing patriotisms, either national or Imperial. They believed that the brotherhood of man could best be realised if they first realised the brotherhood of all Englishmen and then the brotherhood of all subjects of the Crown throughout the world. The Unionist Party was esseni tially English, whereas Liberalism and j Socialism were internatwnalist. ,' ■; 4'