NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21879, 15 August 1934, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS

FREE SPEECH AND ORDER "The Fascist organisation," says the Times, "caqnot be treated separately from other organisations which seek to discard argument and seem ready to discard persuasion in favour of theatrical parades and what they are pleased to call action. If no such organisation existed in any camp, then no doubt there would be less trouble; but the Houbo of Commons, when it refused the other day to allow a private member to bring in a bill banning political uniforms, may have been expressing not only its conviction that this is not a private member's affair, but also a doubt whether such a measure could be so drafted as to be effective. The design of existing legislation is to preserve the right of free speech within limits clearly defined equally applicable to all parties and to all individuals; and to prevent disorder arising no matter from what source. It should at least be worth whilo trying first to enforce these admirable principles under the existing law or some slight extension of it."

CANCER CAMPAIGN At the annual meeting of the Empiro Cancer Campaign Mr. Cecil Rowntree said that the report afforded the most convincing proof that the purposes for which the campaign was founded were being fulfilled in all directions. One of these purposes was the co-ordination of research and research organisations not only within Great Britain, but throughout the Empire. The recent step of setting up a panel of international correspondents, whereby they had an accredited representative in each of the great scientific capitals, had materially added to the accuracy and promptness of their foreign information. Tho investigations carried out at the Cancer Hospital and tho Middlesex Hospital, which suggested the possibility that the ultimate cause of cancer might be something of -a chemical nature produced by disordered functions within tho body itself, the admirable attempt to develop a new line of attack on cancer of the oesophagus by intensive X-ray therapy at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and the Gar ton prize essay in which Dr. Colwell described the action of radiations upon normal and malignant cells, all provided encouraging indications of new ancj profitable avenuos of research. In the direction of the prevention of cancer, which must be an important part of their activities, they could point to a great increase in their knowledge of the nature of pre-cancer-ous conditions, and in particular to the likelihood of a great diminution of the incidence of industrial cancer as the result of tho investigations into the occurrence of carcinogenic agents in lubricating oils and other industrial materials.