NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22005, 11 January 1935, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS

CENTENARY OF ATHENS Athens is celebrating its centenary, and at first sight that seems a rather peculiar thing for Athens to do, says the Manchester Guardian. It has a humorous ring about it —the idea that the city of Pericles should be following so close on the hoels of Melbourne, that lusty hundred-year-old infant on the other side of the world, in the matter of civic rejoicings over a wellspent youth. But actually there is no city of Pericles left except for a few fragments, and the Athens of Zaimis nml Veniselos is a rather more juvenile place than Melbourne. 'A hundred years ago, when a. Turkish village was once again proclaimed the capital of Greece, its handful of hovel? was probably somewhat less impressive and certainly less comfortable than the wattle-and-daub huts that English and Scottish whalers were erecting about the same time along the shores of New Zealand. Modern Athens —the Athens of before the last war —was the creation of the Bavarian Otho the First and his successors and of Herr Scliaubert, a German architect who "townplanned" the place after the best taste of the eighties and nineties. The population rose and continued to rise. By 1870 there were 44,000 inhabitants; to-day there are nearly half a million.

FRENCH COLONIAL EMPIRE A French Colonial Economic Conference was held in Paris a few weeks ago. At the opening session the Minister for the Colonies, M. Rollin, gave a brief survey of progress in recent years. The aim of the. conference, ho snid, was to realise so far as possible the economic unity of "Greater France," a vast Empire of 100,000,000 people. He did not mean by that, M. Rollin continued, the constitution of a vast self-sufficient economic bloc which would keep out foreign goods. On the contrary, as M. Flandin had recently affirmed, it was their hope to ask for and to see a progressive reduction of the innumerable barriers which separated the nations and to ensure so far as reciprocity allowed the freedom of exchange. M. Rollin then quoted some figures indicative of the progress already made in colonial development and trade. He said that whereas in 1914 loans to the value of only . 7,500,000,000 francs had been raised. 13,000,000,000 franc*. 10,000,000,000 francs of which had already been used, had been voted since the war. Ic 1"J13 there were only 15,000 kilometres of roads and 11,000 kilometres of railways oversea; in 1933 the figures were 50,000 and 17,000 kilometres respectively. Similar progress had been made in hygiene and education, while the mercantile fleet had risen from 2,500,000 tons in 1913 to 3,500,000 tons in 1934, while air routes now spread over 30,000 kilometres. HATS Man's indifference to the type of hat he wears was a subject discussed at the first annual luncheon of the Hatters' Association in London. Mr. Frank Battersby, in proposing the toast "Next Season's Styles," said that style sold hats. Style was bound up with correctness. With a display of examples of hats, he explained the correct styles for different occasions. For formal evening wear he pointed to the opera hat as correct because it was most suitable aiul practical to the theatre, club, and cloakroom arrangements. The silk hat, he added, was not incorrect, but it was not such a practical hat for wear with "tails." For informal evening wear he referred to the black homburg, with bound brim. Some men, he said, wore the black snap brim with a dinner jacket, but it was sloppy and incorrect. For formal morning wear, with full morning clothes, he pointed to the silk hat, and to the black bowler hat to be worn with short black jacket. For business wear he suggested the bowlerhat or the bound-brim homburg in dark shades. The snap brim, ho emphasised, was not correct. For informal town wear he pointed to the navy or djirk homburg or snap brim soft felt, and for general country wear the green "pork' pie" shape, which blended with country surroundings. He said they saw many things on .the top of plus-fours, but lotgolf wear with plus-fours the cap was the only correct style. The main difference between styles for town and country was that for the town the shape should be formal and the colour subdued, while for the country men could be as wild in pattern and colour as they liked. The boater and the panama wei'the correct hats for summer weather. Mr. Austin Meed, who replied, said it was important that they should create in the public mind a real hat consciousness. There should be a larger number of hats worn and a right hat for everv occasion.

TWO GREAT COMMONWEALTHS "To me the future policy and association of our great British Commonwealth lie more with the United States than with any other group in the world," said General Smuts in his recent address to the Boyal Institute of International Affairs in London. "If ever there comes a parting of the ways, if ever in the crises of the future we arc called upon to make a choice, that, it seems to me, should be the company we should prefer to walk with and march with to the unknown future. On that path lie our past affiliations, our common moral outlook, our hopes and fears for the future of our common civilisation. The British Commonwealth has its feet in both worlds. Through Great Britain its one foot is firmly planted on this old Continent. Through the Dominions it has its other foot as firmly planted in the outer newer world, where the United States already plays so great a part. The Dominions have even stronger affiliations toward the United States than Great Britain has. There is a community of outlook, of interests, and perhaps of ultimate destiny between the Dominions and tho United States, which in essence is only tho first and most important of them. Through the Dominions, British policy is ultimately tied up with the United States in a very profound sense, which goes much deeper than the occasional jars which perhaps are more acutely felt at any particular moment. That ultimate affinity, coming from the past, stretching to the future, is or must bo tho real foundation of all British foreign policy. Any policy which ignores it or runs counter to it is calculated to have a disruptive effect on the Commonwealth as a whole. While, therefore, our Far Eastern policy should, L submit, be based on friendship with all, and exclusive alliances or understandings with none, the ultimate objectives of that policy should continue to conform to that general American orientation which has distinguished it since our association with the United States in the Great [War-"