NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21098, 4 February 1932, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

REMARKABLE THINGS. " For the mass of men, that is wonderful which is novel and ingenious—the submarine, the flying machine, the radio, television. And, of course, they are right," says Professor R. M. Gray in the Atlantic Monthly. " The trouble is that few ever perceive that such inventions are less mysterious than the brain that conceived them and guided the

hand that fashioned them. . . . All one needs to hear the tongues in trees, to read the books in brooks, is the leisuro, the opportunity, and the receptive mind; but these small voices are drowned in the roar of civilisation, which also makes man preoccupied, pragmatic, arid conceited. I would have him ponder a day on a robin, a week on a waterfall, a month on a mountain. I would have him discover that the tiniest cascade in his brook is no different, except in size, from Niagara or Zambesi; that the same forces went to cut a channel as wide as his hand that went to gouge the canyon of the Colorado. Look at them through a telescope. and they may be quite as impressive. The humblest vista of unspoiled nature may become in time as beautiful and as mysterious as the grandest panorama seen from a mountain peak. This is what the poets have been telling us ever since Orpheus, and yet it is what every man has to discover for himself."

RUSSIA AND THE WORLD. "I can see no real peace in Europe until the Russian problem is settled," said Mr. William E. Borah in the Senate of the United States. "It is my belief there can be no disarmament of any moment, particularly land disarmament, until Russia is brought into the family of nations and amicable relations and clear understanding with all other Powers are established; that there can be no economic health or stability in Europe, or the world, so long as this gigantic Power, stupendous and incalculable in her natural wealth and her manpower, is writhing and struggling to escape her thraldom. ... I would establish

normal relations with the Russian Government. In doing so I would not assume I was endorsing the Communistic theory; in doing so 1 would not endorse their method of carrying on their government; in doing so I would have no fear of their teachings or their propaganda i ndermining American citizenship. I would believe that as Russia is there, with her 150.000,000 people, occupying onesixth of the earth's surface, wo have to deal with her, and that, it is better to deal with her in that- way than in the abnormal and extraordinary way which leads to abnormal and extraordinary policies." OLD AND NEW JAPAN.

"The difficulty that the Western traveller in Japan experiences in understanding the national character is largely due to the fact that the people of Nippon have a dual existence —and the two existences are miles apart," the Tokio correspondent of the 'limes wrote recently. "It is only a little more than 60 years ago that the secluded island race abandoned an uninterrupted period of primitive but cultured feudalism to adopt a Western civilisation with all its mental, physical and technical complications. Unremitting study, unceasing sacrifice and sheer determination have brought Japan to her present world position. . . . The pride with which the Japanese man adopts foreign dress is only equalled by the satisfaction with which, his day's work over, he discards it. Ministers of State, military authorities, men of business, students, and school children who pass their days seated on chairs or on benches with desks before them sink with relief upon the floor at the first oppor-

tunity of relaxation. . . . The chief

cashiers of the great banking establishments can only add or subtract with the aid of the abacus, while the children of the Samurais drive taxicabs and the descendants of the faithful Ronins wait at table."

THE SPIRIT OF THE PEOPLE.

"There never lias existed a country where education is so appreciated as in Japan, and a multitude of students and children are struggling and striving to surpass the rest of the world for tho renown of their country and the honour of their Emperor," the Times correspondent adds. "It is the spirit of the Old Japan—the original root of the grafted tree —that supplies this vast vital force. Tho difficulties would be insuperable were it not for the unquenchable flame of patriotism, the devotion to duty, the personal sacrifice. When a national crisis arises the Japanese people, while neglecting no useful material measure that thoy have learned from the West, reverts in spirit to its Eastern origin. There is no sacrifice that the people are not prepared to make It is an attitude that is in many respects admirable. In still more ways it is disconcerting, for the responsibilities that in their Western-altitude they accepted they appear at times in their Eastern spirit to be prepared to discard, even to the point of sacrificing what they have acquired for that which they inherited — to gamble the reputation of the New Japan rattier than imperil the honour of the Old. Their attitude resembles that of the English duellist of the past, who was prepared to risk the legal consequences of his act when he considered that his honour was at stake. To live up to two ideals is not impossible, but it is at times inconvenient and liable to misinterpretation."