NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21845, 6 July 1934, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS

THE HUMORIST "All luimour, except for silly little jokes and puns, is a form of criticism," writes Nathaniel Gubbins in "A Roll in the Hay." -'A humorist, thereforo, is a critic, not necessarily gifted with a sense of humour, but with a sense of true perspective. Ho is a man with a clear-cut notion of what is right and wrong, and what is just and unjust. Ho is not impressed by pomposity, nor is he awed by anything but truo greatness. Ho knows what matters atid what does not. Ho often sees clearly when others aro befogged, and the more befogged they aro the funnier they think ho is when ho exposes shams and stupidities. . . He is, rn fact, liko millions of his fellow-countrymen, logical and clear-thinking. The only difference is that the humorist is articulate. So when bo tries to toll tho plain truth he is often amazed to find that ho has raised a laugh. This merely proves another old contention of mine —that the easiest way to make an Englishman laugh is to tell him tho truth. He is so unused to hearing it that ho thinks it must be a joke."

REVOLT AGAINST FREEDOM "Throughout the world to-day there is a danger of revolt against freedom, not for the love of manly discipline, but out of sheer failure of nerve," said Mr. John Buchan, M.P., Lord High Commissioner, at the opening of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. "In secular politics we see a widespread distrust of liberty. Among great masses of men there is a loss of self-confidence; tho citizen has forgotten his old pride of standing squarely on his feet. There is an impulse to huddle together and to seek salvation in herds, a fear of being alone, a craving to surrender the will to any authority which will save trouble. The critical and sceptical spirit which has long been abroad has disintegrated many of the old securities and driven men to flee for shelter to any new thing which offers cohesion and stability. A like impulse may bo detected, I think, in certain religious movements of to-day. That is an unclean and lying spirit, both in secular and in sacred things, for it must lead to the decay of mind and will and soul. Thero can be no hope in that which involves the abnegation of manhood and the surrender of what St. Paul calls: 'The glorious liberty of tho sons of God.' To oupose to-day a weak craving for servitude is as sacred a duty of this Church of free men and free women as any that it has faced in its stormy history."

PRICE MANIPULATION The "Westminster Bank Review says: "The fallacy of price manipulation eflorts in general is that they ignore the fact that prices are symptoms rather than causes. Under the capitalistic, individualistic economic system of this and most other countries prices are both barometers reflecting economic conditions and safety-valves regulating the machinery upon which the successful functioning of the system depends. The relations of prices can be tampered with only at the risk of throwing the whole machine out of gear. Changes in prices are merely the indication of some change in the relationship of supply and demand. . . . Low prices are admittedly from many standpoints disagreeable, but they are salutary in that the economic body is purged of the unhealthy developments which seem inevitable in booms. . . .

Regulation of prices rti general would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to effect; and if successful it would impair that free adjustment between the prices of individual commodities which is so desirable, and would check that steady advance in production which should bo normal in a progressive world. What the world needs to-day, especially, is not arbitrary attempts to force prices back to any pre-existing level, but action, widespread and vigorous, to restore economic activity to the levels of 1929, and to improve upon those levels. That can como only through the removal of the obstructions to .expanding consumption and international trade, which are themselves the causes of low prices."

THE PROFESSIONAL MIND Thp effects of professions on their practitioners were discussed by Lord Macmillan, when he delivered the fifteenth Maudsley lecture before the Royal Medico-Psychological Society. He referred to the phenomena exhibited by various types of the professional mind in its daily working, and said tho choice and tho practice of a profession had a decisive and pervasive influence on a man's whole mental outlook. Tho first question asked about a now acquaintance was, "What does ho do?" The answer gave the first clue to the kind of man they had to deal with, for, wide as were tho individual differences among the members of a profession, there were always common elements which were shared by all who belonged to it. Habits were controlled, thoughts canalised, prejudices formed by tho profession they practised. Even their place of residence might be dictated by their vocation, as witness the Temple, where studious lawyers had their bowers, and Harley Street, sacred to Aesculapius. From tho earliest times the practitioners of a particular art had always shown a tendency to draw apart from the rest of tho community and to constitute themselves a separate class or fraternity with their own ceremonial rites and shibboleths. Tho widest of all caste cleavages in former days, and still a wide one, was that between the clergy and the laity. The merchant and trade guilds, surviving as city companies, were typical examples of the segregation of tho followers of particular arts and crafts. Tho lines of demarcation, both social and professional, were much more rigidly drawn in former times, and tho resulting mutual oxclusiveness produced much moro distinctive types of person. Nowadays tho barriers were .broken down, and men of all careers mixed with each other. But there still romained, and would always remain, certain typical attributes, which tho lifelong pursuit of a particular calling engendered. Such differences and peculiarities lent colour and interest to social life, and the followers of each vocation had their own distinctive contribution to mako to the variety as well as to the welfare of the community. In these days of exaggerated and explosive nationalism it was important to foster all those bonds which tended to unite men of common pursuits, irrespective of geographical bmindnrieß»