NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21131, 14 March 1932, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

THE HITLER NOTE. The following is an extract from a New Year message by Herr Hitler, who contends for the Presidency of Germany:— " The world stands before a, decision the liko of which it is confronted with but once in a thousand years. The bourgeois parties, narrow minded and short sighted, fail to comprehend oven now that Bolshevism is not ... an interesting experiment, of a new political order—as they like to express it —but the definite destruction of all human civilisation. These parties have not the most shadowy idea that to-day the very foundations of a. civilisation of thousands of years aro in danger nor that tho victory of Bolshevism means not only the end of the nations, as they exist to-day, the end of their I Governments, nr their civilisation and of their economics, but also of their religion." i THE GOOD NEIGHBOUR. In its comments upon the Prince of ! Wales' speech at the great, rally of youth j in the Albert Hall in January, the Times I remarks: —Unemployment in the mass is on a scale so great that, f he. individual is powerless. The State alone can make and execute plans to cope with the needs of 2.000.000 persons or more. Put, the power of the State also is limited, and not only, or most importantly, in the amount nf financial nid it can afford. The ! State can plan for (he million or the hundred thousand, but the machinery of the State is riot- capable of meeting a man face to face with understanding. Here is a remedial service for the individual. Unemployment is not, only a mass problem. If can bo broken into little pieces. So the Prince of Wales appealed to., all those who are in work ' to play tho part, of neighbour and friend to the man out, of work.' There is a danger, through the State becoming more and more, of the individual becoming less and less; and for the individual to find in the activities of the State an excuse for his" own inactivity. The good neighbour has a line of conduct and a way of life that will make him blameless of that offence against the highest, code of citizenship.

RESEARCH IN INDUSTRY The scheme of forming co-operative re search associations, set up and controlled by the industries themselves with initial financial help from tho Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, is an essential feature in the flexibility of the organisation, states the report of the Advisory Council, of which Lord Rutherford is chairman. Hie experiment has no exact counterpart in any other country, and the attempt to establish these associations as autonomous bodies, managed by the industries for their own benefit, has been successful, the report claims, because it preserves the individualism characteristic of British industry. The second great advantage attributed to these bodies is that they lend themselves naturally to the promotion of contact between tho scientific worker and the industrialist. It is not uncommon for a considerable part of the time of the staff of the associations to be occupied in work for the firms which constitute it and in visits to works. In applying scientific ideas to technical problems tho staff, indeed, is intended to function as the " general staff" of the industry. Some remarkable results, bringing substantial financial benefits to tho industry concerned, have already, it is stated, been achieved by the associations, the efforts of which may quite possibly lead at any time to the rapid development of a promising new industry or the successful reorganisation of an existing one. through tho use of new or improved materials or processes of manufacture. EFFECT OF DEBT CANCELLATION. Speaking at the Eighty Club, Sir Walter Lavton, a member of the Consultative Economic Committee of the League of Nations and a- director of tho Economic and Financial Section of the League, said that international war debts were not by any means the sole cause of the present situation. Nor did he consider that the situation was entirely to be attributed to a monetary cause, such as the gold situation. Tho simple fact was that we could not begin to rebuild to get the flow of capital going if there were any danger of tho present situation recurring. That was the l'oot of the whole problem. It was idle to have a provisional settlement now which gave any possibility of this happening again. A moratorium was not any good. It meant wait, and a two years' moratorium was worse, than one, because it lasted longer. Tho German point of view that tho whole of the war debts should be wiped out was very largely non-economic. "Supposing they aro all wiped out, somebody is going to pay," said Sir Walter. "Britain is going to pay for one. If all tho reparations and debts aro wiped out, there is somo £1,600,000.000 of our National Debt still remaining on this country in Vespect of money which was raised hero and lent to tho Allies, and wo have to go on paying interost on it until one of these days the bonds are repaid out of tho taxes of this country. Tho internal debt, remains. Germany will be loft with only £500,000,000 of internal debt. That is £8 por head. France will be left with approximately £2,300,000,000 of debt, which is £56 per head; Great Britain will be loft with £6,600,000.000 of internal debt, equal to £.lso.per head; and tho United States with an internal debt of £3,200,000,000, or £27 per head."