NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22398, 20 April 1936, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS

THE MERCHANT MARINE The peril to Britain in time of war if her shipping industry is allowed to dwindle further was emphasised by Mr. H. E. Watts, a shipowner, in an address to the Institute of Transport in London. He declared that never since the Dutch Bailed up the Thames in 1653 had Britain allowed its maritime prestige to fall so low as at present. Before the Boer War, Britain's merchant shipping represented 52 per cent of the world's tonnage. In 1914, the proportion had fallen to 38 per cent, and to-day it was nearer 25 per cent. This did not give a true numerical picture, for British ships were growing bigger and in recent years British cargo boats had been driven out of tho small ship trades, such as the Baltic, the Black Sea and Danube. " In the Great War there were 3000 British ships in commission when the submarine campaign broke out," said Mr. Watts. " They were insufficient, despite the assistance of allied and neutral shipping, to handle the vast quantities of war material which had to be carried, and to ensure the country's food supplies. If 1917 revealed the vulnerability of our food supplies an examination of the 1936 position should make us tremble. To-day, 900 fewer British carrier vessels are available." REFORMING THE CALENDAR Lord Desborough said that tho calendar reform scheme he preferred was the retention of tho 12-month calendar divided into equal quarters of 91 days. Tho question of a stabilised date for Easter was indissol'ibly bound up with that of calendar reform. Easter now could move 35 days. In 1940 it would fall on March 24, almost as early as it could, and in 1943 on April 25, the latest date possible. If the date of the birth of our Lord was fixed at December 25, it was extraordinary that the date of tho commemoration of the death and crucifixion should move about over 35 days. There was every possibility of the Christian Churches combining on the stabilisation of Easter. The League of Nations Committee, to which this matter had been committed, met once every four years, and would meet next October. He hoped that a delegate from the British Government would be commissioned not only to support the motion for a fixed Easter, but also to explain the views of the British Government regarding calendar reform. If agreement could be reached at this meeting it would bo possible to introduce the reformed calendar in 1939, when January 1 fell on a Sunday, without dislocation. INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH A warning that Britain was slipping back in scientific industrial research and relying too much again on the commercial buying of materials and new processes, was uttered by Professor Jocelyn Thorpe, the retiring president, at tho annual meeting of the Institute of Chemistry. He recalled the parlous position of Britain at the outbreak of war in regard to the production of essential materials as a result of relying on the purchase of them from other countries. He recalled, too, what he described as the peculiar subtle menace of buying a man with the new process, and how sometimes that man would return to his own country with full knowledge of the customers and the methods of the new concern in Britain, ready to cut out the business he had just helped to build up in this country. Purchase of both materials and processes from outside, Professor Thorpe said, meant that less chance was afforded research schools to foster national industry, and less chance was given them of placing their men in suitable employment. Unless, industry supported its own research laboratories, and through them the research training schools, the latter could no longer exist. It was useless for industry to provide funds for the provision of research schools unless it could provide employment for those who went through them. While admitting that industry in Britain had made wonderful progress since the Great War by the establishment of new processes and new methods, the outcome of intensive industrial research, Professor Thorpe said there were definite indications that the country was slipping back to the old bad way, and that commercialism was gradually exerting its baneful influence on the research organisations. FOOD AND DEFENCE The most elaborate reorganisation of armament production, says tho Times, will be useless if the workers cannot be supplied with food; and if it is essential, in the words of Mr. Bruce, to "marry health and agriculture," it is equally essential to marry agriculture and defence. What is required to enable agriculture to commit this desirable political bigamy? Much has been done during tho past few years to increase agricultural production, and tho overall increase is 14 per cent. More specifically we have a sugar industry which is now producing 600,000 tons of sugar a year; tho Wheat Act has increased the production of wheat to 1,800,000 tons; and tariffs have given a great impetus to production from market gardens. We are, or could be, self-supporting in tho matter of potatoes, eggs, vegetables and milk. But tho people cannot live by these things alone, particularly if they had to make good a lack of other foods. What needs attention is the supply of meat and of cereals. As regards meat tho production of British livestock could, no doubt, be increased. But from the point of view of defence thero is tho difficulty that a large annual crop of meat would bo difficult to maintain in time of war. Livestock, like men, live partly on imported food; and their function is partly to turn one kind of food into another. Clearly, therefore, the problem of adequato meat supplies is a problem of storage. Tho same is true of cereals, for the different reason that space is not available to grow all our requirements. It is pretended that the Organisation of adequato storage would be a simple or an unimportant matter. There as Dr. Burgin indicated in tho House of Commons, large facilities already for the storage of grain, but something more comprehensive than tho usual trading reserves is required. There would have to be large-scale purchases from the Dominions, a continuous turning over of stocks, and therefore an organisation which, even if it did not direct, would have to be careful not to upset the course of prices.