NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21830, 19 June 1934, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS

SIGN OF RECOVERY Over half the tonnage passing through the Suez Canal was again carried under the British flag in 1933, according to the directors' report of the Suez Canal Company. The British tonnage in 1933 exceeded that of 1932 by over 1,000,000 tons, while the British percentage of the total was 54.5 per cent in 1933, compared with 55.5 pei'cent in 1932. The German tonnage was once more second. The total tonnage through the canal in 1933 was 30,677,000 tons, being an increase of 8.2 per cent, compared with 1932, and only 8.3 per cent below the record year, 1929. The report concludes with the statement that there is an undoubted progress toward world economic recovery, the main factors of which are the improvement of conditions in Britain, the financial recovery of France and the de facto stabilisation of the pound and dollar. THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS " I don't think it's a bad thing for a, small boy to learn to do harmless jobs for others," said Mr. Hugh Lyon, headmaster of Rugby, speaking at the Birmingham Rotary Club, " but the combination of fagging and bullying is practically unknown." Mr. Lyon said that there were several myths about public schools. One was that they were public, while everyone knew they were not. Public schools were so named because only those with money could send their sons into them. He admitted the fees at Rugby were high—too high—but " what justification was there for the existence of schools which were bound to cater for a privileged class?" They have had a part to play by collecting people who were inclined to be little snobs. " We do our best to knock the silly notion out of them. If we can do that it is not a mistake for these people to come to the public schools and try to learn that essential lesson." The modern public school was not a sink of iniquity. The temptations to which a young boy was exposed were fewer than they ever were. The sanity and frankness with which modern educationists approached delicate subjects was having its reward in the right attitude in which young men were approaching facts. Bullying to-day was very rare, but little boys were often "little beasts" and had to be trained. Some of them, in fact, asked to be bullied, and very often a little bullying did not do them much harm, but would perhaps teach them a good lesson. IMPERIAL UNITY " Unquestionably, here in England youth is looking for leadership," said Sir Edward Grigg, at the Primrose League annual meeting. "Youth is getting impatient. It has a sense of weariness and of hope deferred, and it is that with which statesmen now have to deal. That sense of weariness and of hope deferred is affecting also the youth of the whole Empire and of the world, and they are asking to be led boldly. Imperial unity and the creation of a system of steady employment at fair wages for the workers are still the master-keys of the problem with which we have to deal. Imperial unity is not possible without trade co-operation in the closest form, and the time has come when the statesmen of the Empire should get together to see what can be done to supplement trade and production inside the Empire, and then to see what is left for the rest of the world. In trade and in foreign policy the Dominions are looking to this country for leadership at the present time. Lack of grip on our part in dealing with world affairs will be dangerous, nationally and Imperially. Foreign policy is going to be one of the tests of Imperial co-operation and one of the things for which we have to work together if we are to preserve Imperial unity in our day. The first essential of a strong, peaceful foreign policy, I have no hesitation in saying, is that of a strong defence for our own land for our own people. Certainly the time has come when we cannot allow any more leeway to develop. We have had enough of unilateral disarmament, and if other people are not prepared to accept our overtures for a reduction in arms, then we must make it clear that we are going to be strong ourselves and play our part in that way in the world." WAR DEBTS The Times published the following last month: —The problem of securing payment of the vast sums owed to America by foreign Governments is once again agitating opinion in Washington. On June 15 the next instalment of the British debt is «due to be paid, and. in view of the attitude of Congress, recently emphasised by the Johnson Act, there is much speculation over what is to happen. Unfortunately most of the discussion avoids the real crux of the question. All the old fallacies have been revived by the Budget surplus in Great Britain—a surplus which, it is remarked in Washington, is roughly equivalent to the annual payment due to America. This, of course, has no relevance to the real difficulty, which is not of payment, but of transfer. By the terms of the 1923 settlement the payments must be made either in dollars or in gold or in bonds of ths United States. But Great Britain can obtain these dollars or gold or bonds only in exchange for sterling —that is to say, by the sale of British goods or services, since sterling is nothing but an order on such goods or services. If the whole of the British surplus had been put at the disposal of the American Treasury they could only have used it, either directly or by triangular or polygonal exchange, to pay for goods produced in Great Britain, or for services rendered by agents —British shipping companies, for example—domiciled in Great Britain. On the other hand, American tariffs and American shipping legislation and shipping subsidies are there for the express purpose of preventing Great Britain and other foreign countries from supplying goods or giving service to the United States. Any endeavour to sell sterling credits, to the extent of many millions, for dollar credits or even for gold, would at once produce a huge shift in the sterling-dollar exchange, sending sterling down and dollars up, the chief sufferer from which would be the United States. The difficulty is not that "nations in distress" are unable to pay the United States what they owe, but that the traditional policy of the United States makes the receipt of payment impossible.