NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18396, 11 May 1923, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

THE SUN AND THE EARTH

Whatever the future may have in store, it is clear that climate, and especially changes of climate, have been of almost incalculable importance in the development of the earth's inhabitants, writes Ellsworth Huntington, of the Department of Geological Sciences, Yale University, in Harper's Magazine. Hence the thought* ful mind raises two. questions : Why has the earth's climate remained so long within certain fixed limits, when we should have expected that it would long, long ago have become too cold for every kind of life? And why, within these limits, have there been such great and stimulating changes? Many factors co-op-erate to produce these results, but among these there is probably none more important than the sun. That body has been lord of the life of the earth in the past, and will presumably be lord for an indefinite future. Why it remains so changeless no man can yet answer, except that such uniformity seems to have something to do with radio-activity and with the ultimate structure of the ions and electrons within the atoms. Throughout the whole, realm of astronomy the new developments of radio-activity are leading to the belief that changes which once were supposed to require thousands of years actually take millions. NAVIES AND ARMIES. A suggestion has been made by the president ■of the Naval Committee of th«. French Senate that another international conference should be called, having foi its purpose the actual and complete scrapping of all navies. It has been endorsee by the • Christian Science Monitor as intelligent and practicable. The only thing that stands in the way of giving it effect is the difficulty in- securing the adhesion of all the nations and this difficulty results from the incredulity of their people when any promise of permanent and enI during peace is laid before them.. Is it j not ' worth considering seriously the quesj tion whether, by concerted action, the | great powers of the world can save int ! enormous expenditure forced upon them J by naval rivalries, and at the' same time do away with an incentive to future armed conflicts? If this can be done in, the case of the navies, the. same programme can speedily bo applied to all other preparations for war. ' It cannot be im- | possible to end .the invention of poison I gases, to check the development of great | guns and weapons of wholesale murder, to I reduce armies to mere police forces, and j to make aircraft serviceable, for the uses !of peace rather than of war. That the ] opposition of powerful mercenary and interested forces will have to be met is true, and the inertia of governments will have to be overcome. But if the ideal is set as the goal, there will be many lesser advantages won in the long. struggle up the path to the end.

• ECCENTRICS AND CRANKS. . The eccentric was. usually an old gantle'man who went his own way and only asked to be left alone; the crank is commonly a youngish person, who demands that everybody should go one way, that is, the crank's way, and will not leave anybody alone, says Mr. J. B. Priestley, in the Challenge. The eccentric merely j discovered a mode of life that suited him; the crank has found a way for everybody ho 'possesses a panacea and is aggressive, militant, proselytising. The mark of the crank is his unshakable belief that his own particular crochet will save the world. If we laugh at him, it is not merely because he is a faddist, and, like Don Adriano de Armado ,in the play, too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it were, too peregrinate," but because he displays a ludicrous want of any sense of proportion, and so tickles the comic spirit, which is very delicate in its appreciation of values, its sense of balance and proportion. There is nothing peculiarly laughable about persons who want to save : the world prophets and reformers on the grand scale may inspire either hatred or admiration and love, but'they do not awaken our laughter and contempt because their means are at least more or less commensurate with the end they : - would achieve. The crank, however, who believes that humanity has . but to take some curious little step .to arrive at perfection, who would bring back the Golden Age with one wave ot his uiminutive wand, is simply a little reformer with the air and manner of a great reformer, a prophet. LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE. In his Halley lecture Dr. J. H. Jeans moved with relentless logic to the conclusion that systems such as our own must be verv rare in the starry universe. It is within the bounds of possibility that out of the two or three, thousand million stars which occupy, the universe, our sun may be the only one attended by satellites. " It is just possible, although again quite improbable, that our earth may be the only body in the whole universe which is capable of supporting life." Commenting on these speculations, the scientific correspondent of the London Times says that life, and the particular expression or accompaniment of it known as conscious intelligence, reside only in the form or arrangement. of matter known as protoplasm. It is only within definite limits of temperature, pressure,...and so forth, that the. chemical constituents of protofilasm can exist in the form and combinaion required. No other planet in our system possesses the combination , of physical conditions within which alone, so far as we know, living matter can remain alive. It is at least possible that nowhere else in the stellar universe has a star given birth to a satellite with the conditions necessary for the production' or for the existence of protoplasm. On that assumption it is possible to draw the conclusion that if the conditions for producing protoplasm are unique in the universe, consciousness and intelligence are also unique. The other tenable theory is that consciousness and intelligence may occupy other vehicles than protoplasm. j Dr. Eddington and other astronomers have j suggested that under the physical conI ditions of the remote stars the vast stores I of sub-atomic energy would be liberated, and affinities and instabilities of an order I almost infinitely different from the narrow I range- and limited powers of protoplasm I would be available. If." such seething j forces could supply a vehicle, a machinery, I for the expression of /conscious intelli- ! gence, we should be in a hew order of j mind as well as of matter. j WHAT GERMANY SHOULD PAY. j Among American observations on the ! reparations questions those of Mr. Ber- ! nard Baruch are specially interesting, bej cause the report drawn up at Paris by him, | Mr. Norman Davis, and Mr. Vance Mci Cormick is still influential in determining ] the American official view of the financial | aspects of the reparations question. One I of the economic adviser? to the American ' Peace Delegation to Paris, and chief i American member of the Reparations ■ Committee at the conference, Mr. Baruch : gave an unofficial expression of hi? views i recently. His conclusions briefly are that i Germany can v and should pay I £2.500,000.000 more in reparations (that ! is to say. £3,000.000.000 minus what she I has already paid) ; and that France by i her action will probably be found to have [ expediter! and not retarded a reasonable j settlement. Looking back on the events j of the last four years, Mr. Baruch apparI ently is more impressed by Germany's ! endeavour to take advantage of dissensions | between the Allies than by her good faith 1 in the matter of fulfilment of her obligai tions. The French seizure of the Ruhr, J accordingly, though he admits it may be ;an act of war and a violation of ' the i Treaty of Versailles. i s excusable when J the question. " What else in the circum- ! stances could France do?" is asked. Its j ultimate effect on European stability. : Mr. Baruch thinks, may not be more ! serious than that of a big strike in a , great industry, for it may have accelerated j the inevitable tendency away from emoj tional appeals and diplomatic manoeuv- ; ring? toward an adjustment on a basis of '■■ reason and facts. Mr. Baruch believes i that Germany should not for the next two i years be asked to pay anything consider- | able, though the coal deliveries and other.? !of a like nature should continue. After that, however, she should pav 2£ per cent on £2,500,000.000 plus 1 per* cent, amortisation for five years, and the interest rate should then be gradually increased till it finally reached -5 per cent.