NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19474, 2 November 1926, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

THE VALUE OF FICTION". "A good deal of nonsensical criticism has bsen levelled against the public library because of the preponderance of fiction which figures among the records of circulation. The critics, however, overlook the fact that the public librafy is intended to minister to our recreation, oar aesthetic and spiritual needs, as well as to serious study." said Dr. Guppv, in his address as president of the Library Association at Leeds. "Works of imag ination are despised by some of these carping critics as having to do with fiction rathei* than with fact, and as being of no value to the student who wishes to acquire exact knowledge. That is a great mistake, for many of our foremost scientists have been led to their most important discoveries by the quickening power of a suggestive imagintion. In history and in the whole world of concrete facts imagination is as necessary as in poetry. The great outstanding masterpieces of literature, the books which are superior to the ebb and flow of popular fancy and critical opinion, are the products of the great imaginative teachers who have created the masterpieces which have immortalised their names. Those great books owe their greatness to the greatness of ths personalities that gave them life. They grow directly out of life, and in reading them we are brought into large, close and fresh relations with life." INTER-ALLIED WAR DEBTS. A frank statement, expressing the feelings of European debtors on the subject of America's war debts policv. has been contributed to the Atlantic Monthly by Mr. Philip Snowden, the first Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer. In the course of it, he says:—"The war debts owed to Britain amount to over £2,000,000,000. On these debts she is paying out of our taxes over £100,000,000 a year. Assuming that we get the £4,000,000 a year from Italy and the £12,500,000 from France, and that German reparations give us £15,000,000 a year, and that we get £2.000,000 from the smaller nations on account of their debts to us, we shall be receiving £53,500,000. Wo shall be paying America £53,000,003 a year, and will therefore, be £4,500,000 a year to the bad. In addition to this, we shall be paying that £100,000,000 a year on the internal debt borrowed to lend to our Allies. When the funding arrangements which America has made with her European debtors fully mature she will be receiving approximately £120,000,000 a year on account of these debts. The most sanguine expectation of the yield of German reparations is not more than £50,000,000 a year. . . . Therefore, what all this

amounts to is that America is going to take the whole of the German reparations and probably an equal sum in addition. This is not a bad arrangement for a country that, entered the war with ' No indemnities, and no material gain ' emblazoned upon its banners."

THE DUTY OF PUBLIC SERVICE. "When those who are now past middle age were children, the boards of guardians, the school boards and town and city councils were composed almost exclusively of men holding positions of responsibility, leaders in business and professional life," says the Rev. John H. Ritson, ex-president of the Wesleyan Methodist Conference, in the London Evening News. "For the most part they were drawn from the middle and Icrwef middle classes, the most dependable and stable section of the community. In these days, men of this typo are not so ready to devote time and strength to the voluntary service of the municipality and the State. The sons are not following their fathers. For some reason they seem content to leave the management of public affairs in some quarters to those who have neither the capacity nor the moral fibi'e to govern. Those who have social and educational advantages are no longer pulling thefy weight in the affairs of State, and, still less, of the municipality. There is need of the widest possible representation in government. The proletariat has won its place, and it is a rightful placa But it is not to the advantage of the middle and upper classes, nor to that of the community at large, if those classes do not take a full share in directing and helping the common interests by serving on public bodies. The call remains—urgent, insistent—and it is a call to every individual."

THE DANGERS OF DEMOCRACY. "Tho war which was to have made the world safe for democracy has caused more than half Europe to decide that democracy is not a safe form of government for itself," says Dean Ingle in his book, "England," and in its review, the Times Literary Supplement remark; that the statement is not merely epigrammatic—it is true. And those who wish well to democracy ought to ponder it more than they do. Democracies have always been the most short-lived of political systems, and it rather looks as if not even the machinery of representative government could save them. They destroy themselves by their ignorance, lack of discipline, and greed. The' Dean certainly exaggerates the decay of Parliament in England. It is quite true, as he says, that debates are no longer much read; quite true, also, that "legal filth" and trivial accidents ar crimes and catastrophes now occupy in the newspapers of "the sovereign people" the space which, seventy or eighty years ago, was occupied in those of the ruling middlo class by public affairs and political speeches. But it is not true that the House of Commons has degenerated. The present House probably contains as many men of character and public spirit as any that ever sat. What is true, however, is that the pressure of democratic voters, all demanding sops arid bribes of various soits, demoralises all parties and ruins tho State. Every loafer can now live on the State; and as there are now, as always, plenty of people who prefer loafing to working, large numbers, of men will neither do a day's work fairly at home nor try their fortunes abroad. They are encouraged to believe that the small number of rich people who already provide them with the education, pensions, insurances and other tilings which have so greatly increased their real wages during the last fifty years can provide much more, and provide it indefinitely. But that is the delusion. And if democracy cannot refrain from impoverishing the rich it must do without "public assistances"; for it is the rich who provide them: and nobody will be at the pains to grow rich for the sole purpose ei providing other people vnth coles,