NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22390, 9 April 1936, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS

BRITAIN AND AMERICA The United States of America was infinitely stronger to-day than at any time during her participation in the Great War, said Sir Austen Chamberlain in a speech in which he advocated Britain's rearming. That caused Britain no anxiety, and ho thought ho spoke the mind of every Englishman when saying, "the stronger the United Statea of America the better we are pleased," for whatever the differences between England and the United States there would never bo war between them. The time had gone, ho concluded, when control of the seas was sufficient for the defence of Britain. Ho thought that ho ought to say, as a privato citizen, that they required from tho Government the assurance that these problems were under their careful consideration, and that they had established the proper organisation for seeing that the problems were searched out and the right decisions taken, and that then the Government could come with a full sense of their responsibilities, with tho courage that great responsibility gave, to ask the country to make whatever sacrifices were needed to protect the country and Empire, and to give full measure to tho collective security of the world, which it was the desire of all others to attain.

INFLUENCE OF LEAGUE In a speech a few weeks ago on the influence of the League, Mr. Eden, Foreign Secretary, mentioned the distinction between those sanctions which League members alone can make effective" and those which can only be made partially effective through the action of tho League, tho latter being those secured from non-members by various means. "I believe this distinction is important," ho said, bocause it is symbolic of the League's position as a whole. Since its inception 17 years ago it has been the experience of many to pass through three phases in their attitude to the League. In its earliest years there Avero many who thought that the League could achieve everything. Then came a phase when many thought that the League could achieve nothing. Now wo are in a third and a more realistic phase. We believe that it can achieve much, but that its influence must inevitably be limited by the fact that its authority is not universal. It is well that wo should recognise this, for we should otherwise pile up for ourselves grave disappointment. The fact that the League is not omnipotent should not make us weaken in our support. Though it cannot achieve everything it can achieve much. In the last 12 months it has grown in authority and prestige, and with prestige comes power. There are still those who regard the League as a danger, and ther»» is no ono who follows roreign affairs who to-day regards it as negligible."

PHYSICIAN AND CHEMIST In an address on " Chemistry and Medicine " Dr. J. F. Wilkinson, whose research work is widely known, said two things that stood out prominently in the last twenty or thirty years were the enormous infiltra'tion of medicine with chemical ideas and the co-opera-tion between the chemist and the phj-sician. It was this co-operation, he thought, which had contributed more than anything else to the great advances which had been made in medicine in recent years. This had been helped considerably by the fostering of medical research by certain institutions in Britain and other countries, among them the Medical Research Council. As a consequence great advances had been made' in the treatment of disease and in the prevention of mortality in many diseases. One found, he continued, that in medicine the chemist became more and more essential so that the physician might work to the best advantage. Moreover, the physician was demanding from the chemist better and better tools. In the investigation of the causation and treatment of disease there was great need for co-operation. With very rare exceptions no one man was capable of investigating the causation and treatment of any particular disease and of following it up. That would demand too wide a knowledge and too great an experience for one man to have. So it was that they had the research team, which might include not only the physician and the chemist, but the botanist, the zoologist and even the electrical engineer, as well as clerks to keep the records. It was because of this team work that research had turned out so well in recent years in many laboratories.

CHURCH AND STATE Lord Hugh Cecil, speaking on the relations between Church and State, said that those \\ ho read the report of the Archbishops' Commission would at once notice three proposed changes. They were, first, in the legislative relations of Church and State; second, in respect of the final appeal in ecclesiastical courts; and third, in the patronage of tho Crown and thereby in tho appointment of tho bishops. Those were the three points 011 which there was friction. Where tho report made the least proposals was on tho question of tho appointment of bishops. What injured the Church of England in its spiritual life, he thought, was that tho bishops were appointed by tho Crown and sat in tho House of Lords. The right way to deal with that question was not as a matter of Church reform, but to accomplish tho necessary changes through tho reform of the House of Lords, which must happen at some time or other. Efforts should then be concentrated on making the omission of bishops from tho House of Lords part of the reform. Tho essential principle was that the Church was tho organ of tho Holy Spirit, and it needed no argument, he thought, to show that tho House of Commons was not tho proper instrument to determine spiritual matters. All they asked was that spiritual patters should remain in the hands of' the Church, and not of the Stato. In practice that meant that judges in Church matters should b3 men appointed by tho Church, who by training, temperament, and outlook had experience of tho normal life of the Church and its devotional and theological aspects. Tho real mistake in the relations of Ch-irch and Stato lay as far back as tho conversion of Constantino, when the Church accepted from the State a position of great authority and privilege and gave to tho State in return a degree of authority in religious matters which it never ought to have had.