NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21359, 7 December 1932, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS

BRITAIN'S HOME DEFENCES The value of the Territorial Army in the defence of Britain was extolled by Lord Il'ailsham, Secretary of State for War, in a speech in London recently. lie said Britain had reduced her Army by successive measures of disarmament to tho last limit consistent with safety. Ihc reason for this was, first, the financial situation together with tho hope of giving a lead to the cause of disarmament. They had, in fact, taken risks which perhaps a less enthusiastic or more prudent Government would have, thought it unwise to lake. A second reason was tho efficiency of the organisation of the Army; a third reason was the intelligent use they had been able to make of mechanisation, and a fourth reason was that they recognised that tho Territorial Army was essentially an integral part of the system of defence. In the absence of such an army, the whole scheme of defence would have to be remodelled. Lord Jlailshain added that ho knew the whole of tho Army Council was with liini in saying that, in their deliberate judgment the efficiency of the Territorial Aj'my was an important factor in the tiefence of the country. At present it was about 25 per cent (nearly 45,000 officers and men) short of peace strength. It was impossible to regard without grave misgiving any further shrinkage in numbers.

BRITISH LIVESTOCK FARMING "In my opinion absolutely nothing which was decided at Ottawa can truthfully be said to have made things better for the British producer of beef, mutton nnd lamb during the next 12 months," Sir Arthur Ilazlerigg, chairman of the Council of Agriculture for England, wrote recently. "The 100 per cent quota granted to the Argentine, which works out at 93 per cent of the average of the last five years' importations, has been a hard blow to the prices of ordinary fat cattle, and even this quota is not put on for the last two months of this year. This quota,.considering the decreased purchasing powers of the nation, is much too high, and is as contrary to the proclaimed policy of the Government that the homo producer should have first call in the home market as their refusal to supply British beef and mutton to the Forces was contrary to their great cry of 'Buy British.' The quotas for Australian and New Zealand mutton and lamb work out at 180 per cent and 130 per cent of the last five years' average, and this can hardly be said to be very helpful to the sheep-breeders of this country. We must, as I said before, face facts; and the extremely nasty fact which we have in my opinion to face is that nothing has been done at Ottawa to better the position of the livestock fanner in the near future."

CIVIL SERVICE EXCHANGE "Plans and suggestions for helping the Empire were not heard only round the formal table at Ottawa; hut delegates, officials, and experts—and journalists, too —discussed in many a private talk their own cherished schemes for bringing the Commonwealth into closer unity," says the Morning Post. "One of the proposals put forward at a chance Ottawa gathering of the clans was for an exchange of civil servants between Whitehall and Dominion Government offices—why should not selected men (it was said) take each other's posts for, say, a period of two years, and carefully mark such ways and means as appeared worthy of transplantation ? The benefits of the idea are obvious to see. The Dominion visitors, looking with keen eyes through our homo jungles of precedent and rooted practice, might infuse Great Britain's Service with the vigour native to newer administrative systems; and our officials might bestow on Dominion departments much ripe and stored experience. Even if there were no monetary benefit to be gained by either side, exchange would help the Empire's administrators to comprehend each other better, and to further that sympathy between the Empire's Governments which is ardently to be wished."

THE WORLD CONFERENCE Discussing the impending world economic conference, the bulletin of the Royal Bank of Canada affirms that at that conference a choice will be made between a commercial van fare which will destroy the value of a considerable proportion of the world's economic assets, with a reduction in standards of living, and international co-operation, which should create prosperity and raise the standards of living to new high levels. The writer remarks that as a preliminary to the World Conference there is a very widespread pessimism, tho idea prevailing that national Governments arc too divergent in their viewpoint to make satisfactory international agreement's probable. Nevertheless, at tho Ottawa Conference,' concerning which there had been a good deal of pessimism in advance, important mutual concessions were reached, although no one country represented at that conference may have been completely satisfied with the results achieved.

"In a like manner," says the bulletin, "tho World Conference will bring no complete success to any one nation. At tho worst, it may be a complete failure, but from that failure will come better understanding of the diflieulties of other nations, and either through a second conference or a third or a fifth, or through agreements between individual nations, the basis will be established for a revival of world trade. Such is the nature of economic progress. It is rarely sweeping and dramatic. It is only painfully and haltingly that progress is achieved, and yet down through the ages the volume of world trade has increased, the world lias become increasingly interdependent, and it is not likely that the hands of the clock are now to be turned backward in their course."