NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18519, 2 October 1923, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

■ "ENGLAND THE ENEMY." •"" . The Carnegie Endowment for '.Interna-' . tional peace has published a translation of official German documents relating to the war, compiled by a committee of inquiry set up by the German Constituent Assembly in 1919 to investigate the, responsibility for ; the , war. Sub-committees were appointed and the work of the, second , "says the Times literary supplement, produced "a most detailed, minute, and thorough discussion of the ■ whole history of the German . ; peace offer made at the end of 1916. The. wholo political and military ; situation .of Germany at this ' critical period hi the war is reviewed by j the responsible officials. Of the greatest! J interest are. the long memoranda by the heads of the . Admiralty in which. Holt- ! zendorff and his naval colleagues express 1 their, complete conviction that they will be able to crush England before any real he!p can come from America. The Ger- ' man Admiralty never failed to impress on the Government that victory, which , was essential for Germany, could only be •obtained by the defeat of England. They saw and recognised, as no ono else, in Germany did, that tho situation was the direct result of the naval policy '. initiated by. the Emperor in 1897,: —".Germany .is I not in a position to.drop the sword and still admit that England can wield, -the overlordship. of the sea. . . . The unrestricted U-boat war is the only means given into our hands by which we can bring the whole world back to a true realisation of things as they are. If once , we succeed in breaking down the English dominion, we shall have fought a victorious • fight. There is no middle course between this and Germany's ruin." Com- , pared to this, the danger • from America f was secondary, and the memorandum ends with the words:—"! guarantee that tho U-boat war will lead to victory." . A GREAT JOURNALIST.

A charming tribute to Mr. David Cowan, bead of the foreign room at the Times office, and for 26 years on its staff, was paid in the Times when news came that he had died while on holiday in Norway. One of a brilliant band of scholarsat Trinity College, Cambridge, Mr. Cowan entered the legal profession and then, in a sense accidentally, joined the staff of the Times in 1897 as a temporary helper. Always a keen student of foreign affairs, ho quickly mastered the technical side of his new profession. To 'a wide knowledge of foreign ~• languages—he spoko French, German, and the Scandinavian languages, and had a competent knowledge of Spanish and Italian— added a trained legal mind, a scholarly precision of thought and word, and an unbounded capacity for sustained and accurate work. His judgment was '■ rapid and sure, and as he continued to read widely the literature of modern Europe his knowledge bepamo encyclopaedic. ; With a highly developed sense of hews values, he possessed, indeed, all the qualifications necessary for a successful journalist,' and for over a quarter of a century he served the paper devotedly, at first as an assistant in the . foreign sub-editorial department,'and latterly as head of the room. Cowan was the most.modest and retiring of men. He never paraded his knowledge, but it was always there ready for use whenever it J was needed in the rush of the world's affairs. The work was overwhelming at times, ■ but - • Cowan never shrank from,it, nor did he ever dream of taking refuge in a merely mechanical performance of duty. There was .an artistic quality in his sensitive temperament. v An unfortunate turn of phrase or :an error of fact- hurt him almost physically, while the sight of good workmanship gave him real delight. Ho wrote little himself, but] when he =• did', he wrote admirably, with! scrupulous caro for the value of words. He was content that all he had in him, his taste and his .; knowledge, should bo used for, correcting, arranging, and displaying the work of others, and for tho honour of the paper , he so faithfully served. . :"'" . V"

,' ~- WHY MEN PRAY. ■ " Why is man always and everywhere a praying animal ?" asks Dean Inge, in tho Church Family Newspaper. "What are. the motives , which lead a savage to pray ? And if we can find them, will they help us much in understanding what prayer may bo and ought to-sbo? Is its source to be found in tear of unseen and unknown powers, and desire to propitiate them? Or in the hope of inducing these powers, by supplication and gilts, perhaps by magical incantations, to grant our desires Or is there from ,the first a nobler motive, to get into touch with the spiritual in and behind the visible? We have.to admit that prayer is as complex as human nature. Men pray for all that they desire—for rain, lor victory ,for wealth, for children, or the wellare of their nation of their family, and for their own. They offer sacrifices, surrendering something, that they highly value or giving Something which'i they imagine that tlie Deity wul be please*, lu accept. .*■ . Education, whether philosophical or scientific, diminishes the hope, and even the desire, to control evlnts by, j means of prayer. Not my will but Thine be done comes to be added to every petition and sometimes even checks the petition as something presumptuous. Perhaps the experience of li*3 in middle-aged and elderly people generally makes prayer more resigned and less wilful. We then pray that we may have strength to bear whatever God sends, and that we may be allowed to understand why things • have been ordered as they arc. The difficulties about answers to \ prayer are much the same as the . difficulties about free will, and about the nature of causation. They are very formidable problems as every philosopher knows, and - the tendency among thoughtful people is to discourage such petitions as prayers for rain or fine weather,, and to ! offer no requests uncou-. ditionally except such as we know to bo in accordance with God's will." >~.-.

BRITAIN NOT DECADENT. The question lis often asked. whether industrialism has substantially changed the national character, said Mr. H. A. L Fisher, in an address in London recently. Beforo tho war most peoplo would have been disposed to say that a .crowded urban .population, existing under the miserable conditions which prevail in so many quarters of our island, musC necessarily deviate so widely in mind, temperament and character from tha types characteristic of rural society that it would be idle to expect similar standards of behaviour from Cwo worlds so sharply contrasted. If the peasant could be trusted to make a brave soldier, the townsman, it was argued, was likely to . fail in the ordeal of battle. Character, endurance, fortitude, patience these great social virtues bo expected of a nurtured ' -tinder the conditions of British industrial life? Wo have little doubt as to the answer, which wo should give Co that question now. All the fears of racial degeneracy, all the anticipation of the failure of our townbred population to stand the test when thei day of trial came, have been falsified in the event. All Che allegations that the love of country was sapped, that loyalty and chivalry and the old-fashioned virtues were dead, that the country was given to sloth and selfishness, and the pursuit of mammon, were dissinafed by the experience of four years of stern and heroic conflict. A lady's maid would direct the most perilous process in a munition factory. Girls could suffer the loss, through picric acid, of their complexion and hair, cheerfully and without a murmur as they worked upon explosives. In the ferrible accidents , which i from time to time occurred in our shell I factories, not a' single woman showed Che white feather. At the front regiments were renewed again and again, and all previous estimates as to what a regiment i would bear in punishment before giving : ground were far exceeded. In our long ! national epic of courage and duty, there is no more splendid page than that upon i which are inscribed the exploits of the i British raw during ita latest trial