NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21404, 31 January 1933, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS

FINANCES OF SWEDEN Accoi>ling to the estimates of the National Accounts Office there will be a deficit of 90,000,000kr. (about £4,500,000 at par) in the next Swedish fiscal year, if tho present basis of taxation is maintained. The decline in taxable incomes and revenues is estimated at £50,000,000 since 1931, when they totalled £310,000,000. This is another problem which the Socialist Government has to face in 1933. Ihe present Budget is also expected to show a deficit of approximately £2,600,000, the greater part of which will probably be met from sinking fund appropriations. The Government has already announced that it contemplates making substantial savings on national defenco, but these touch only the fringe of the problem. Statements made by members of the Cabinet at various times seem to indicate that the Government is planning heavy expenditure on unemployment schemes. There seems to be good foundation for the rumour which has been current in political circles for some time that the Government intends to submit a comprehensive plan for public works soon after meeting tluf Riksdag in January and that

it will stake its existence on the acceptance of such a plan. RELIGION IN SCHOOLS An appeal for support in securing improved and extended religious education in all types of the nation's schools was made recently in a letter signed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York and other Church leaders. "There has been very encouraging progress in many areas, especially during the last three years, in the production and use among council schools of agreed syllabuses of religious instruction, of which growing use is also happily being made in the Church of England schools," the letter stated. "There are now more than a dozen good syllabuses, varying in detail, but all based on the most approved principles and methods of religious education in present-day graded schools. Of the 316 local education authorities in England and Wales, 186 have authorised or adopted the use of such agreed syllabuses in the council schools in their areas; 10 have earlier but good syllabuses of their own; 13 have the matter under consideration. Thus 107 areas remain in which we feel that some worthy scheme is desirable in the interests of both teachers and scholars." The letter also emphasised the importance of special training of teachers.

EMPIRE MEN Surveying the benefits of the Public Schools' Empire tours, in an address to the British Empire Society, Dr. M. J. Rendall quoted from Ruskin an impassioned appeal for Empire emigration as a relief from the conditions then prevailing, and said that, while the circumstances of to-day very largely corresponded to those when Ruskin wrote thus in 1870, the conditions of the moment were not favourable to emigration on a large scale. But if they could not emigrate to assist in peopling the Dominions, what they could do and were doing was to send out embassies of those who stood for the best traditions of English life, so that by mingling for a while in the life and work and spirit of various parts of the Empire they would have a truer conception than was obtainable in any other way of what Empire really meant. Dr. Rendall added that some of the boys on their return went back to s?hool; others went on to the universities; masters who went out and boys who afterwards became masters all returned imbued with the Empire spirit and became Empire men, and their lessons in the schools or universities became more vital, more inspiring, and tending toward the great ideal in consequence. THE GERMAN PRESIDENCY An important modification of the German Constitution was passed by the necessary two-thirds majority of the Reichstag before it adjourned on December 9. This was the first active legislation by the German Parliament for two years, during which its only accomplishments had been the rejection of motions for the revocation of presidential decrees. There being no Vice-President of the Gorman Republic, it has beec customary to interpret Article 51 of the Constitution as authorising the Chancellor of the day to perform the presidential functions in case of disability of the President. By the amendment, which was initiated by the NationalSocialists (Nazis), the President of the Supreme Court becomes acting-President of the Reich in the event of the President's being temporarily hindered from performing his duties or in the event of a premature termination of the presidency. "Owing to the venerable age of FieldMarshal Hindenburg the question had become of actual importance to the Reichstag parties in considering whether or not to support the present Chancellor," the Times stated, "and President Hindenburg himsolf is supposed to have had his reluctance to appoint Herr Hitler increased by the possibility of his succession to the Presidency in this way. The Nazi leader has thus removed one obstacle to his own nomination as Chancellor and has checkniatod proposals which were being made by some of the Nationalist leaders—though probably with no prospect of success—to persuade President Hindenburg voluntarily to resign after nominating his own successor." It has been suggested that the Nationalists' purpose was to persuade the President to make a "political testament" enabling the former Crown Prince or another to become regent against the return of the monarchy.