NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19931, 27 April 1928, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

AMERICAN WAR FILMS

The doors of the moving picture houses of Canada should be nailed up until pictures can be'shown that will not let, children grow up believing that tho United States is the only place where brave men may be found and brave deeds done, according to the recently expressed views of Stephen Leacock, Canadian humorist and professor of political economy. " The Great War appears, as it has in three different pictures recently shown, as the great American war," he said. "It was occasioned by a quarrel between Woodrow Wilson and a lot of nations living in Europe. Woodrow Wilson, whose only aim was to bo good to everybody everywhere, found his efforts thwarted by a crowd of people in Europe. At last he declared war, invoking the blessing of God, of Abraham Lincoln, the Southern Confederacy and tho Middle West. A vast American army invaded Europe. They first occupied France, where the French people supplied a comic element by selling cigarettes, waving flags and by talking French, a ridiculous language, forming a joke in itself. Rushing through the woods, trenches, flames and trees, the Americans drove in front of them the Europeans. Exacting nothing in return, they went back to the Middle West, where they wore met on the porch by their mothers, the spirit of American democracy and the inserted shade of Lincoln."

LARGE CLASSES IN ENGLAND. An official return shows that at March 31, 1927, there were in elementary schools in England and Wales 63,306 classes containing over 40 pupils, including 19,934 with over 50 and 278 with over 60. "Ever since 1925, when there was a decided improvement on the previous returns, the number of classes of over 50 remained at about 20,000," says the Schoolmaster. "For every senior class of over 50 which disappeared between 1925 and 1927, nearly three others were added to the junior schools. This is 'counter-vailing economy' with a vengeance! The rise in the number of large classes of children under 11 commenced in 1925-26, when they increased by 500; by the end of the following year the increase was more than three times as much. The policy of the Government (to reduce large classes) has been applied, and merely to a limited extent, to senior classes only—the others have been badly left to pay for the gains of their ciders, The whole position is deplorable—unless a striking advance has been made during the last financial year. A few simple multiplication sums reveal the situation thus—over a million children are being taught in battalions of over 50; upwards of three millions in classes of over 40."

, THE MONROE DOCTRINE. The definition of the Monroe doctrine, in the Covenant of the League of Nations, as a "regional understanding. . . . for securing the maintenance of peace," has been challenged by Argentina, whose representative, Senor Cantilo, in addressing the Security Committee at Geneva, declared that it was his duty "to object, in the name of historic truth, to the statement formulated in article 21 of the Covenant. The Monroe doctrine is only a political declaration by the United States. The policy contained in this declaration rendered, at the very beginning of our existence, great services, but it is completely inaccurate to give it, as does article 21, the importance or name of a regional pact. It is only a unilateral declaration, which was never approved by tho other States." Commenting on this pronouncement, the Manchester Guardian says:—"The doctrine, as originally laid down by President Monroe, amounted to no more than an assertion by tho United States alone that she wouid not tolerate political interference by European Powers on the American continent. It was a policy, not a treaty. The policy will doubtless remain, since it exists, as it originated, not out of an abstract regard for tho welfare or wishes of the South American republics, but in what the United States conceives to be her own interest. At the same time, Senor Cantilo's speech can hardly bo dismissed as idle gesture. Least of all is the United States likely to regard it as of no significance." PRIVATE ECONOMY. "Even more important in its* practical effect than economy in public expenditure, central or local, or other action by the Government, is economy in private spending," says tho Round Table. "The possible accretions to the available capital fund from this source aro far larger than can flow from governmental saving. During the war an immensely successful appeal was made for voluntary saving 'to help to win the war.' Is a similar response to a iiimilar appeal impossible today to help to rewin national well-being ?

. . . . It is not by mere thriftiness, or abstinence from luxury expenditure, that the big accretions which are needed can bo won for tho capital fund of the nation. The prosperity of the nation hangs upon tho economic use of its material resources. If private ownership; is to continue to be the basis of our economic life, the individual owner of wealth and the individual owner of a busiliess must recognise thai in return for public recognition of his right to remain in possession ho has a national duty to manage his private property and his business in a rational way with an eye to the welfare of the whole community. . Private waste is a sin against the public good, and private mismanagament of a business or industry is paid for not only by the individual, but also by the nation large..- 1