NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21934, 18 October 1934, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS

MUSIC AND THE 8.8.C. " Music to-day is controlled by a huge machine which chooses what you shall hear and how you shall hear it. That is partly responsible far the difficulties which the profession suffers." Dr. Frederick G. Shinn made this criticism at a luncheon given to the Incorporated Association of Organists at Portsmouth, England. " Will the time again come when we shall depend for the fostering of our music upon wealthy amateurs?" he asked. " The great amateurs of an earlier age were responsible for the birth and maintenance of opera and the keeping alive of music in all its forms." Now, he added, the composer had great difficulty in getting his works performed, and did not know if they ever would be. This was owing to the great power wielded by the 8.8.C., which he did not wish to criticise. BEETLES AND ANTS In the zoology section of the British Association Professor Reichensberger, of Bonn, described South American beetles, showing evidence of adaptive transformation of species. He said that ferocious raiding ants made temporary nests, often containing millions of workers and soldiers, with oue queen; they killed in their expeditions every living creature they found. Bat they cared for the beetles like domestic animals, carrying their pupae with them. The beetles differed from species which did not live with ant 3, having longer legs, enabling them to run quickly, and possessing tufts of golden haire on various parts of the body. Numerous large glands poured out an aromatic secretion on the hairs, eagerly sucked off by the ants, so thai at the end of the season they bad nearly shaved the beetles clean. Professor Reichensberger had received quantities of the bettles from a friend, who had collected them almost at the danger of his life, and was finding evidence that year by year there was an increasing proportion of the beetles with the hairs grouped in a special way, doubtless more convenient to their hosts, and in his opinion not the result of accidental malformation, He thought that these were the raw material for a new adaptation, which might be in process of becoming fixed by artificial selection of the ants.

ECONOMIC CHANGE Sir Josiah Stamp opened a discussion on "The Need for a Technique of Economic Change," before the economic section or the British Association. He explained that the subject had been suggested by the emergence into {he present economic system of a stubborn and rigid element that had so far proved less amenable than anything in the past to ordinary economic laws. It seemed to be due to the coincidence of a stationary or diminishing population with the economic disturbances due to the War and to a period of rapid technical development in industry. In ordinary times in the past increase at population had acted as an important safety valve, enabling the economic farces of new purchasing power and new labour to be directed into new channels without seriously affecting old labour and old capital. But it was ridiculous to suppose that the continuous increase of populations so characteristic of the 19th century was necessarily a permanent feature. In the long run economics would probably be the economics of relatively stationary populations under changing supply to changing demands, la such circumstances vested interests in workers 1 special skill would become more endangered. Every new demand in the spending of existing income through the coming or new attractions meant a less demand for old products. The problems of localised unemployment through special displacement would become more frequent. SMOOTHING THE WAY Were there any ways of constructing a technique of economic change under the conditions of a stationary population? asked Sir Josiah Stamp.- If the price maximum was not to be monkeyed with, if the reactions of the consumer were not to be defied, only palliatives —hardly plans—could be offered. Several schemes there were, however,, which should be explored before 1 being rejected. First a mora thoroughgoing, scheme for aiding through the State the easier transfer of labour, adjusting as quickly, and with as little human suffering as possible, the Sow of labour to the new whims of demand. If a man found, himseif in a declining industry it might be aaid that the community owed him the help to move and to become skilled elsewhere in some other industry. If he did not rise with sufficient alacrity to this assistance he could be deprived of the incentive to inactivity by the withholding of any differential assistance to him to remain in the declining industry. Comprehensive rules afcoxit new employment, and considerable interference with trade union rules, would no doubt be. necessary. Secondly, special aid could be given to the labour and capital, of obsolescent industries, but on a tapering scale, so that the industries would die slowly and without undue pain to the labourers. For the capitalist involved there might be the warding off of foreclosure, forced sale, and the scrapping, of plant until the human element had petered out at a sot inhuman rate. The question would arise whether new and prosperous industries should not be specifically charged with the whole or part of the cost of industries put into- Queer Street. In an individualistic society it might prove impracticable to raise compu&orily special funds of this, kind and put them Ey as part of the competitive costs of the new industries to- provide for the slower decease of old ones. Ail the foregoing suggestions demanded important decisions as to the- difference between depressing depreciation: and final' obsolescence.. Patliartives instead' of cures would also have bo be considered. Here would- be- included fiscal protection from: foreign: competition- to- reduce the "time impacts'* of change. Sir Josiah Stampended by asserting that a highly individualistic society was possible: only with "sudden death'" of many mdns~ tries and the ""healthy bankruptcy'" of those engaged in these. Some- modifications: of fchfrt rigour were desirable. Society was rsgrgaaihgly alive to the evils, of displacement o£ labour, and the overrapid destruction of capital- assets, wad also a social danger, undermining- the reasonable- security under which albneloan capital would voluntarily fee-, accumdataci,