NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22427, 25 May 1936, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS

"EVERYTHING WE CARE FOR"

"A party is a living organism. There can be nothing static in a party; it must progress if it is to live, and our generation has to find its own interpretation for putting principles into action," said Mr. Stanley Baldwin, addressing a Primrose League demonstration in the Albert Hall, London. "Now, what are those principles? They are eternal. Disraeli laid them down in one form or another again and again, and the Primrose League was established to promote them:—The maintenance of religion, the maintenance of the Throne and of the Constitution; the Empire and the unity of it; and the welfare of our people. Inside those four subjects everything that we care for, that we fight for, everything is comprised." A FIELD-MARSHAL ON WAR "No nation at heart wants war." declared Field-Marshal Viscount Allenby in his rectorial address to Edinburgh University. "In the course of history, however, it has happened and is happening that ambitious leaders, inspired by a narrow nationalism, may exercise a compelling influence on impressionable and inexperienced youth to urge them on a path of promised glory. This, especially in countries which have suffered recent territorial loss or whose overcrowded population is • looking for outlet, exerts a magnetic lure on immature minds. The world is in peril because of the lack of faith. Progress toward reconciliation is hampered and retarded by mutual suspicion and distrust. Thus fear is bred and fear is an evil counsellor. It produces nothing better than a narrow nationalism, disguised as and miscalled patriotism, but which is at bottom only selfish jealousy. Nationalism is commonly held up to admiration as a high virtue. Internationalispi, which is, in other words, generous sympathy with our fellowman, is branded as a crime, a surrender, a betrayal of our own peculiar interests and rights. Until this view, this regrettable attitude, is altered, we cannot hope for any enduring amelioration in international relations."

CEMENT OF SOCIETY "Has it ever occurred to you to inquire how it is that the millions of human beings who crowd our cities and populate our rural areas manage to live together at all?" asked Lord Macmillan in a recent broadcast talk on "Law and the Citizen." "If you think of them each individually compact of ambitions, passions, rivalries, and jealousies and all in competition for the necessities snd the luxuries of life and of the endless opportunities for conflict which their daily contacts present, how comes itj you may well ask, that we all go about our several vocations undisturbed and live our lives in peace and freedom? The main reason is that by the slow growth of law the warring instincts of mankind have been accommodated and subdued to order. We are not conscious of this influence regulating our lives and we have grown so accustomed to its operation that we no more think of it than we do of the air we breathe. But it i 3 true all the same that it is as essential to our social well-being as the air is to our lungs. An eminent legal friend of mine once inelegantly compared our legal system to our main sewerage. We spend our days oblivious of its beneficent action until something goes wrong with it and then we realise from the unsavoury consequences how much of our comfort depends upon it." NEW SPIRIT IN SCHOOLS' The world into which children were bora to-day was a far more complicated place than it was 100 or even 60 years ago, said Mr. Oliver Stanley, British Minister for Education, in a recent address. Science had brought speed; speed had brought proximity; and proximity had brought complications. They had to meet to-day an entirely new situation, and that new situation required a new education. The change in education was shown in two ways. First there were the outward and visible signs: new buildings and playing fields. Secondly, there was an inward and spiritual change: a new kind of teaching and a new spirit pervading the whole curriculum. The aim should be an understanding of the process of national and world evolution; no doubt accuracy of detail was necessary before they could have accuracy of generalisations, but what they retained wero impressions, to be used as needed. They had come also to see that in the family or the school—just as in international affairs—they could got more by persuading than by driving; the forco of argument got one farther than the argument of force. From being a tyrant with a primer in one hand and a stick in the other the teacher had become a leader and a companion to the children in and out of school. THE PROBATION SYSTEM It is to be hoped that with the improvement of probation woi'k the Courts will take more thought over the cases in which it should be used, says the Times Educational Supplement in comment on the report of an official committee after inquiry into the probation system in England. In some instances probation is employed to excess. Whon the home surroundings are bad the chances of probation being successful are greatly reduced and training in an approved school or, where the circumstances permit, in a Borstal Institution may offer the only hope of reformation. In such circumstances, as the report points out, to place an offender on probation is a disservice both to him and to the community. On the other hand, there ia reason for thinking that many delinquents who might have been suitable for probation still sent to prison. There has been, as everybody knows, an increaso in the number of young offenders in recent years. Some of this increase has been attributed to unemployment and industrial depression. More recently it has been suggested that it is connected to some extent with the lack of community life and of all facilities for continued education on new housing estates for tho big population under 18. There is little doubt that Buch increase in wrongdoing can be stemmed, if the local authorities are fully awake to their obligations. Those obligations are not limited to the provision of education for children of school age; they must include the oversight and the provision of recreational and educational help.