NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22155, 8 July 1935, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS

FEWER DOMESTIC PATENTS Women are becoming less inventive, according to the report of the British Comptroller-General of Patents. They made 120 less applications last year than in 1933. "One reason for this big decrease may be that women are definitely becoming tired of labour-saving devices in the home," said Captain G. Drurv Coleman, secretary of the Institute of Patentees. "Most of the inventions designed by women are laboursaving devices. Now it looks as though women are thoroughly tired of these many inventions. They would rather go back to the Stono Age than be bothered with these innumerable new ideas. Another reason for the decrease may be that husbands are becoming less keen on financing their wives in the making of these labour-saving machines." GERMAN YOUTH AIR-MAD Mr. Ornisby-Gore, First Commissioner of Works in the British Cabinet, in an address at Stafford, said the youth of Germany was being taught not merely to be air-minded but airmad. Obviously if any country had an air force Germany bad a right to an air force, but its size and character concerned every country in Europe. She was now engaged in setting the pace, and a very hot pace, too. In order to maintain parity in air strength witli Germany, Britain had to announce a further gigantic and expensive increase in tho home defence air force, and carry out that expansion in the minimum of time if Britain were not to be at Germany's mercy and dictation should she ever iu the future desire to make diplomatic demands upon us. "Let us by all means pursue the idea of political, air and other Pacts on the Locarno model inside the Covenant of the League," Mr. OrmsbvGorc added, "but J. have a feeling that unless air Pacts are accompanied by definite limitations the peoples of the world cannot have that sense of security which alone can ensure peace." FARM MARKETING PLANS The British co-oporative movement intends to make the National Government's agricultural marketing schemes a major issue in its propaganda during the next general election campaign, reports the Labour correspondent of the Times. From the standpoint of cooperators, defined as " the community organised as consumers," the Central Board of tho Co-operative Union refers to "tho inevitable injustices of marketing schemes frankly biased in favour of and under the sole direction of producers," and says that the public are required by the schemes to pay toll. After outlining the agricultural marketing schemes, the report says:—"The schemes so far put into operation cannot be said to have worked in the general interest of all concerned. In the case of the milk scheme, there is an enormous surplus to liquid sales, and yet retail prices are at such a level that the ordinary consumer is not able to afford ample supplies. In the case I of the bacon scheme, vested interests j are given what are virtually monopolies j with State guarantees, and without any undertaking that the State could subsequently (if it desired) take over these monopolies at a fair valuation. The egg and poultry scheme and the livestock schemes would work similarly." WHAT MODERN POETS LACK Where much modern poetry falls short is indicated by Mr. Rolf Gardiner in a letter to the Listener. He says: Intellectually exciting though the work of Spender, Auden and Day Lewis is, it rarely or never evokes the authentic thrill which the poetry of the past leads us to expect. This thrill is a physical response akin to that which is wrung from us by music; it is the token perhaps of a direct appeal to some form of memory, conscious or sub-Conscious. By way of illustration Mr. Gardiner quotes some lovely lines from poets of an earlier generation and proceeds:—ln each of these poems a simple opening statement succeeds at once in communicating to the listener an emotional pleasure as quick as that given by the opening bars of a madrigal or of a good folksong. In tho case of nil bad poets we never seem to get that simple, forthright enjoyment. We have to read and wrestle. The impression gained is that these poets are lopsidedly cerebral, intellectually delibeiate in their effort of creation. They make poetry, they do not sing! In other words, perhaps, they are not whole, emotionally fused, when they create; they do not seem to be possessed by any sort of ecstasy. This at j any rate is the impression they make on a. sympathetic contemporarv; an absence of unforced lyric power due to I a defective sense of rhvthm, or an ; inability of the heart to dance. DOMINIONS AT WESTMINSTER There has just been revived in the I English press an old proposal that the Dominions and Colonies should be represented in Parliament at Westminster—an idea that goes back to the days before the American Revolution, remarks Mr. H. V. Hodson, writing in j the Listener. The advantages of such a plan are obvious, but equally plain are the objections to it in a community of lully self-governing nations, in which the United Kingdom ranks constitutionally no higher than the rest. The Dominions do not want, to do anything that suggests belief in the authority of the Mritisli Parliament to control their a flairs. Jt is sometimes felt, even in England, that members of Parliament who have to spend most of their time in London are often out of touch with their constituencies; what, then, would be thought oi a member whose constituency was at the other side of the globe? e really do not need any such new or complicated political machinery at present. What is first required is more frequent and more intimate consultations between the heads of His Majesty's different Governments, on the lines of those that are now taking place. It is satisfactory to note that there is talk of another Imperial Conference in 1036 or 1937; but the last Imperial Conference, apart from the purely economic meeting at Ottawa, was held' as far back as 1930, and surely six or seven years is far too long an interval between such gatherings. In these days of air communications, Mr. Hodson contends, an annual Imperial Conference is not too much to hope for—an annual Imperial Conference, at least, of an informal kind.