NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22131, 10 June 1935, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS

AIR RAID SAFEGUARDS Protection of the civil population against attacks from the air is not a less important branch of defence than the provision of an air force, assorts the Daily Telegraph. There will, therefore, be satisfaction with the announcement made' by Sir John Gilmour that a department of the Home Office has been set up charged to superintend the measures that British local authorities will have to organise. When all expert opinion holds that as yet no certain means has been devised for countering a sudden attack from the air the first consideration must be to make such a blow as innocuous as possible. Wars in the future will be lost and won by the morale of the civilian populations. The fact demands that there shall be careful training in precautions that must be taken. While it is the intention of the Government that the local authorities shall be responsible in their own areas for the necessary safeguards, it is imperative that there should be guidance from the centre. Sir John Gilmour's announcement should allay any feeling that the security of the civilian population has been overlooked or would be a matter of hasty improvisation when attack came.

OLD BOOKS AND NEW Mr. St. John Ervine has been complaining that people do not buy enough new books, that is to say, books by living writers. " The old ambition to possess some sort of a library should be revived," he asserts. " We grudge the money we spend on books, although we spend much larger sums on less substantial pleasures." In a rejoinder published in the Spectator, Miss Rose Macauley says: There seems to mo to be an old confusion here. Surely "the old ambition," so lavishly achieved by the ancestors of many of us, has largely exonerated us from the need to be continually buying new books. We already possess " some sort of a library and often a library that shows up the new books we add to it as shoddy both in form and content. Besides, where can they stand ? I have already over a thousand and a-half volumes lining the walls of my flat. I do certainly add to them, mainly old books from second-hand bookshops and modern reprints; but I seldom purchase, except for presents and except guide-books, a book written during the last hundred years. Not because of its cost, for old books are usually more costly, but simply because I rarely want it permanently in my shelves. Out of the vast output of contemporary literature, how much has such an elegant savour that we would live with it P SPECULATOR'S FUNCTION The man in the street finds it difficult to see any good in speculation. But it has some merits nevertheless, writes Mr. Geoffrey Crowther in the Spectator, in discussing the recent crash in the London pepper market. The professional speculator—the man who applies his specialised knowledge to the purpose of operating in a particular market year in, year out—may be said to perform three services for the community. In the first place, ho "makes a market"; the fact that there is a large volume of speculative trading in, say, the Liverpool cotton market enables the cotton grower or the cotton spinner to be sure of selling or buying his cotton instantly whenever he wishes. Secondly, the speculator prevents a temporary shortage of supplies or a sudden increase in demand from running the price up unduly, for if the conditions which have produced the rise in prices are temporary, there is an obvious speculative profit to be made by selling. On balance, speculation probably prevents more fluctuations of price than it causes. And thirdly, by assuming the risks of price fluctuations, the speculator enables other persons to avoid those risks. Owing to the existence of the Liverpool market, the cotton spinner can buy or sell "forward" and protect himself against changes in the price of cotton during the period that elapses between his purchase of raw cotton and his sale of cotton yarn. It may well bo that the speculator expects too heavy a price for the services 'he renders, but that should not blind us, Mr. Crowther argues, to the fact that his services are of great assistance te industry and trade. INDIVIDUAL OR GROUP It is a pity that so many young people in these days experience the romance of life passively, as it were, either through the cheap sensationalism of the film or through the excitement of witnessing athletic contests, writes Mr. Manfred Bjorkquist in the American Scandinavian Review. It is a danger sign when the tension in our own will between being and doing has become slack. The age is restless, but unfortunately there is a calm of death where the great restlessness ought to be. namely, in our conscience, which should keep us awake and fighting. There is in modern young people a conflict between the individual and the group. At the beginning of the present century there were singers of a new freedom, but they have been silenced. The proud parole of a distinguished individualism seems strangely out of date. People now seem to prefer to go in crowds or to march in great columns. The will of the mob is the highest law. It is an ill wind that blows no one good, and this breeze may have blown away much mean and clammy egoism, but collectivism, too, has its fateful risks. It is true, as Ragnar Jandel sings, " When we cease to give, our power departs from us," or, as the Bible puts it in another way. " He that loses his life shall gain it." But it is also true, as a modern thinker lias said, " What kind of fellowship can be developed by people who have fled from themselves?" That is the danger: we flee from ourselves in order to lose ourselves in the group; but thereby we solve neither our own problems nor those of the group as a whole. The greater the paucity of personalities within a group, the more impoverished is the spirit of the group. The danger of losing individuality in the group is perhaps most startling when we observe how fewer and fewer peoplo have the courage to stand alone in anything, to shoulder responsibility alone and in full. Too many of us lack that courage of peace which often makes larger demands than that of the battlefield. The dividing of responsibility is the great- danger of all collectivism.