NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21296, 24 September 1932, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS

THE NEW INDIA In a speech on Indian policy, Lord Lothian said them were two main menaces to the development of that cordial co-operation between India and Britain in formulating and carrying into effect a sane and liberal Constitution. The first was the diehard mind in Britain, a small section, but one which seemed for the time being to have, enlisted the formidable support of Mr. W r inston Churchill. The trouble with the diehards was that they seemed always to have in front of their eyes an India which no longer existed—tho India of the Kipling days and not tho India which, for good or evil, had been brought into existence by 100 years of Western education. They could no moro treat the India of to-day as they could pre-war India than they could treat the England of to-day like the England of the Boer War. The policy which, so far as he could understand it, was being advocated by Mr. Churchill and his friends was really a policy of explosion. The second menace was the Indian equivalent to British extremism—that was to say, the spirit of civil disobedience. THERMAL AIR CURRENTS Soaring flight, which depends largely on the discovery of vertical air currents, may become of more general use when more is known of. the thermal currents produced by tjie heat reflected from certain tracts of land, says the aeronautical, correspondent/ of tho Times. The British ..Gliding Association recently started a movement for the investigation of the intense thermal cilrrente in India, and negotiations, in which tho Director of Civil Aviation in India is interested, are now in progress for a research tour by Herr Robert Kronfeld. Air currents of this type have been used by expert glider pilots in Europe. Herr Kronfeld on his • last visit to England sought to use the thermal currents over London for gaining height and met with some success in the course of his flight from Hanworth to Chatham. In the scientific sense, very little is known about these air currents, and soaring flight in Europe more, generally uses those rising streams of air which are produced by deflection from a hillside or are found near cumulus clouds or in front of an advancing thunderstorm. The skilled pilot knows now the conditions which are likely to accompany currents of such origin. The discovery of thermal currents is still a matter of conjecture. India is likely to yield information on which generalisations applicable to Europe may be based. Sir Gilbert Walker, Director-General of Observatories in India for 20 years, has pointed out how vultures in India make use of these currents, rising from a ridge of rock, an area of sand, a big stone building, or even a group of mud huts heated by the sun. These birds climb often to a height of 2000 ft. on such currents and then stay up all day, gliding from up-current to upcurrent and climbing in spirals when they find themselves in an area, of lift. CALL FOR ECONOMY "We are very proud to have balanced the Budget," says Sir Ernest J. P. Benn in a letter to the Times. "We thereby enhanced immensely our position. But we have yet to learn that we really did it out of capital, and it will only by degress become apparent that we thereby unbalanced many thousands of homes and businesses. We can now congratulate the Government on a saving of £23,000,000 in interest, and then proceed at our leisure to realise that this benefit comes from the same milch cow. The plain fact is that very little has yet been donefin tfte vital and funda-. mental matter of economy. Our unemployed remain, and the numbers would be greatly increased if our traders reduced their pay rolls in proportion to tho reduction in their trade. Enormous further reductions in capital values must be set against the heroic attempt of our business classes to maintain employment merely for its own sake. Meanwhile our capital account, upon which all of us depend, gets worse and worse. Our railways can be bought for 10 per cent of their cost, and it is hard to find an industrial investment worth half of its original value. Unless economy, properly understood, is applied, not in years to come, but in the next few months, we shall witness a collapse of a magnitude so far unapproached. . . . The wind, now become a, raging gale, is the thousand millions a year in rates and taxes to which this country is still committed. Half the amount would bo a heavy burden, anything above that can only be secured out of the dwindling remains of our capital. Empire and international arrangements are very important and involve perhaps as much as 15 per cent of . the economic side of our lives. But the other 85 per cent ifi within our own control. In our misguided enthusiasm for legislation and political and collective force in all its forms, we have limited our liberty to servo one another, reduced our trade to the shadow of its former self, and maclo our public expenditure five times the pre-war figure. The remedy is drastic and immediate public economy; forcing upon all our public authorities the cutting down and closing up processes which they aro now forcing upon our trade. The. task involves a right understanding of tho long-forgotten dictum of Paul to Timothy ■ that 'the law is not made for a righteous man . . . but for liars and perjurers,' supplemented by Thomas Paine when he said that government at its-best is nothing hut a necessary evil."