NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21932, 16 October 1934, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS

BRITISH TRADE METHODS An appeal to British business men to go to their customers instead of waiting f,ill they were approached was made by Amin Youssef Bey, InspectorGeneral of the Egyptian Ministry of Finance, who during a private visit to Britain went to Manchester to discuss British-Egyptian trade with Lancashire business men. British trade, he said, was represented in foreign countries not by British people, but by people of other nationalities, and they could not be expected to have British interests too much at heart. A central organisation board representing Lancashire and Egyptian interests should be established in Egypt and a similar board in Britain. "You British," he said, "wait till the customers come to you. It is time you went to the customers yourselves." France, Italy and Germany were spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on propaganda, but Britain spent a very small sum. The old idea of aloofness must be killed. / : FACULTY OF TACT It is when we wish to be tactful that we most require tact, says the Morning Post. Your tactful person does not display the gift as one does cheerfulness or wit or other natural pervasive propensity, but always summons it for a special occasion. Its employment may be deliberately designed in advance or it may be promptly called up on an emergency, but it is always ad hoc. And in either case its effect is precarious. There is the breezy manner which is not tactful, but only makes evident a failure to be so. The tactful intervention again too often makes more glaring the embarrassment of the moment. It means to skim lightly and puts the foot deeper in. Tact is an art, and one that must also have heart in it. It is the fine faculty of touch by which we align ourselves with another and by delicate discrimination imagine ourselves in his place. But even more than sympathy it calls for ready wit. That is why there is art in it even more than heart. Good intentions do not count; it must be judged by results. The potential will not do: tact is tact only when it is effective. DOCTRINE OF HELL Judge Foster explains why he told a boy witness that there was no hell, states the Sydney Morning Herald. He said he had done so because he desired to save his own and other children from the mental fears and distress lie had experienced as a child. The statement has aroused considerable public interest and comment, and His Honor was asked if he cared to amplify it. "It is the duty of Judges, before whom little children are tendered as witnesses, to ascertain whether they understand the nature of the oath before it is administered to them." he said. "In some cases they are taught what reply to make to the questions asked, and it is not uncommon to get the reply that this little boy made to him—that if he told a lie he would go to hell I do not know whether the boy really believed what he said about going to hell or not. He probably did; most of them do. It is my experience that such a belief frequently causes the most harassing fear and distress in the childish mind, and it is because of this mental suffering, the measure of which is incalculable, that I regard the teaching of hell as a punishment as disastrous, and said so." Asked whether this outlook was based on his own personal experience. Judge Foster said it was, but there were no fears of the devil and hell fire in the lives of his own little children, and he would like to feel that other children were being spared the mental fears and distress that he had had in his childhood days. So far as he had observed, those children who came before the Court regarded hell as a place of geographical locality and full of real fire ready to receive them in a certain event. "The existence or otherwise of such a place seems to be a question of fact which must be proved like any other question," His Honor added. "Well, is there any evidence? I know of none proving such a place to exist, and, as a Judge is not expected to believe without evidence, I stated that conclusion." HOME RULE FOR SCOTLAND "Self-government in Practice" is the title of the report of a delegation appointed bv the Council of the Scottish National Party to visit Northern Ireland, the Irish Free State, and the Isle of Man to study certain aspects of self-government. They state: —"The contacts which we have made with Northern Ireland, the Irish Free State, and the Isle of Man have supplied us with ample evidence that self-govern-ment not only confers on a nation a more economical,, efficient, and progressive administration, but that it stimulates the whole moral and intellectual life of the people, calls forth their native virtues of self-reliance and independence (which become weakened under a system of excessive centralisation), and brings to fruition the artistic and spiritual qualities which are present in most races. We are not making any excessive claim on behalf of our countrymen when we say that the people of Scotland are at least as well qualified as those of the countries which we have visited to make good use of the benefits of self-government. Scotland would start with the advantage that her people are united, that no schism exists between England and herself, and that her past services to the Empire in all fields of battle, industry and administration bind her with unswerving loyalty to the Sovereign and Commonwealth of British Peoples. Scotland, entrusted with the control of her own affairs, and with a definite national part to play in the Empire, will march to ever-increasing prosperity and influence. The delegation as a result of its inquiries is of opinion that the policy of the Scottish National Party is properly based. The policy is as follows: —(1) There shall be established in Scotland a Parliament which shall be the final authority on all Scottish affairs, including taxation and finance. (2) Scotland shall share with England the rights and responsibilities they as mother nations have jointly created and incurred within the' British Empire. (3) Machinery shall be set up whereby Scotland with the other British nations shall deal jointly with such responsibilities, and in particular with such matters as defence, foreign policy, and Customs. (4) The Scottish National Party shall be independent of all other political parties."