NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20875, 18 May 1931, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

TREASURE TROVE. An important change in tho practice of the law of treasure trove in Britain was recently announced in an official notice. It states that objects of gold or silver which have been hidden in the soil or in buildings, and cr which the original owner cannot bo traced, aro treasure trove, and by law the property of tho Crown. If, however, the finder of sucb objects reports the find promptly, and it is decided that it is treasure trovo and therefore the property of tho Crown, he will receive its full market value if it is retained for the Crown or a museum. If

it is not retained, ho will receive back the objects themselves, with full liberty to do what he likes with them; or, if he wishes it, tho British Museum will sell them at the best price obtainable. The only way in which a finder can comply with the law and also obtain these advantages is by reporting tho find promptly to tho proper authority. The proper authority is the coroner for the district in which the find is made, for ho is the authority who inquires "of treasure that is found" and "who were the finders." Under the previous rule, which had been in force since 1886, the finder received payment only after the deduction of either 20 per cent, of the antiquarinn value of the objects concerned or 10 per cent, of tho value of all objects discovered. If objects are concealed and sold the delinquent is liable to heavy penalties, but these have not, it is believed, been inflicted sinco 1863.

BACK TO ATKINSON. Discussing the state of the public finances in New Zealand in a contribution to the Financial Times banking supplement, tho Hon. W. Pembcr Reeves, chairman of the National Bank of New Zealand writes:—" The Government has outlined its proposals, which, added to tho fiscal changes made last year, show a curiously closo reversion to the policy carried out in New Zealand during the retrenching years 1879 to 1888. The chief points are less direct taxation on land; moro direct

taxation on wealth generally; heavy increases in customs duties; a 10 per cent, cut in the salaries of civil servants and State workpeople; a sharp reduction .in the wages paid on relief works; a paringdown of the education vote; and the handing over of the railways, as formerly,

to a non-political board of commissioners. Almost the only modern novelties in the programme are the special treatment

meted out to the banks and tho extraordinary powers conferred upon the Arbitration Court. . . . It is true that previous to the year 1893 such a thing as a genuine surplus was scarcely known, but after that year the public accounts presented a much moro satisfactory form." Mr. Reeves adds. " For 25 years there was always a genuine surplus and sometimes a very large one indeed. Only in one year, 1922, was the record interrupted. In 1929 there was again a deficit, but I hazard the opinion that there should bo no real difficulty in making the ordinary revenuo and expenditure balance. The most tedious problem is not that, but the putting right of the Stato railways. That may take two years, but anyone who knows New Zealand has no doubt whatever that it will bo successfully accomplished." ENGLISH AND SPANISH. Tho opinion that English, of living European tongues, is the most closely adapted to the exigencies of modern times was expressed by the Marques de Merry del Val, Spanish Ambassador in London, in his presidential address to tho Modern Languages Association. "To my mind, the universality of English is not exclusively due to the extent of your Empire, tho world-wide scope of vour political influence, tho yet farther reach of your trade," ho said. "I, frankly, from a sense of justice, attribute its omnipresence to certain inherent qualities of its own. Devoid of grammatical complications to such a degree that its simplicity in no small measure warrants the exaggerated assertion that it has no grammar, this very feature allows ils use with almost unsurpassable concision, whence comes a quintessential eloquence replete with picluresqueness. Its heterogeneous vocabulary is nothing less than vast. Your vague and utterly conventional pronunciation is easy to imitate, particularly for some races among whom, as a friend of England and the English, I am glad to number my own." Tho weak spot in English lay in ils orthography. It would always be superior in its spoken to its written form. Tho labyrinth of its spelling, a real maze, rendered the correct writing of English unattainable for many of alien origin. He ventured to claim his own national tonguo as one which ran English close, and enjoyed an equally unassailable, if not so broadly seated, a position. In simplicity of syntax, concision, vividness, wealth, and facility, it compared rarely unfavourably, and sometimes favourably, with English. Spoken by some 80,000,000 of human beings spread over part of Europe, half America, and part of Oceania, in this respect Spanish came immediately after English. It vied vrith English in a literature yet more vast, quite as beautiful and strong, and often remarkably similar in iU outlook ; on life.