NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19138, 2 October 1925, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

THE EFFECT OF LONGER LIFE. "If cancer and heart affections can be kept down, and other maladies eliminated or very greatly reduced, we may get a death rate of perhaps five or six per thousand: The birth rate may be equally low. Should this happen a curious state of things may arise," writes Dr. W. Barr, medical officer of health for Rotlierham, in his annual report. "The numerical balance wiil shift from youth to age. Fewer and fewer babies will be born, and more and more people will live to be 60, 70, 80 and upwards. The time will come when there will be more persons of both sexes over than under 50. It will then be an elderly nation. Youth and middle-age will be outnumbered in business, in the professions and at the ballot-boxes. The seniors will preponderate and will set the pace, rather a slow one; and of these seniors the majority will be ladies from 50 upwards, as the female expectation of life is far higher than the male. Eventually other nations will go the same. But Britain will reach the goal first because of our lower death rate and higher ratio of female longevity. We shall he swayed by aged women and elderly men sooner than our rivals and competitors, Shaii we gain or lose by the evolution ?"

THE VALUE OF RESEARCH,

Two illustrations of. the practical value of research in agriculture were given in a recent speech by Mr. Ernest Wood, the Minister for Agriculture, in the House of Commons. The first referred to the Government's decision to enforce a new policy in regard to the disease of sheep, known as scab. That policy will be based on the general restriction of movement and the institution of compulsory double dipping in the short period between July 15 and August 31 of each year. The treatment is based on the life histoiy of the bug responsible for the disease. The female dies after she has laid her eggs, no doubt with Tne satisfaction of a life's work performed. The eggs hatch in seven days and the young females get to the point of laying eggs and beginning the cycle of history again in two weeks. Therefore, the proposal to dip twice, the second time between the seventh and the fourteenth day, is devised to waylay and kill off any young emerging from any eggs which have escaped the first dipping. If efficiently carried out, it is hoped that this policy will clear the country of the disease within about three years. Mr. Wood's second example was drawn from the campaign against plant diseases, which are estimated to cause an annual less of 10 per cent, of the whole growth. Until a few years ago in the district of t:ie Lea Valley, where a great many tomatoes are grown, there was a regular loss of £30,000 a year, due to the, ravages of the tomato moth. By research, by discovering the habits and the vulnerable points of the tomato moth and applying appropriate measures, that annual loss has been practically abolished.

THE IMPERIAL CONFERENCE. Discussing the apparent lack of progress in the definition of an Imperial policy, Mr. Richard Jebb slays, in the British Australian and New Zealander By its own resolution of 1921 the Imperial Conference was to meet annually, or otherwise at the shortest practicable interval. It is significant of the deadlock which is being reached that twice since the last meeting (1923) proposals to meet again have been rejected. The first occasion w.is whan Mr. Mac Donald, alarmed at the resentment caused by his reversal of policy in regard to preference and also to Singapore, suggested a meeting to discuss meacts of securing better continuity in future. It wn<s a futile proposal, because continuity of policy does not altimately depend upon close organisation at all, but upon being able to decide by agreement the general lines of a common policy for trade, defence, and foreign relations; for which even the primitive Imperial Conference should suffice. The difficulty only arises when, after snch agreement lias been reached, a> Government arises somewhere to repudiate it. In effect, thongh not wilfully, the foreign policy agreed upon in 1921 was thus upset by the Coalition Government in Britain, who themselves had been a party to it. The repudiation by the Labour Government of the preference proposals and the Singapore scheme was more disquieting, because it was done deliberately. Surely it was "a bit thick" to ask the Dominions after the ©vent to come and talk it over, and the proposal naturally fell through. But the failuro of Mr. Amery's own attempt to assemble the conference for the discussion of foreign policy cannot be explained away. It signifies the collapse of the intention recorded by the conference in 1921 to create a system of "continuous consultation" as the basis for concerted action.

' AN IMPERIAL SECRETARIAT. Mr. Jebb gives to Mr. Bruco the credit of facing the facts and trying to make the best of a bad job. The published despatch, in which he analysed the position and proposed to try the experiment of having a liaisoii officer for the Commonwealth in the Foreign Office, was masterly. But it virtually abandons the idea of continuous consultation. Practically, the new plan aims only at getting better inform*- ! tion for the Dominion Government, by entrusting the duty of obtaining and editing it to an Australian in close touch with his own country m-ther than to any British official who is bound to see everything through the spectacles of his own Government. The new system, if it works well, should strengthen the independence of the Dominion. While it does not provide for any closer consultation, it ought to give the Commonwes,lth Government more confidence in saying ditto, or not saying ditto, to the British Government. But we seem to be further off than ever from the better organisation of the Imperial Conference, which has long been a crying need. The conference is still an intermittent institution, with nothing to connect its spasmodic meetings. lb still lacks the first- essential of an effective association —i.e., a permanent secretariat to follow up the resolutions passed, by correspondence with the parties concerned, and to prepare the work for the next meeting. (Where would the League of Nations be without the Secretariat at Geneva?) It is a hopelessly wrong idea to regard the conference as a body to be summoned only when some crisis is impending. Its Meetings should be periodical; and its main business should be to review the work of its own secretariat in getting effect given to the decisions reached at the previous session. As matters stand every subject has to be taken up afresh, as though the conference had never met before • and of the resolutions which, for lack oi preparation, are passed under great pressure of time, most seem to berve no result.