NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21247, 29 July 1932, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS

FALSE STANDARDS "There is a challenge to tho definite existence of a lino between what is right and what is wrong," said Lord Irwin, ex-Viceroy of India, in a recent speech. " Psycho-analysis tells us there are many explanations why people want to do this and that, and that all must be taken into account. The result is to drive individuals to pursue not what they conceive to be right, but what they think will make them happy, and the pursuit of happiness, therefore, becomes more and more tho goal of more and more people, and the standard of values on which our lives depend tends to get itself built on the fluctuating sands of convention and public opinion, with no secure sanction to hold it in place. What men and women do in life depends very much more on what they are than upon what they know, and what they aro will always dopend upon whether they have any permanent principles by which to steer their course. In our system of complete democracy everything depends upon tho judgment of ordinary men and women. All havo a responsibility to contribute to the formation of right opinion and for tho conduct of the great affairs of tho world." DEBTS TO AMERICA Mr. James Beck, ex-Solicitor-General of the United States, was a guest at a recent luncheon of the English-Speaking Union. He said" as a modest member of the American House of Representatives he was not going to predict what was to be the solution of the problem of war debts. The conditions which confronted us must be met by all the nations. If we sponged the debts out without respect to the possibilities of the future the question would arise as to what failh could be put in the credit of the nations. No one could question the high-minded position England had taken in this matter, but the real difficulty so far as his country was concerned was one of psychology. When the war began America's national debt was less than two million dollars and after the war it ran into many billions. America had spent huge sums of money in giving assistance .in various directions in connection with tho War. If there was one feel' ing in America on the debt question which rose above any other, it was a feeling of sympathy with England. But at present they were suffering from tho worst economic panic they had ever had. It was no good abusing America. The more she was called "Uncle Shylock," as she had been, the more her heart would harden. The way to appeal to America was to appeal to her justice, That appeal would not be made in vain. America might feel a little harsh towards some other countries because there was the feeling _ that they had not played tho game, but, so far as he could judge public opinion, there was no suggestion by any thoughtful men in America that England had not nobly played the game to the best of her capacity. MR. BALDWIN'S -REMEDY" " The surest way of getting prices back is to get the circulation of goods which will stimulate trade," said Mr. Baldwin in the House of Commons. " Other methods may or may not be successful; I am not going to hazard any prophecy, but I will say this, that after all the success and prosperity of this country depends upon the fellow responsible doing his job. Those people cannot wait for conferences or for any artificial means of raising prices; and I rejoice nfc tho many instances which have come to my knowledge of men in different parts of the country who are sitting down to face this problem, using their trains, consulting their own workpeople, and taking them into their confidence, and who are able to carry on in these times and to carry on without any cut in wages. I will give the House two instances. My first case, in the export trade, is that of a man in the Midlands who makes buckets. He could not wait until prices rose to the 1929 basis; he found that he could not sell his buckets because tho people who used to buy the buckets wero not ablo to afford tho prices which they used to pay, but that they might buy something cheaper. He sat down with hife own people and they worked at the problem until they had solved it. They are today producing a considerably cheaper bucket, and ho has got a very large order from a most competitive part of the world, in North Africa, which will enable him to put his place on full time at tho old rates of wages for many months to come. The other case concerns a laige provincial store with its own clothing factory. They manufactured suits of clothes which wore sold at 70s. a suit, and they found that in tho impoverished state of the country they could sell very few. Tho overhead charges went up, so these -enterprising men consulted with their own folk and with the cloth manufacturers. They used their brains, and they produced a suit, not perhaps quite so good, but quite good, at 505., with tho result that the factories are working full time and are likely to do so for a long time to come; and they are paying exactly the same rates of wages as they paid previously. Now that is tho spirit, and the only spirit, which is going to ovefocme difficulties."