NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20603, 30 June 1930, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

A SOCIALIST IN OFFICE. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Snowden, %vas tho guest last month of tho British Bankers' Association, "and ho talked almost like ono of themselves," the Morning Post observed. "Ho 'entirely agreed' ■with Mr. Goodenough about tho burden of heavy taxation. It had been a 'very unenviable task' to decide how tho increased revenue should bo raised. 110 admitted and deplored tho fact that 'wo have been living nationally upon our capital in the last few years.' Ho put down unemployment to 'the appalling fall in world prices,' and hoped that when they • touched bottom there would bo 'a very rapid recovery in trade.' These remarks aro tactful, no doubt; but are they sincero ? And how can' they bo reconciled with Mr. Snowden's own opinions expressed elsewhere? JustJjeforo tho eloctions, ho was arguing that the existence of tho rich was responsible for tho poverty of the masses; that high taxation stimulated industry, and that, if money was left with the individual, there was a reasonable assumption that it would be wasted in luxury and riotous living. Which is tho real Mr. Snowden—tho Socialist who wanted u Capital Levy and an income tax of 15s in tho pound, or the skilful financier Who congratulated himself—with doubtful justification—on saving £12,003,000 by turning Treasury bills into long-term loans at a higher rato of interest ? It is an interesting problem in dual personality."

UGLINESS IN CHURCHES. Although the movement that began with Ruskin, William Morris and others in creating a conscience in matters of art still grew in strength, the forces which made for ugliness were still powerful, tho Bishop of Southwark, Dr. Garbett, said in an address last month. Commercialism was destroying the countryside with jerrybuilt bungalows, with blatantly vulgar petrol stations, with monstrous advertisements. Tho demand for swift traffic had ruined hundreds of wooded lanes and turned them into broad and featureless roadways. Local authorities still felt Jt qliite natural that one of the fairest stretches of tho Thames bank should bo suggested ns a suitablo site for a sewage farm. Tho Church had an unrivalled opportunity of taking tho lead in setting a high standard of artistic excellence. Zealous but ill-instructed restorers had sometimes worked more fatal havoc than tho deliberate iconoclast. The interiors of some of tho best of their churches were damaged, sometimes half ruined, by tasteless colour and inartistic ornaments and furniture. Clumsy and heavy reredoses, garish tiles and carpets, pretentious pulpits and ridiculous lecterns, hangings and curtains- drab in colour, stamped by machine-made ■ ecclesiastical designs, windows with insipid and unreal figures, colours on tho walls and floors which were in violent discord, cheap and conventional vases and lamps were found in many churches and made persistent progress against tho worship of God in beauty as well as in holiness. For their sins against beauty they should sometimes have litanios of penitence.

ELECTIONEERING PROMISES "Never in any election in our time were wilder promises made and wilder hopes held out to tho unemployed and the suffering than were held out in April and May last year," said Mr. Stanley Baldwin in a speech at Reading last month. "Electioneering of that kind tended to destroy the faith of tho people in democratic government." Tho contract between what tho Labour Party had promised and its achievement was shown by two facts of appalling significance—tho most deplorable set of trade figures which had appeared for years; and unemployment figures marching up to a point they had never touched since the worst years soon after the war, and making for tho two-million mark. Tho confidenco which industry had gained with such difficulty had - been shattored by legislation, by wild talk, by the Budget "What has caused so much trouble in industry is that, at a time when for some years past taxation has been reduced, we alone, 12 years after tho peace, are beginning once more that upward climb of increased taxation which all believed had reached its culmination during the bitter years of the war." Mr. Baldwin continued. "It has caused a hopeless feeling, and to bo told that extra taxation is not a burden on industry is flying in tho faco of every authority. Increased taxation at this moment is the worst thing for industry you could have. We have nonp too much capital in industry to-day, and the moro you take of the savings of tho people, tho less, there is to devote to the use of industry. A country which dovotes so large a portion of its income in providing for the unemployed and cannot find and mtuco work for them, is starting down tho road which ultmhtely can lead only to bankruptcy. That lias to be checked, and the first stop ii rigid economy."