NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19676, 30 June 1927, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH. Some illustrations of the practical applications of scientific research were given bv Lord Balfour in a speech in the House of Lords upon the work of the Industrial and Scientific Research Committee. One of them referred to the accuracy of "certain invisible and almost inconceivable degrees of precision" in measurements upon which the National Physical Laboratory was originally engaged. "It is 011 these very minute accuracies of measurement that mass production is made possible," ]ic said. "If I am informed, for example, in the motor industry, you want to have mass production, it is quite obvious there must be no time spent in fitting. The fitting must be automatic. All the parts must be ready to fit in their proper places without, further manipulation. When assembled they must be put together without difficulty. Only on that condition can you get mass production. You must have accuracy of measurement in the parts which are assembled between a thousandth of an inch and ten-thousandths of an inch, and if you want to get the parts accurate say to ten-thousandths of an inch you must be accurate up to a hundred-thou-sandth of an inch. Then, and then only, will you be able to carry out theso miraculous mass productions which are the essential conditions of producing for vast populations cheaply, effectually and with 110 ill-results."

THE MONEY STANDARD. " Society is no longer an aristocracy. It is in process of becoming a democracy," says the Hon. R. Erskine of Marr, in the London Quarterly Review. "Democracy is committed to 'money' for a standard. It has definitely rejected birth and breeding; and as to culture, it is as yet, generally speaking, suspicious, seeming to confound it —somewhat unreasonably, it must be allowed—with the aristocratic world it has but recently overturned. Therefore, the immediate, if not the ultimate, effect of democracy's knowing no social standard by which to measure men and things sav* money must be to open up an easy road for those who have it in abundance, and who entertain what are styled 'social ambitions,' and, further, are men and women of good natural parts. These, then, in all probability, will be the kings who are to •■tile society, after it has been made socially 'safe' by, and for, democracy. Under these circumstances, no one susceptible to the better emotions of life will be surprised should society .degenerate into an unlovely scene of bad taste and moneyed ostentation, relieved a little, perhaps, here and there, by the presence and example of persons, who, though powerless to change the course of events, yet deplore vulgarity, and despise mere 'money.' It may well be that, in the remoter future, the social world will rediscover its balance, and 'money' will be thrust back to function, not as lord and master, or rather bully and tyrant, but as agent and. servant. But, for the present at all events, our business is—facts- and tendencies in process of forming under our very eves and noses."

THE HORRORS OF CLASS WAR. "A class war, if we suppose it a reality, would be the most widely extended, long-drawn-out and devastating war in which benighted humanity has ever engaged. All nations would be involved in it, and the Hundred Years' War, of olden time, would be short. in comparison," says Principal L. P. Jacks in the London Weekly. "I hazard the guess that the capitalist class, on a fair count of heads, would be found at least equal in numbers to the non-capitalist. A fair count would soon run into millions, for it would have to include not only the millionaire at the one end, but the servant girl with a war savings certificate at the other. From end to end of this immense line the attack on the capitalist 'class* would encounter a fierce opposition, which would become fiercer as the lower end of the line was anproached. As a force fighting for its existence these capitalist 'classes' would turn out a numerous and nasty lot. So long as the class war remains an affair of platform oratory, this aspect of the matter is easily overlooked. But once get. it fairly launched as a war in being (which God forbid!), and society would find itself involved in a desperate, far-flung, protracted and implacable struggle. Even allowing that it could be conducted without bloodshed (not easily allowed) by means of general strikes and such like modes of injuring our neighbours, I have no hesitation in describing the class war as the most hellish form of war ever conceived by the mind of man. In comparison with its material and moral destructivcness the Great War would stand out as a genial episode of history." THE RHINELAND OCCUPATION. "Locarno witnessed the most remarkable denial ever made by a defeated Power of its right to take by force what it had lost by force This act of renunciation by Germany was, no doubt, fully justified as a measure of political prudencej but it showed a wisdom not usually possible to a nation still suffering the humiliation of defeat," says the Manchester Guardian. "But the full reward for which Germany looked, and is still looking, has not been forthcoming. iShe is still suffering the full indignity of a foreign occupation for which, Locarno apart, it is now hard tr> find even legal excuse. It must be within a few months, at all events, when Germany has complied with the last letter oi the disarmament clauses of the Treaty of Versailles, that she will be entitled under clause 431 of the treaty to the complete evacuation of all foreign forces. If Locarno meant all that we were assured at the time it did mean thesa troops should have been immediately withdrawn. But it was, of course, obvious that whatever French politicians might desire, there were some things they could not do, and that they could not suddenly make so violent a departure from traditional policy. Full allowance was, in fact, made for the political exigencies of French statesmen. But in precisely the same way it is necessary to make allowance for the political necessities of Germany. If she gained much through Locarno she also made, in the eyes of German nationalists, an enormous sacrifice. If the nationalists now begin to grow restive under what they consider to be the dilatory tactics of France and Great Britain, and to question afresh whether the rewards of Locarno are equal to the sacrifice, that is neither nor particularly alarming. It should have been foreseen by a wise statesmanship."