NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18355, 22 March 1923, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

PUBLIC BENEFACTIONS. Frank doubts of the wisdom of public giving, expressed by men who themselves have directed within the past 10 years the spending of 57,939.846 dollars (over £11,500,000) in this way, form the extraordinary introduction to the first report of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. This is the trust set up by Mr. Andrew Carnegie in 1911 for the support and development of institutions previously established by him, and to provide a continuing fund for the encouragement of the most important work of succeeding generations. Dr. Henry Pritchett, acting-presi-dent of the corporation, who wrote the report, says it is questionable whether the science or art of public-giving can ever be developed. All giving cuts more than one way. Oftentimes the by-products of giving, even to a good cause, result in "social toxins which do enough harm to more than counteract the benefit that may come from the original gift." The experience of two decades shows that collegegiving by the Carnegie-Rockefeller Foundation, while stimulating the building up of colleges, has placed an over-emphasis on going to college, thus overburdening the universities and diverting many young men and women from vocations in which their real happiness would be. It has also gone far to transform the American college president into a soliciting agent. "The typical board of trustees is not seeking a scholarly president; it is seeking a president who can get money." Trusts established by accumulated wealth, says Dr. Pritchett, may have a true function, but too often they mistake mediocre for important causes. "Somebody must sweat blood with the gift of money if its effect is not to do more harm than good."

GOVERNING AMERICA. Something like one-seventh of the annual earnings of the people of the United States are paid back to the nation or some other political entity in the form of taxes. That is the estimate made after careful study by William P. Helm, Jr., and published by the National Budget Committee. He states that public employees in the United States, including all political subdivisions, number 2,000,000, or one out of every 20 employed persons in the country. Now, "if to govern free America requires the undivided attention of one man or woman out of every twenty of its workers, what is the cost in dollars?" Mr Helm finds that the total cost of American Government in 1921 was about eight and a-half billion dollars (£1,700,000,000), this figure comprising the Federal Government, 48 State governments, municipal governments of all towns and cities and county governments in the 48 States. The writer adds: "We have forty million workers, or thereabouts. If the cost of government were to be equally distributed among them, the burden on every man and woman in business or professional life, including the two million government workers, would be about 220 dollars a year. On the basis of five persons to one family, the cost of government is about 400 dollars 'per family per year. Our forty million workers enjoy an estimated gross income of sixty billion dollars. Of that they contribute about 14 per cent, for the maintenance of the Government. If they should contribute labour instead of dollars (and they do, of course, pay in labour) every week every one of us would work approximately one day without pay as our share of government upkeep and our contribution to the cost of government. Such is the price we pay today for life, liberty and the pureuit of happiness under our present intricate and far-flung system."

BANKERS AND FARMERS. In the discussion of the distress of the agricultural industry in Britain, the bankers have been called upon to deal with the charge that the huge modern banking aggregations have deprived the small farmer of the credit which he used to obtain from the old private bank with purely local connections. The bankers have met the complaint with cold statistical figures. Dr. Walter Leaf, of the "Westminster Bank, gave figures to show that the average advance to farmers was £800 per customer, and in some districts only about £500. These figures indicate that the small farmer is getting a fair share of available credits. Of the total loans made by the hank 28 per cent, was totally unsecured and 13 per cent, only partially secured, making a total of 41 per cent, of loans granted on credit, the value of which as security could only have been determined by personal knowledge acquired by local bank managers of the character and industry of their customers. Mr. Beaumont Pease, whose bank has a much larger agricultural connection than Dr. Leaf's, showed that its total advances to farmers were about £14,000,000, or just over £1000 per customer. Further, Mr. Pease quoted examples of the credits granted to farmers by two private banks before they were absorbed by his bank, and compared them with the credits now outstanding. In one case the advances showed an increase of considerably more than 100 per cent., and in the other an increase of about 50 per cent. Sir Harry Goschen likewise dis posed of the suggestion that the banks were not liberal in the provision of credits to farmers. He explained that thev had outstanding advances to over 8000 farmers.

A WONDERFUL CENTURY.

Sir Gardner Engleheart, K.C.8., who on February 2 completed his hundredth year, is a remarkable link with the past — link with Arnold of Rugby, with Matthew Arnold, with the old un reformed Christ Church under Dean Gaisford, with the Lincoln's Inn of the 'forties, and with America under President Buchanan. He is the oldest member of Lincoln's Inn, and probably the oldest barrister, having been called in 1849; also the senior member of the Athenaeum, having been elected in 1857, the year of the Indian Mutiny. When Sir Gardner was born in 1823, George IV. was King, Liverpool was Prime Minister, Palmerston was still Secretary of War, and Eldoin held the Great Seal. Vansittart, soon created Lord Bexley, had just been transferred from the Exchequer to the Duchy of Lancaster, with which office Sir Gardner was to be associated for some forty years, first a3 Clerk and then as member of the Council. Sir Gardner must be the last man now living who spent all his school days at Rugby under the great Dr. Arnold, says the London Times. Arnold died in 1842, and the year before Engleheart had matriculated at Christ Church, then under the strong hand of Dean Gaisford. The House was still under the absolute control of the Dean and Chapter, and Gaisford, alone among the heads of colleges, would vouchsafe no reply of any sort to the inquiries of the first University Commissioners. In those days the manciple provided dinner in Hall, which was served at 5 p.m. on pewter plates, under the light of wax candles. Discipline was enforced by " gating," and, as at school, by impositions, which Gaisford, who made " collections," or college examinations, a grim reality, was swift to inflict. In 1844 Engleheart obtained a second in Lit. Hum., with Mm in the same class being Matthew Arnold, of Balliol, and a second also in the final school of mathematics. There was then no distinction of senior and junior students at Christ Church ; there were simply Westminster scholars and students, the latter being all nominated by the Dean and Chapter. To a studentship Engleheart was deservedly nominated in 1844, and he held it till his marriage in 1859.