NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20743, 10 December 1930, Page 12

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

CANADA AND AMERICA. "Canadians desire to live in peaco and amity with their American neighbours, but they have not the slightest intention of forgoing their present, position as an autonomous partner State in the British Commonwealth of Nations for the sake of the greater economic prosperity which absorption in the United States would undoubtedly bring," says Mr. J. C. Stevonson, in Current History. "Apart from the fact that a political organisation which embraced the whole of the North American continent would be too cumbrous for efficient government, they cherish the rooted belief that they enjoy in their existing political and social order certain manifest advantages over their neighbours. For one thing, they have an infinitely more elastic political system so that adjustments which the interests of the country demand can be made without undue stress and strain. Again, throughout the whole Dominion, the administration of justice is both efficient and rapid, and lawbreakers receive short shrift. The weird stories of the successful exploits of lawless elements which emanate from Chicago and other places fill Canadians with amazement that such a state of affairs could be tolerated by a civilised community and confirm them in their belief that, while they may not enjoy the abounding material prosperity of the United States, they live less dangerously and have a sounder social structure." GOLD AND CREDIT. "Credit, of the intangible kind, plays a not less important part in international commerce than gold," says the City editor of the Times. "It is true that if Russia were to produce £10,000,000 of new gold a year she would be able to increase purchases of those foreign manufactured goods she badly needs, and tho commerce of tho world would be expanded thereby, and prices would doubtless rise or their fall be checked. The samo might bo said about China. Jn these cases it would be true to say that an increased output of gold would be of benefit to international trade, even if in tho end tho additional gold produced by these countries found its way into the ground again —i.e., into the vaults of tho Bank of France or the Federal Reserve banks. But in these cases an additional production of gold would bo benefici.il solely because the credit —tho intangible quality—of these countries has declined, for reasons with which most people are familiar. If their credit were restored by sound financial practices, these countries would be able to make purchases of goods through credit instruments without gold, but the precious metal is tho only alternative to credit in present circumstances. In a sense, therefore, these countries might bo said to suffer from a scarcity of but only because credit is for them scarcer still. In the same way a bankrupt could boeomo solvent, if he found a goldmine in his garden. But if these countries were to devote their energies to the restoration of their credit they would achieve more than they would by increasing, oven if they were able, their production of gold." FOREIGN MISSIONAUTES. "Whether any demand will bo made for compensation for these brutal outrages remains to bo seen," tho London correspondent of tho Birmingham Post wrote in reference to the , murder in China of two women missionaries. "Such action is contrary to the custom of the Church Missionary Society, and, indeed, of missionary societies in general. When Mr. Stewart and his family and other missionaries were murdered in 1895, not very far from the scene of tho latest crime, the Church Missionary Society refused to sanction any demand such as the British Government might have been willing to lender. Instead, the committee of the society reaffirmed its unfaltering belief that no disaster, however great, should be allowed to interfere with tho prosecution of that purpose for which the society exists, the evangelisation of the world, which, in its divide origin, is without conditions. There was a great meeting in Exeter Hall, and its note was that tho tragedy should evoko not pleas for vengeance or material reparation, but prayers for tho country where tho murders had occurred." The Morning Post also stated that Governments and missionary societies are agreed that "to yield to blackmail, while it might save the lives of individuals, would put every missionary, and indeed every foreign resident isolated in China, in tho samo peril. As money is the object, the payment would invito further outrages of tho same sort, and every nation or missionary society would have to continue to pay as long as one foreign subject remained unprotected."