NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22259, 6 November 1935, Page 12

NOTES AND COMMENTS

LIFE ON SUNDAY ISLAND To people in England, remarks the Morning Post, there appears to be plenty of room in New Zealand, but three companions, finding the place overcrowded, have sailed away to spend the rest of their years on Sunday Island. If the hermit trio were raw to the game, one might doubt how long the colony would hold out against the call of the mainland; but one of the three, a Mr. Alfred Bacon, has tasted tho island solitude before and has passed the intervening time in* hankering to go back. After open-air breakfasts of fried gulls' eggs on Sunday Island, the ordinary omelettes of New Zealand had a flavour like Monday morning. Most of us in certain inoods, when life drives and flusters and shouts at us in half a dozen contradictory voices, have longed for an island to which we could retire after the manner of this triumvirate —an island wher(> it is always Sunday afternoon. There, on a fish diet, one would grow more and more brainy, and contemplating the rim of the horizon, start to think where Plato and Mr. Shaw leave off. And yet, at the back of the mind, is the plaguey doubt lest one should get a shade fatigued by the occupation and one's unbroken company —and how galling to have no aspirin in the cupboard if thinking hatched a headache! As somebody has remarked, to endure protracted solitude a man must either be a saint or a philosopher. PERILS OF SPECIALISATION Among the changes which have taken place since the end of the Victorian era none, it will probabty be admitted, is more marked than tho general trend toward specialisation, says the Times Trade and Engineering Supplement. It ; is visible in every walk of life, an<| \ while it may be regarded as tho in- i evitablo result of the complexity of i modern existence it is possible that its j implications are not always fully under- 1 stood. For example, concentration im- | plies, and nowhere more than in in- j dustry, limitation of the field of vision, j and may conceivably lead to a narrow- j ness of outlook which is fatal to pro- j gress. This danger is unfortunately in- j creased by the rush of modern life, j which provides but little leisure and j opportunity —and, by inference, inclina- | tion —for general stocktaking. Thus it happens in the world of industry that j industrialists tend to become so occu- | pied with the activities of their own particular branch of production that they may fail to appreciate the importance of economic developments which arc taking place in other localities and other industries. That such preoccupation may therefore lead to a failure to seize opportunities for the extension of their own business is manifest. Wisdom and self-interest thus suggest that tho prudent industrialist should make special efforts to keep himself informed of commercial and industrial activities and developments in areas and branches of production other than his own.

RAW MATERIALS OR MARKETS When Sir Samuel Hoare made his memorable speech at Geneva on September 11, he expressed the readiness of the British Government to consider the whole question of the distribution of the world's raw materials among the Powers most concerned to obtain them. The declaration was important, comments the Listener, because the criticism has often been made that the Covenant of the League of Nations is mainly designed to support existing arrangements. Change, say these critics, is the law of life, and it is no good asking nations to conform to legal procedure and to abide by judicial and arbitral awards if there is not also machinery for bringing about rectifications of frontiers, and for allowing peoples, as they grow great, an increasing share in .the opportunities and rewards of tropical development. The statement of the Foreign Secretary was widely welcomed for its realisation that there is some justice in these contentions, and that the League of Nations must not bear even the semblance of being no more than the peoples in possession banded together to resist change. But there is some danger of words and phrases about the need for expansion and access to raw materials giving a wholly false and needlessly disquieting picture of the world. The question to-day is not at all a question of the possible dearth and rationing of tropical or other products, but of paying for them; it is best stated in terms of foreign markets. Manufacturing nations want to pay for the raw material with tho manufactured article, and it is that which makes the possession of colonies seem so highly desirable, because a customs wall may be erected nt any time in tho colony of a foreign Power. PROBLEMS OF NUTRITION The Second Committee of the League of Nations Assembly has warmly welcomed a resolution calling for inquiry into the problems of nutrition, notes the Times. The discussion, in which Mr. Bruce, tho High Commissioner for Australia, and Lord Do La Warr, Parliamentary Secretary to tho British Ministry of Agriculture, have taken a prominent part, has been full of powerful criticisms of tho policy, pursued in so many countries, of seeking to restore or to preserve agricultural prosperity by limiting supplies. Tho conclusion from the inquiry is already plain enough that all Governments in their own interests must take active steps to encourage the consumption of such foods as milk, butter, fresh meat, fresh vegetables, fruit and eggs; and what remains to bo decided is tho steps which each Government can talc© in pursuance of this policy. These stops will vary in each country; but in Britain, which is particularly suited to tho production of the kinds of foodstuffs agreed to bo most valuable, tho possibilities of an active policy are very great. In the first place, as n correspondent shows, the task of research into every factor which is concerned in the retail price is only beginning. In the second place, it is clear that publicity, in which is included special schemes for popularising tho right kind of foodstuffs, will bo needed to turn public taste to the right direction; and another correspondent points out that the schools aro tho most fruitful field for publicity of this kind. Thirdly, because part of the difficulty is that tho price of these foodstuffs is high compared with that of some others, every effort must be made to lower prices consistently with a fair return to the producer, ' ,