NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22319, 17 January 1936, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS

AN IMPENITENT PATRIOT " I hear sometimes of the necessity for creating an ' international mind.' I am afraid that my heart is too stubbornly local for me to follow that high thought; it may be true that we were given all tho world to love, but our affections are small, and so they have one place that they love over all," said Mr. Stanley Baldwin, in one of his speeches reprinted in a book, " This Torch of Freedom." " 1 am an impenitent patriot; like Gilbert's heroic figure. ' I remain an Englishman.' 1. do not want daily to become more and more like my neighbour, nor would itgratify my self-esteem if he became daily more like me. 1 respect him and his ways, even if mine are different; I hope that he will let me go my ways also. England is no less England bocatise she is a member of the League. She surrenders nothing that she would wish to retain, merely because she wishes to live at peace with other nations; she asks no surrender of others." PARLIAMENTS EFFICIENCY Parliament needs greater freedom to debate tho subject of the day, whatever it is, writes "Scrutator" in the Sunday Times, in discussing weaknesses in the existing machine. It can only get this freedom by a great extension of committee work, for it is not on the floor of the House that the discussion of legislative and administrative detail can be carried on most effectively. It needs to cut down the exhausting reiteration of tho same general argument and to approximate its procedure on the greater part of its work, especially in finance, to that of a board of business directors. Tho French system of formal reports by Committees of the House on the main departments of policy would bear transplantation here, and is, indeed, necessary to give the House some degreo of control over the civil servants, who are our real masters. There is an immense work to be done in improving the efficiency of Parliament considered merely as a machine.A PAINLESS WORLD Genuine painless dentistry, it is claimed, has been invented in New York, says the Sunday Times. By means of a "desensitiser," patients may escape distress, and the dentists—even Gilbert's "terrified amateurs"—any cowardly interruption. This news should bring balm to the most fretful and assurance to the most timid. The only people who may object are those old-fashioned moralists who, being themselves without teeth, prate of tho value of pain. According to them. The mark of rank in nature is capacity for pain. And the anguish of the singer marks the isweetnesß of tlio strain. But have they sufficiently considered the anguish of the listeners? If teeth can be desensitised, why not ears, noses and all? In fact, why should we not wrap ourselves in an anaesthetised cocoon and pass through this world with our withers unwrung, our hearts unbroken? And then, should we discover that somehow we had missed all the fun as well? THE MINISTRY OF WOMEN Much the most stimulating section of the important report of the Archbishops' Commission on the Ministry of Women is the note by the Dean of St. Paul's, says the Spectator. Dr. j Matthews states in vigorous language | his reasons for dissenting from tho conclusion of tho majority that the admission of women to the priesthood would be contrary to the tradition of the Church and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The report as a whole marks a considerable step forward, in recommending that lay women should be admitted to any function in the Church open to lay men, and that ordained deaconesses should be placed on the same plane as ordained deacons, though the Order of Deaconesses "should not be regarded as equivalent with the diaconate of men." To go so far and there stop decisively, laying it down, not as a matter of temporary expediency, but of permanent principle, i that women shall never in any circumstances be admitted to the priesthood is, as the Dean of St. Paul's observes, to limit and confine tho guidance of God unwarrantably. Dr. Matthews puts the issue unequivocally when, in demanding the removal of all sex distinction in the Christian ministry, ho declares that "there is no more justification for discriminating against women than there would be for discriminating against Jews or men with red hair."

STRATOSPHERE TRAVEL

Travel in the stratosphere " within the lifetime of many of us " was visualised by Professor G. T. R. Hill in an address before the Royal Society of Arts in London. Professor Hill, who is Kennedy Professor of Engineering at London University, spoke of the difficulties to bo overcome before flying could be achieved in the mysterious regions many miles above the earth, where human beings would burst if unprotected, steel would become red-hot and brass melt. " Pressure cabins must come," he said, " and they will be tried first at moderate altitudes with small internal pressures. As the confidence of the public is won by fine records of safety, so really high altitude flying will come into its own." Professor Hill referred to one problem of stratosphere flying that is not generally appreciated, arising by reason of the fact that the speed of sound in air is only about 700 miles an hour. This had a profound effect on the whole technique of high-speed aeroplane design, he said. At the present speeds of flight every exposed part of the aeroplane pushed what he described as a " bow wave " in front of it. Jf the aeroplane was travelling faster than 700 miles per hour, this " bow wave " could not travel ahead and warn the air to get moving so that the familiar streamlino flow could be produced. " Far up into the stratosphere the temperature actually rises," ho said. "At 100,000 ft. —some 130 miles up—it is believed to be about as warm as on the ground, and 200 miles up the temperature has risen so much that a piece of steel, if it were up there, would become redhot and brass would melt." Speaking on the problems of oxygen supply for crew and passengers, Professor Hill said it was absolutely necessary to avoid putting the pressure inside a man without putting it outside*