NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20629, 30 July 1930, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

INDIA AND EGYPT. A somewhat cynical observation on the present conduct of Britain's policy in India and Egypt was made by Lord Grey en" Fallodon in his presidential address at tho jubilee dinner of the Eighty Club iri London last month. " 1 freely admit that tlie Labour Government have been doing somo things in home affairs which I think are inadvisable, but it is not only of homo affairs that wo have.to think," he said. " There is tiiis very difficult problem of India, which is most acute and critical. ... It is idle to speculate on what the attitude of the Labour Party would have been if a Labour Government. had not been in office. I sec that the Labour Government is criticised in some quai ters for not having taken stronger action at an earlier stage. One of the difficulties in politics is that we can never know what the consequences would have been of any action which has not been taken. It is at least as arguable that premature stringent action would have made things worse as that it would have made them better than they nrc at the moment. What is certain is that it is in the highest interests of the country —and indeed it is the only chance of dealing satisfactorily with the Indian problem—that what is being done in India should have the support of all parties. The presence of a Labour Government in office at the present moment having to deal with this great responsibility has undoubtedly secured—perhaps has been the only way in which it could have been secured—that this country should bo united soberly and without party spirit as it is in its attitude toward Indian politics." Lord Grey said that much the same considerations applied to the question of Egypt. If anyone was criticised for having done his utmost to prevent a change of Government at this particular moment a little reflection on those two great problems alone would make one feel that it was his patriotic duty in the House of Commons to be exceedingly careful to preserve a state of equilibrium as far as possible while those very difficult problems were before the country.

MOTOR AIDS TO CRIME. A great increase in burglaries in Kngland and Wales is described in an official report on criminal statistics as a byproduct of the Motor Age One of its main results has been the partial redispersal into country districts of populations and activities that during the nineteenth century had been concentrated in towns. Offences of "breaking-in" have risen bv 10.6 per cent, since 1911, in the London metropolitan police district, but in the outer Home Counties the lise was 437.3 per cent. In the boroughs and cities th<\v had risen l\v 87 per cent., but in the counties the increase was 137.9 per cent. " The explanations are not far to seek," says the report. " The motorcar. enables tho criminally-minded in the great towns to travel faster and farther afield into regions whero they are not known and the chances of interference with their criminal activities before they return, or of subsequent arrest., are less. The motor-car also enables more people to live in tho country, either all tho year round, or during tho summer, or. during week-ends. Whether they live in isolated big houses, which offer rich spoil, or in smaller homes, which yield collectively good hauls, or in scattered bungalows, huts, and so on, a dozen of which can bo broken into in an hour or two while they are unoccupied, their new dwelling places in the country tempt tho criminal and strain the resources of the police, all the more jo because the homes of the motor-users so often are. either distributed sparsely over tho countryside, or, like the concomitant refreshment houses, garages, petrol stations, and various shanties, are strung out all along- the lengths of arteiial and other roads. The temptation to tho idle or criminally disposed in the town areas is twofold: First, to 'borrow' a car, and, secondly, to 'do a job' with it; and the chances of doing the job successfully and of getting away ere so much greater in tho country that only tho most dating prefer the more diamatio 'stnash-and-giab' raid or 'bagsnatching' in the middle of a town."