NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21120, 1 March 1932, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

EDUCATING THE HANDS. " There is something about the human hand which is intuitive, and which, I believe, intuitively obeys great laws of the universe that we do not understand," said Sir "William Rothenstnin, in his presidential address at the Educational Association's Conference. " Everyone who draws or makes things knows that tho hand has its own reason and is not always directly guided by the will. . The differenco between the hand that just scribbles and the one that is disciplined by tho mind seems almost a miracle. To leave the training of the hands out of education is to miss something very important. I would make a passionate plea for tho more serious consideration of some kind of handicraft in the schools, because the hand has its own wisdom, and I believe we are losing an immense amount of wisdom through neglecting our hands."

COST OF GOVERNMENT.

High cost of Government appears to bo the bane of democracy. There was an increase in the civil staffs employed in British Government departments on October 1 compared with April 1, 1931, of 3725. The greatest increase (2011) was in the revenue departments, largely accounted for by " seasonal requirements" and additional work in the tax-inspecting branch and valuation office. "The sizo and cost of the administrative machine," says the Times, " have grown out of all proportion to the admitted increase in its functions since the War. Since 1914 the number of civil servants has more than doubled, while the aggregate cost of their salaries and wages has increased to nearly four times the figure before the War. It is true that the emergency Budget mado some spectacular cuts in the remuneration of the higher posts, but tho middle and lower salaries, which account for nearly three-quarters of the whole, have been: left untouched. The figures given in the May Report show, for instance, that the salaries of the executive and clerical staffs, which amount in the aggregate to £25,000,000 a year, have increased on an average by 111 per cent, since 1914. Here, at any rate, .is one lusty sapling not unworthy of the attention of Mr. Chamberlain's axe;" CONTROL OF EXPENDITURE. * Mr. Ernest Brown, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health, addressing members of the Edinburgh City Business Club, discussed the limited powers of private members of Parliament to influence national expenditure. It was extraordinarily difficult for ordinary members of Parliament to exercise control of national expenditure, he said, first of all, because of human nature, and secondly, because, although a private member might be a very able man with a profound knowledge of national finance, ho did not always find it easy to raise an issue in the terms of the machinery of the House. The principles on which their financial machinery was based began to operate when the Estimates were prepared in the departments. The Estimates were then scrutinised by the Treasury, and, when agreement had been reached between the Treasury and the departments as to the departmental needs for the particular year, they were then debated and approved by the Cabinet. Once that was clone, a private-member or a body of private members could only raise the question of finance in a critical form by risking the defeat of the Government and a- consequent general election. Apart from Govefnrnent control, if (he House of Commons as a whole was to achieve any real control over public expenditure, it must make machinery through which private members of the House who might have knowledge of public expenditure would be able to make their criticisms felt and heard beforo the Cabinet had come to its final decisions. That was the real issue.

A GERMAN TRIBUTE. " For weeks, we have been waiting for this English inflation," Dr. .Adolf Halfeld, the London correspondent of tho Hamburger Frcmdenblatt wrote recently, "but it does not come—and why not? Because an Englishman never despairs and is firmly convinced (hat at the eleventh hour he will be able to muddle out of the mire. Tho Englishman does not get excited. Here in London we have not seen any runs on the banks Or on shops; everything is continuing just as usual. In the House of Commons the Chancollor of the Exchequer rises and resoundingly states that England to-day —as ever—is the greatest creditor nation in tho world, and everybody goes home deeply satisfied. . . Tho Government has not tho slightest intention of trying to make out that things aro better than they aro. England is supremely contemptuous of world public opinion; Great Britain believes in herself. Thus calm and mental balance are preserved although the people aro conscious of a national disaster. The Bank of England here is not a financial institution but a ltind of national shrine, and one has to try to put up with tho sovereign no longer being quite a sovereign. . . Undiminished moral force in tho minds of the whole people: than, is the secret of the English in this hour of crisis. Business remains as respectable as ever, no dizzy speculation paper sterling is seen on the Stock Exchange,: and it is not necessary—as in New York or on the Continent—to assist or to carry various concerns. How did our inflation nnd the crazy dance of figures start in Germany ? With mushroom companies and make-believe elegance. England, however, appears to bo going the opposite way. She is trying to find her way back to- Victorian matter-of-fact simplicity and economy. • Another great danger from which England has been able to keep clear is intellectual inflation, and that fact in these day» is one of the greatest assets of all.".