NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20989, 28 September 1931, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

MIDDLE AGE PROBLEMS. " One of tho problems of middle age is to avoid bad debts—bad debts to oneself, because it is in old age that tho debts becomo payable, and it is not pleasant," said Professor Sir Arthur Thomson in a recent speech at Oxford. " Still thero are compensations for ageing. They say that a man is as old as his arteries, but it is truer to say that ho is as old as his spirit. Let him get more intorest and some spico of adventure, and join the society of the old and tho bold. There is then the possibility of increasing your chance of being younger every day. As a biologist let me remind you that there is no senility in the animal kingdom outside domestic animals. Senility is tho prerogative of mankind, and one of the problems of life at the end is to submit to old ago while avoiding senility." * BRITISH CREDIT. "Sterling has always been the standard by which to measure services or the value of goods throughout the world, and is accepted as the universal standard in all parts of the globe," a writer in Le Temps observed in an article of which a translation was published in the Morning Post List month "Therefore, all British statesmen, being well aware of the importance of their cherished currency, have its welfare always at heart. Throughout the greatest wars sterling has stood its ground and after temporary setbacks has always regained its stability. . . . England lives on her word and her signature! A certain diplomat who has since been Ambassador in London, said in 1910: 'How can so fragile an edifice as that of tho City survive any war ? There is no gold and nothing but those cheques.' Our diplomat, however, was unaware that a proof of this vitality had already been furnished beforo his time, and it has been furnished again. This proof always will be furnished—except, perhaps, should the Socialist worm which is gnawing at our neighbour fail to realise that credit is a promise of work, and that without working one dies." ABOLITION OF PRIVATE LIFE. "If one must bo an under-dog," writes Mr. J. A. Spender in the NewsChronicle, " is it better to be exploited by a competent capitalist, who will at least let you have a modest dwelling to yourself and leave you alone when he doesn't want you, or by a ruthless and disinterested Communist who knows what is good for you and compels you, on pain of being starved or shot, to live the kind of life that he likes and think only the thoughts that he thinks ? I own my own sympathies go out to the millions of peasants in Russia who prefer their own poor way of living to being driven into the collective farms, though it may be proved a thousand times over that the latter are on the side of progress, modernity and efficiency. It is not the abolition of private property but the of the private life which is so repulsive in these experiments. To be herded together, as the Russians seem to be, and to be at the mercy of propagandists who see in you nothing but raw material for the current Five-Year Plan—this is what repels a man brought up in tho ordinary human way. If I had to choose between masters, I personally would any day choose the hardest-faced man of business in preference to these zealous and disinterested apostles of tho Marxian faith."

NEW SOUTH WALES DEBTS. One of the tasks undertaken by Mr. A. C. Willis on his appointment as AgentGeneral for New South Wales in London wa3 presumably to explain to British holders of the State's securities his Government's refusal to pay interest due to them. He has evidently not attempted to placate public opinion on the subject. "That the Premier of New South Wales failed to meet the State's oversea interest obligations was the result not of any desire to shirk the Government's obligations but to conserve the country's resources pending financial rehabilitation in order that all debts would eventually be fujly met," said Mr. Willis in a statement circulated last month. "Businesslike creditors in similar circumstances in connection with a private enterprise whoso prospects were relatively as sound as those of New South Wales would readily have acquiesced in a deferment of debts pending reconstruction. The only argument against the New South Wales Premier's proposal is that many private bondholders are solely dependent and many others partially dependent on the interest on their bonds. This probably is an exaggeration of the facts. Tho consensus of opinion here is that tho great bulk of the money invested in Governmental securities belongs to people who could very well bear a temporary suspension of interest payments—for one year at any rate, or, alternatively, a reduction in the rate of interest. An analysis of tho bondholdings in Australia confirms that opinion, and it would be safe to assume that tho general position of bondholders in Great Britain is even better than in Australia. That no section of the bondholders of Great Britain have voiced a desiro to help Australia out of her difficulties has not tended to strengthen the bonds of Imperial union, the whole-hearted recognition of which by Australia during the war was no small factor in the Allies' success."