NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18702, 7 May 1924, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

THE SELLING OF BOOKS.

Bookselling is much more than a business, says Franc Nohain in the Echo de Paris. The position of responsibility of the bookseller toward his clients renders it a profession noble above others. . . . The sale of firearms is subject to regulations; the sale of poisons is subject to precise and severe control. I am always astonished that any one may freely poison the mind and destroy the soul of the public. No doubt at regulation of the bookselling trade similar to that which governs the sale of arms and drugs would be inconvenient, and, above all, contrary to those famous principles of freedom of thought which a.re at ' once absurd ana magnificent; magnificent because there is nothing finer and more legitimate than to claim the right of free expression of thought in all its fulness and force, in full light without restraint; absurd, because they allow anyone to appropriate the same thought, and on the pretext of freedom to exhibit in the face of the world his low and improper appetites, his ignominy and vices. It is the function of the bookseller to exercise in the conduct of his business a Dice discrimination. It is not precisely the same thing to press such or such a book for sale as to propose such or such a brand of chocolate.

NEWSPAPER RADIO. Discussing the rapid development of broadcasting, Mr. Filson Young says the literary possibilities of this wonderful medium have hardly been tapped. A little five-minute essay, spoken in his own voice by a well-known author, would have a charm and fascination for people that has evidently not been realised. There is no reason, moreover, why leading articles—which are after all only brief essays in the expression of definite opinions—should not form part of the wireless repertoire ; and given a good delivery, which can easily be cultivated, there is no reason why the expression of opinion, as represented by the oldfashioned leading article, should not take a new lease of life and exert; a renewed influence. The ordinary person who reads a newspaper seldom occupies more than half an hour over it. It ought to' be possible to compile a kind of miniature compendium for the purpose of broadcasting, which would represent the picked selection which the ordinary reader makes from a newspaper. Yet, ins Wad of being read from small type printed on indifferent paper, it would be, so to speak, performed like an opera; the individual quality of each writer would be reflected in the tones of his voice; and surely some access of soul and conviction would result if the thoughts thus conceived had to be spoken ill the living voice of those who uttered them

THE STATE OF BRITAIN. Britain is suffering from unemployment and bad times largely owing to the destruction wrought by the war and to the general conditions; of world trade; but we are, as a nation, enormously adding to our difficulties Iby needlessly low standards of work and production and -by endless and disastrous lockouts and strikes, says the London Times. No foreign policy, however successful, no recovery of world trade, however rapid, will suffice to get rid of the economic troubles which beset us to-day unless - there is also a far-reach-ing improvement in the relations between capital and labour in the industrial sphere. There is no doubt whatever that if all employers in big businesses could be induced, under the necessary safeguards where business is: competitive, to give to their employees such complete information that they could satisfy themselves that there was no secret profiteering, ctfd that labour was getting a perfectly " square j deal " as compared with capital, a great part of present-day suspicion between capital and labour would bo dispelled; ! Great associations like that of the miners, .containing a million members, or of the railwaymen, containing more than half a million, claim the right to have a real ssy in the direction of the industry by which their members live. The problem might be fairly easily solved by some system of labour representation on the boards of management, for it is absurd to say that the young women of Britain between the ages of 21 and 30 are fit to have a voice in the management -of the British Empire, but that railwaymen are not fit to have a voice in the management of their own industry. The cure for our present-day evil;? is not the dictatorship of labour, of capital, or of the Stat-e, but co-operation between the two parties to industry on an open, an honest, and an equal basis, with politics left outside the door.. ,