NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21160, 18 April 1932, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

CHILDREN AT CINEMAS. The chief school inspector of (ho London County Council, Dr. F. H. Spencer, has reported upon the attendance of children at cinemas. As to the effects of attendance, he says, the morally questionable element* in films for adults was ignored by children; they were bored by it. That it might, do harm in particular cases was not denied, but there appeared to be no widespread mischief. One distinct evil lay in tho fear, and bad dreams, caused by films depicting acts of violence. The evil was mentioned with such frequency by inspectors and teachers and with such specific examples as left scarcely any doubt of its existence. There could bo little question that war pictures, gruesome and terrible details of which were undoubtedly remembered, and " mystery" plays with terrifying incidents, hncl undesirable and possibly permanent- effects 011 children. Apart from that single point, the inquiry brought out, no other subject, on which thdre was definite evidence of harm. THE IMPERIAL IDEAL. Addressing the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Great Britain, Mr, Runciman, President of the Board of Trade, said lie hoped that when the Ottawa Conference met a good deal of its work would have been done. He warmly shared the view that the preparatory work would be as important as the work of the conference itself. "The first preliminaries," said Mr. "Runciman, "must bo carried through by men who know their job, sitting round a table working out the problems in a unified spirit, and in the long run registering their conclusions. We are doing what we can to initiate the process on this side. If you will toll your people how urgent it is that they should buy our goods for their sakes as well as for ours, we shall have made a beginning in that co-operative feeling without which no conference can bo a success. Although wo in Britain are, I hope, just as good business men as you arc, we are actuated and inspired by the Imperial ideal. If we have at Ottawa to call on Imperial sentiment. I know you here in the Canadian Chamber of Commerce will applaud us in our appeal." THROUGH AMERICAN EYES. "Britain profoundly believes, her position and her history compel her to believe, that the road to peace is the road of normal economic co-operation," writes Professor William Orton, in tho Atlantic Monthly of America. "She 110 longer maintains that that co-operation must be planless, or that unrestricted competition will automatically evolve a plan ; but she emphatically believes that the plan must be primarily economic, not political. "Along tho line of economic nationalism pursued by States that cannot hope to be self-sufficing, or along tho line of bipartisan arrangements entered into, or condemned, for other than sound economic reasons, she sees only waste, overproduction, under-consumption, recurrent bankruptcy, political as well as economic insecurity. In the cause of sano economic co-operation she lias shouldered for more than merely financial risks. She has pledged herself up to the hilt to pacific policies, she has thrown awav her arms, without asking for any supplementary guarantees against the peculiar dangers of her position, grave though they are. Her Empire now is nothing but a speculation in good-will." THE FUTURE OF INDIA. Speaking at, Oxford, Lord Irwin referred to India. The broad principle of policy, lie said, should bo to keep a prosperous and contented India within the British Empire. " Looking at the facts of Jndia as I have seen them, I should say (hat the aspirations of political India were (he perfectly natural outcome of human instinct and desire to manage (heir oun affairs; that it was inevitable from I lie whole, history of (he. last 100 years and that (he British, of all people, ill the world, should understand ami sympathise with (hem." All government, would ultimately rest on consent, and therefore if in the great problem of India they were to work with the, current of human thought instead of against it they must apply themselves to the fact that law must he the fundamental of all society. "Wo should be doing a disservice to India if wo allowed tho basis of that, society to be undermined and subverted. That obviously imposes upon us a double policy during tho present unhappy state of affairs in India; on (ho one hand, of maintaining the stability of (he State, and, on the other, recognising that force hy itself has never solved any political problem. All force can do is to create a condition of affairs in which reason, argument, persuasion and conciliation have their chance to come and find the solution we seek."