NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21916, 27 September 1934, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS

TESTS FOR MOTORISTS Dr. Elizabeth Sloan Chester, commenting on the relation of psychology to the motorist at the New Health Society Summer School at Malvern, Baid that there was not pearly enough control over motorists. "Fifty years hence people will hardly believe that we were so careless of human life that we allowed people to drive motor vehicles without giving them any proper medical or psychological tests," she said. "Tests of a person psychologically are just as important as medical tests. A person may be physically sound, his sight and hearing may be perfect, but he may be quite unsafe as a driver because he has some psychological weakness. The man who wants to pass everything else on the road is suffering from a psychological maladjustment which should have been ascertained before he applied for a licence." THE FARMER FIRST The establishment of the farmer firmly on his land is described in an . official British survey of industrial Germany as one of the principal aims of the Nazi Government, in order that the country may become as far as possible independent of foreign supplies of foodstuffs and of agricultural raw materials. In addition to a law turning all farms up to 125 hectares into hereditary farms, the chief measures adopted were monopoly departments for produce, complete organisation by the dairy industry, and fixation of prices. By these means the farmer is assured of a certain return, speculation in his produce being abolished. He is not to be left dependent on market fluctuations, but is to have adequate and just prices guaranteed to' him, due regard being had at the same time to the earning power of the population. Since the Commercial Counsellor's report was written Nature has intervened and tipset some of the calculations of the Reich Grain Office, and difficulty seems likely to be experienced in keeping prices of wheat from rising.

IN THE DEPTHS Dr. Beebe, who has been startling the world with his stories of the fearsome creatures he has seen at a depth of 3000 ft. in the sea, has had forerunners, but none so daring or so thorough in their ipethods, says a writer in the Manchester Guardian. It used to be taken for granted that no animals could live in the abyss. All the distinguished nsftn of science of two generations ago, in fact, believed the depths of the ocean to be as lifeless as the moon, but when it' was discovered that some forms of animal had attached themselves to a telegraph cable lying in 1300 fathoms, or 7200 ft., it was obvious that life existed unsuspected at very great depths. As long ago as 1898 Dr. Sydney Hickson, prdfessor of zoology at Owens College, describing some of the ocean fauna dragged to the surface in the voyages of two ships of the British Navy, Lightning and Porcupine, said they proved the existence in water 6000 ft. in depth of "a rich fauna of rare and very remarkable animals." He regretted, however, that no living Ichthyosauruses or Plesiosauruses —in fact, "none of the most interesting of the fossil types"—rewarded the investigators of these vessels or of the Challenger. Will Dr. Beebe or his successors be able to supply this omission? The epoch-making voyage of the Challenger in 1872 furnished ample proof that highly developed and normally organised fish lived at great depths, and the Prince of Monaco, working from his yacht Princess Alice, made some eerie finds. He adopted original methods, too, one of which was to harpoon sperm whales, tunny fish, and other big creatures of the deep, and make them disgorge the contents of their stomachs. On one occasion a sperm whale produced a creature with arms as strong as a man's and furnished with tiger-like claws. Another of his discoveries was an invisible fish, so transparent that the only indication of its presence was the disturbance it made in the water.

BRITAIN'S NATIVE ART "A hard year's experience of public auditions, principally in the London area, has convinced the writer that while the general standard of performance is very high, there is little outstanding talent available," states a contributor to a recent special broadcasting number of the Times. "It is the writer's belief that this state of affairs is due to the invasion of British entertainment by American music, American humour and American 'quickfire' methods, and to the spread of popular "education. Like syncopated dance music, Hollywood humour and Hollywood drama are foreign to the British temperament, but the fact remains that they are in fashion and we are not likely to be able to beat the Americans at their own game. Until we return to a native art we are unlikely to have native artists. Thirty years ago the entertainment tradition in English-speaking countries was British; to-day it is American. The development of education, together with an improvement in, and an attempted standardisation of, social conditions, has not helped the cause of entertainment. This sad world of ours is becoming a world of 'ladies and gentlemen' —and great entertainers are seldom either ladies or gentlemen. The colourful characters of life—the cabman, the coster, the cockney, the Lancashire lad—are little b> little disappearing. Mass-education is producing a mass-type. At the age when the modern child is sent to school to acquire, en masse with a million others, a standardised education that may or may not be of use to him, the Marie Lloyds and Dan Lenos were learning about life at street comers and outside the doors of pubs. From a hard childhood they gathered that rich store of humour and experience which they were later to exploit professionally, All that they had they taught themselves; they found, or* 1 wrote, their own songs; having no time to watch, or listen to, others, they invented their own humour. Whatever may happen l to society, personality will not vanish from the world. On the other hand, there can be little doubt that as things are at present it is becoming less and less likely that rich personalities will emerge in any great number."