NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19166, 4 November 1925, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

FEARLESSNESS OF DEATH. One of tho most interesting passages in a new book by Mr. H. W. Nevinsou is an account of a conversation with the late Mr. Goorge Meredith at Box Hill. They wero discussing tho Japanese and their fearlessness of death, which moved Mr. Meredith to remark: —"Fearlessness of death is a necessary quality. It is essential for manliness. Doctors and parsons are doing a lot of harm by increasing tho fear of death and making tho English less manly. No one should consider death or think of it as worse than going from one room into another. Tho greatest of political writers has said, ' despise your life and you are master of tho lives of others.' Philosophy would say, ' conquer the fear of death and you are put into possession of your life.' I was a very timid and sonsitive boy. I was frightened of everything; I could not endure to be left alone. But when I came to be 18 I looked round the world (so far as a youth of 18 can look), and determined riot to be afraid again. Since then I have had no fear of death. Every night when I go to bed I know I may not arise from it. That is nothing to me. I hope I shall die with a good laugh."

CAPITAL AND WAGES. " What is it that tho minority leaders hope to effect by concentrating the power of organised Labour in one central authority and bringing it into action as a supposed irresistible forco ?" asks tho Westminster Gazette, in commenting on the proceedings of the Scarborough Trades Union Congress. "The more outspoken say frankly tho destruction of capitalism and the abolition of what they call wage-slavery. Tho more prudent confine themselves to saying tho defence of wage-standards and the enforcement of just demands for their improvement. Tho two things are vaguely joined up in tho minds of a great many of the workers, but' in fact they are sharply distinguishable, if not to say irreconcilable, things. Undoubtedly, as the Russian experience shows, it is possible at least temporarily to destroy capital and credit, and if that is an object worth pursuing, we may admit at once that it is a thinkable, though, as most of us think, a highly improbable, consummation in this country. But the other object, the defence and improvement of wage-standards and the abolition of 'wage-slavery,'is so little related to it that according to all experience, and especially the Russian experience, it is far less likely to be achieved on the ruins of capitalism than when capital is flourishing arid prosperous. In this economic sphere the humblo and meek aro not exalted when the mighty are cast down from their seats. The rich may be punished, but their riches perish with them."

BRITISH TRADE UNIONISM. " Neither socialism nor communism is a spontaneous working-class movement; both have sprung from other social ranks and have been led by men quite innocent of 'labour.' But they could achieve nothing without the support of the masses, which they have sought to win," says Dr. Arthur Shadwell, in the Times. "Since the trade unions became powerful in England about 60 or 70 years ago they have been recognised as the most suitable instruments for tho purpose, and Socialist leaders, from Marx onwards, have endeavoured to capture them where they existed or to create them where they did not. There has been great competition for their support, and it still goes on." Dr. Shadwell reviews t)ie efforts of the Soviet Government, through the third International, to bring the trades unions of other countries into tho communist fold t and records their successive failures. "Now in this struggle for the trade unions on the international plane British trade unionism has officially appeared as the advocate of the Russian unions, and has thus become the spearhead of tho Communist campaign for capturing the trade union forces at large, as represented by the Amsterdam International. It appears that the policy of penetration laid down from the first by the Communist International and systematically pursued ever since has had more success in this country, where one would have least expected it, than in others, and notably in Germany. This attitude of the British trade unions is remarkable, however it be interpreted. Who would have thought that the English trade unions, so long pioneers and the admired model for all other countries, would be foremost in following the dictates of a foreign organisation, rigidly centralised in a foreign country and rigidly controlled by a foreign Government ? They are at the present time leading or trying to lead the others along the path prescribed for them in Moscow.

" ÜBEHOLD " IN BRITAIN. Reviewing the land pblicy which Mr. Lloyd George has offered for the Liberal Party's acceptance, the Times says he has wholly ignored the real kernel of the whole question. He does not even hint how ho proposes to make farming pay. State ownership would not make it pay. The county councils already own soveral hundreds of thousands of acres. They have had to reduce rents just like private owners. We can grow excellent corn, but we cannot grow it at a price at which it can compete with imported corn. The cost of production is too high for competition. Higher wages, higher taxes, higher rates, all handicap British farming against its overseas rivals. Mr. Lloyd George's remedy for the 'plight to which British agriculture has been reduced is to add an agricultural revolution—of a strictly legal kind, of course—to our other troubles. He would abolish "the existing system of agricultural tenure"—oblivious of the fact that there are many such systems in England and "replace the system of landlord and tenant, under which some 75 per cent, of the area under crops and grass in England and Wales is now held, by a system of State ownership, by which the farmer Would live and work under official supervision. That, itneed hardly be said, is the very last tiling that he would wish, and the last thing ■that- would prosper farming. His tenure is to bo pending good cultivation. Who is to judge whether Blaekaore or Whiteacre is well or ill cultivated ? The vision of a new horde of officials, if not of an entire new department, is conjured up by the suggestion. The recruiting and the pay of this force would bo costly, but it would be the least costly part of a scheme which admittedly is based on liberal subsidies to the farmer, as well as on " fair compensation " to the owner. And for the " rare and refreshing fruit " to be gathered as the harvest of unestimated tens of millions which Mr. Lloyd George is eager in our present financial state to dispense through the land, he acknowledges that we should have to wait for a great number of yeais.