NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18521, 4 October 1923, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

DANGERS OF PATRIOTISM.

{"In the course of his presidential -address at the Welsh National j Eisteddfod; r Mr. Lloyd George said Patriotism is incarnated in many forms/ t? Sometimes"; it; ; is : iiv angel ■> of' , light, with ;; white ■;:'■. wings,: brightening thefirmament. ■,; Sometimes it. is a demon of destruction,' tearing and wounding, darkening .'; the; earth. That fis the- danger of 'Europe to-day—a nationalism which; has gone wrong. To vary one metaphor,;; Europe is:^suffering '■'> from patriotisms, which; have burst their banks, menacing, and even ravaging and destroying. The war has been responsible • for the, resurrection •of many • buried nations. In fact, it is the ago of resurrecting dead kings and live nationalities that hav« been '; buritxl for centuries. During the last hundred years at least a l dozen nations, buried in the vaults of tyranny, have been brought back to life. They are dizzy with the light, ; and are not walking steadily. ,No doubt they constitute a penl to themselves and to each other, that will come right.With time and patience they will . all settle down, and the world will be better for their patriotic zeal, fervour, and energy. Every great national force, unless properly directed, has dangerous possibilities— . water, electricity, wind—all the emotions of the human heart, and love of country is no exception. The ideal is that every nation should look after its own farm and har- ; ness patriotism- to its cultivation, not by I moving each other's boundaries or steal- i ing each other's sheep, but by ploughing, I manuring, sowing, planting, and water j in?, and not to forget the weeding. That' is the way for nations to reap a - bounti- I ful harvest for the children of men

■ LORD SHAFTESBURY. /: ;. It is not yet forty years since- the seventh Lord Shaftesbury died, having lived and worked and suffered for others through the greater part of the last century. Yet how many know—or, if they j do know, ever pause; to remember and think about— tithe of what he did for England ? asks the Loudon Times, referring to the publication of Mr. and Mrs. Hammond's new life of this • particular maker of the Nineteenth Century. To , the men and women of to-day it comes as I a grave and painful reminder of tho ' dense macabre which, from his time at Harrow onwards, was to haunt the re.l.nd«rlJof Lord Shaftesbury's days—the mill children deformed in spine and knee and stupefied with weariness, the ; infant mine "trappers" quaking from the blackness and solitude of the rat-ridden : pits, the all-but-naked women harnessed to the coal carts, the cancerous chimney-climb-, ing boys, their raw knees and elbows steeped in brine, the lunatic women crawling, bearded arid ragged, m the filth of uncontrolled asylums, the whole defile of spectres from the lower of the "Two Nations" into which industrialism had divided England. To the ending of these ' inhuman tortures, which were part of the savage logic of the Industrial Revolution, Lord Shaftesbury devoted his life. He I was a 1 prophet because to the evil, and j suffering which he found in the world he opposed the simple revelation of his Christian conscience. For all their narrowness, the religious convictions instilled in him by his old nurse taught him above everything else to love and pity his fellow-men. He ; felt that it was - not enough to save a man's soul if he were starving or living like a pig, or had no time for thought and recreation. To-day many men—far more than when Shaftesbury began his work— of the same way of thinking, and thanks to them, as well as to him, there is in the world—especially in the case of children less evil of the kind against which he fought. Law v and lawgivers arc- alike more humane. Innumerable societies have sprung up to carry out • and develop the ' work which he began. ' Perhaps one of the best testimonies to his greatness lies in the absence at the present : day; of philanthropists of his build and stature,. There are no Lord Shaftesburys now, for I the same reason that there'/are no; Florence Nightingales Both set an example to their fellows, and it has borne fruit a,. thousandfold. . -: : ;'-;; '

RELIEF IN RUSSIA. The task of the American, Relief ComI mittee in Russia has been completed. ; Reviewing its work while- in London on.": bis return to the United States : Colonel \ WilI liam B. Haskell, who for over two years has been in Russia as head of the committee, said: "Tho mission • has spent something like £15,000,000 which we ;do not expect to get back, as it. was the gift of the American people. We had quite a largo force of helpers, numbering.2so, and in addition we; had to employ 125,000 Russians. The maximum number of people fed ■ on any one day was 10,540,000. ;i We had offices {in all the principal -centres, working 19 districts. When wo got' thero children were dying off- at a terrible rate, but ;by April, 1922, we had a thorough grasp of the position,'and there is now no reason why anyone should die of starvation, - though ; the consequences of the famine can be seen in the reduged vitality of the people. Latterly:our jwork has beep limited to providing food for the. sick and the children, and to general medical work. The Russian crop in 1922 was a good one, but the 1923 crop will be still better. ; We did not set up special hospitals of our own, but we used : the existing ; ones and made 4 the staffs conform to our, regulations if they wanted our supplies. The nurses and doctors were • able people and worked heroically. Wo did all kinds of work. We purified and reconstructed v water supplies all over the country and we have stocked them ' with all necessaries to last for •. a long time, so; that; there is no reason why any epidemic outbreak should not ba . efficiently dealt with: I know nothing of politics, but I must say the Soviet Government treated us fairly and provided millions of dollars worth of goods ". whenever we needed them. They are very grateful to us and gave us a resolution of thanks on parchment. ■•■■■• : I{. believe Russia has : a great : future. Tho people are: awakening to individualism. There is not much Communism, or, if ; there is, it is not much in evidence. The people are hampered by a lack "of education, but what Russia needs most is contact with the rest of the world, and to get that the Soviet Government, or any other Government, ; must ; re-establish confidence in itself.

PRICES AND} UNEMPLOYMENT. w ■.-,-' Addressing the Cambridge Liberal. Summer School, Mr. J. M., Keynes said the absurdity of labour being from- lime to 1 time totally unemployed, '■' in spite of everyone wanting more goods, could only be due to a muddle, which should be remediable if; wo could ; think and act clearly. The business world was "always in a position where it stood to ; gain by a; rise of price and to lose by a fall of price. Whether it liked it ot not, the technique of production under a. regime of money-contract forced the - business world always to carry a big speculative position; and .if they were reluctant to carry this position, the productive pro cess must be brought to a standstill,, < It followed from this,, not merely that price changes profited some people and injured others, but that a general expectation of falling prices might inhibit the productive process- altogether. For if prices were expected to fall, not enough people could be found who were willing to carry a speculative bull " position, . and this meant that lengthy productive n processes involving a' money outlay could not be undertakenwhence;• unemployment.: f; It purchasers in Australia, Asia, South America, or elsewhere felt confident that prices would not fall, they would not hesitate to buy. They put off, their purchases, not because they lack purchasing power, but because their demand was capable of postponement "and might -be satisfied at a lower price later on.; It was these • postponements which were<; at the root of remediable unemployment. Sooner or later a : rising tendency of prices would spring- up again, partly because .'■; postponed demands 'could not go on' being postponed indefinitely ;S partly because catastrophes tended to diminish the supply of goods, and to increase, i rather than to diminish, the supply of money. For this, reason ho was not pessimistic about the prospects of unemployment ■ in the long run.