NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20965, 31 August 1931, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

THE UNIVERSITY AND BUSINESS. The advantages of university education as a preparation for a business career were discussed by the Marquess of Linlithgow, in an address to the Congress of Universities of the British Empire, held in Edinburgh. If the average boy went to a university, would he gain more in terms of general intellectual equipment, in outlook, poise and power of leadership, than lie might lose in seniority in his business, or by some postponement of the time of his learning the technique of his profession ? lie asked. In a majority of cases, he was inclined to think that the appropriate answer to the question was that the young man would seem in the earlier stages of his business career to have forfeited something of professional advantage by the fact of his having taken a university course, but this handicap—assuming that the man meant business and had in him the roots of the matter —was eliminated by about the age of thirty, and by the middle thirties and onward to the peak of the earning life, the university experience would prove an important and, in many cases, a decisive advantage. He believed there would always be a demand in commerce and industry for the university graduate who had made tho best use of his opportunities at his university, and meant to put his heart into his work. There would always bo a brisk market for men of good calibre. ANCIENT CHURCHES DOOMED. By the carrying out of the Manchester Corporation's water scheme at Ilaweswater the lake will be greatly enlarged; the church and hamlet of Mardale will be submerged within two years, and Swindale Church will disappear when that valley is turned into a reservoir. It is stated, however, that it may "be 20 years before the Swindalo supply is needed for Manchester. Swindale Church, built in 1749, is one of the smallest in England, having accommodation for only 50 people. There have been no interments there. Mardale Church dates from 1628 and has seating for 70. The last interment was 15 years ago. ,4 The project was discussed at a consistory Court of the Diocese of Carlisle, when the chancellor, Mr. H. B. Vaisey, said that while the Church authorities regretted the necessity for the removal of two old churches, they had no desire to place difficulties in the way of Manchester in acquiring water, and ho was quite sure that Manchester desired to do no injury to the beauty of Lakeland or to the Church. In his view the Church should over be foremost in supporting works of public utility. All they had to do was to see that the important changes to bo made were done with a minimum of damage and inconvenience. With regard to the disinterring of bodies at Mardale, he thought they could with confidence accept the assurance of the corporation that the utmost care would bo taken, lie also directed that everything of use or interest in the two churches should be carefully stored until the question of the erection of a new church or churches could be settled.

A TARIFF WITH SAFEGUARDS. " The fiscal system of this country is going to be changed, and changed by tho general assent of tho nation," Mr. Stanley Baldwin, leader of the Conservative Party, declared in a speech at Hull last month. " One thing I am resolved upon. There are many men in this country who have become convinced that a change of fiscal policy is necessary, but they find it difficult to get over two things that they have always been taught to believe as being necessary concomitants of protection. Those are—and I will use language easy to be understood—profiteering and log-rolling. I have made up my mind that in no circumstances am I going to be responsible for any Government of which 1 may ever be the head making this country a profiteers' paradise or making the British Legislature a crooks' corner. We have, so far as we can, to make tho tariff knave-proof, and it can bo done. If we are returned to power, the very fact of our being returned (o power will mean that wo have a mandate from the country to change the fiscal system. Therefore our first step to give effect to that mandate will be to impose an emergency general tariff. The principles of such a tariff have already been worked out. A great deal of work has already been done, and as soon as we get- into office that work will bo completed with the expert assistance of tho requisite Government departments. The original tariff will not be a hotch-potch affair, because an immense amount of preliminary work has already been put into it by experts under myself and my colleagues, and, while it will bo simple enough for its fairness to be readily understood, it will be accurate enough for its operation to be properly effective. But no one would claim perfection for the first tariff that may bo imposed. It must require subsequent adjustment in the light of experience, and adaptation to changing events."

AN INDEPENDENT COMMISSION. Continuing, Mr. Baldwin said his party was determined that the scientific adjustment of the tariff would be removed from politics by ensuring that Government action would be founded on full and impartial information—information available not only to the Government but to every citizen of the country who cares to study it. " The right way to achieve these things would be to set up a permanent Tariff Commission, non-political, upon whoso recommendations tariff variations would be made, subject only to the assent of Parliament," he said. "The status of the commissioners ought to be lifted as far above the stress of party politics as is that of His Majesty's Judges. Our Courts of Justice have a worldfamed tradition of impartiality. The Tariff Commission should set themselves to emulate that tradition. They ought to bo sufficiently remunerated to bo absolutely independent and able to give t heir whole time to the task. They should be widely experienced men, selected solely on their personal qualifications with a view to comprising the strongest possible body, and the chairman should be a man accustomed to the weighing and the sifting of evidence, and labour should be represented upon that body. The aim should be to ensure that the commission as a whole will command the fullest confidence of the general public and of all branches of industry and commerce, employers and employed alike. ... The reports of the Commission should always bo laid before Parliament so that its findings would bo known and everyone outside the House of Commons would have full opportunity of seeing the information on which the Government was basing its action, and would know that the information had been collected and examined as scrupulously as it would have been had a Judge been summing up on it before a jury. Under such a system it would he impossible for a group of individuals to try to bring pressure to bear on members of Parliament.'- s