NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20925, 15 July 1931, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

THE CIIURCTI OF SCOTLAND. "It might almost bo said that no sooner has the noble task of reunion been accomplished in Scotland than another duty is being forced upon the Church—namely, the restatement of its faith. This was the subject which in the main occupied the attention of the General Assembly," says the Scotsman. "What the hour requires is a simple and clear statement of the faith of the Church such as this generation needs for its guidance. This statement may not be untheological, but it must be true, in touch'with reality, a reflection of (he eternal verities, and immediately applicable to life. ... It was gratifying, indeed, to find that the overwhelming sense of the Assembly was in favour of an endeavour being made fo think out and issue such r. declaration. If it really formulates the verities of Uk 4 soul, and is the utterance of what men it: their hearts believe and live by, just so much the more will the Church of Scotland maintain its catholicity and preserve its ifnity with the Church universal. The. Church of Scotland has set its hand to a. great task. The furrow may be long and the work hard, but it cannot look back." AMERICA DISILLUSIONED. "When Mr. Coolidge retired from (he 1 Presidency the American people were enjoying a sense of power and well-being such as no nation of the modern world had approached," says Mr, S. K. Ratcliffe, a regular visitor to the United States for many years, in the Contemporary Review. "American prosperity was a commanding reality; it was rare to find an American citizen who was prepared to express a serious doubt as to the permanence of the structure of American industry, commerce, and credit. And —more significant still—the theory that America had opened the road to plenty, discovered the secret of continuous prosperity, and abolished the cycle of good and bad trade, was carried from tliq Rotary Club and the Chamber of Commerce into the colleges; it was being adopted as-the new orthodoxy by the faculties of Economics. Of all this, needless to say, nothing whatever is now to be heard. The shock of the depression has been terrific, overwhelming, and there does not exist in any country so widespread a spirit of perplexity, concern and self-»riticism as may be met with in the United States. Until these present times of trial the American has been sure of at least one thing—the rightness and soundness of the American economic system. Not even of that can lie be certain to-day." THE PROGRESS OF DEMOCRACY. "Does the scholar, once at the erratic mercy of a rich patron, now study at his ease preserved from want by the homage of the world?" asks Mr. Douglas Jerrold in the English Review. "Does the disinterested administrator, once hampered by fear of an ignorant and selfish public opinion, now pursue justice with perfect assurance, confident that the wider public before which he stands can be relied on to set justice before expediency ajid honour before ease ? Do men and women, now vocal and conscious of their power, turn their backs on the temptations that have assailed kings and courtiers, do they impose upon the world those standards of Christian virtue so often flouted in high places? Do they put aside the licence of the past and the things of the flesh Do thev shut the door on ambition and greed and envy, and preach from the housetops the duty of disinterested 'service ? Do they, for the first time in history, place others above themselves ? Does the new publicly-educated body of citizens manifest a steady and growing interest in the things of the mind and spirit ? Where one copy of a work of literature, or piety, or scholarship was sold 50 years ago, do we sell 50 to-day? Or even two? Or even one ? Is there an honest man who would dare to give any but a negative answer to each of these questions ?" V WAGES IN THE UNITED STATES. Despite the efforts of the President and his economic advisers, and the militant opposition of the American Federation of Labour, the movement for a general reduction of wages is gaining headway, the ! New York correspondent of the Times Trade Supplement wrote recently. It has been accelerated by the rapid increase in the number of dividend rejluctibns or omissions by corporations large and small. [ For many mftnths aftor prosperity had i ceased to exist the maintenance of high wages continued to be a cardinal point of American economic doctrine. It was strongly supported by the Administration of President Hoover, and by conferences of business executives called by him at Washington. The executives even went so far as to pledge themselves not to reduce wages or employment, and in the main they kept their promises, although eventually, in order to preservo the fiction that wages and employment were being kept up, they had to resort to such devices as reducing the number of working days a week or the number of working hours per man per day, and dividing one man's work between two men. But in the courso of time it was not eve'n possiblo for many corporations to keep up the pretence that they were maintaining wages and employment. Unemployment increased with great rapidity. One hears more and more nowadays of the cost of living in connection with arguments about wages, and less and less of the intimate Connection between high wages and prosperity. It seems safe to say that the country has become convinced, or at least is rapidly approaching the point where it will be convinced,"tl.at not until there has been a correction of some of the glaring disparities of industrial wage-schedules can there bo any hope of permanent recovery from trade depression.