NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22437, 5 June 1936, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS

- POWER IN THE MODERN STATE "Power is shifting greatly as between - different organs of the Constitution," ! said Sir Arthur Salter in a recent lecture on " The Pattern of the Coming • State." " Parliament is losing power • to the Cabinet, which initiates and de- . termines the fate of nearly all new , laws, and to the electorate, which, ex- • pressing itself through the polls, the parties and the press, loaves less to the discretion of the member of Par- . liament. The Cabinet in turn is losing power in comparison with the Civil Service, whoso practical influence increases as the subjects dealt with bocome more complex and requiro a more continuous attention, based on specialised knowledge. The Civil Service, through the same increase in ,complexity and technicality of the tasks of government, has to part with power in favour of expert committees or permanent boards of persons drawn from without the service and entrusted with the execution of specific tasks. The system which is thus developing is mixed. It is neither the socialist State nor the capitalist-eoinpetitive-private-enterpri.se State. It combines elements of both and,is likely to continue to do so, though the field of socialisation is extending. EMPIRE MIGRATION Much harm can be done to the cause of Empire development and security by the insistence on one-sided views, remarks the Financial Times. To consider migration, for example, as a means of solving the immediate problem of unemployment in this country is to invite from the Dominions the reply that they have their own unemployed to deal with, and can only hope to absorb them, with any now arrivals, if markets are guaranteed for the products of their labour. However true this may be at the moment, signs are not wanting that overseas statesmen are beginning to see the matter in another light. They are realising that it is not in the long run so much a question whether migration will relieve the United Kingdom of a burden, as whether the occupation of their own territories is secure with the present sparse populations. Canada's continental situation places her in a special category, but Australia, New Zealand and South Africa are faced with a decision whose difficulty has been intensified by the growth of totalitarian as opposed to democratic ideals of government. TASK OF RELIGION A man's natural instincts to use tools and to construct the things he needs will take him a certain distance along the road to the mastery of his material environment, writes Professor John Macmurray, Grote Professor of Philosophy of Mind and Logic in the University of London, in a recent article. But without truo science ho could not get very far, and once ho has used science to transform his environment he needs scionco to keep the world ho has complicated from going to pieces. Similarly, man's natural instincts to share a common life will take him a certain distanco toward the establishment of community and co-operation. But ■without religion they won't take him very far. The task of religion is to create and maintain those attitudes of mind in people which make possible and sustain more complicated forms of interrelationship nnd interdependence between masses of individual human beings. Religion is the only power we have for creating an enlarged capacity for community between masses of individuals. That is why the future of religion is the futuro of humanity. If religion fails us, then there is no future for humanity. We shall relapse into a primitive barbarism and the work of religion will have to start again from the beginning.

SIZE OF UNIVERSITIES Discussing the report of the British University Grants Committee, which expresses the opinion that the number of university students is likely to increase in tho future, Professor Ernest Barker writes in tho Times as follows: We may thus be brought up against the problem, which is already vexing many of the countries of the Continent. (and not' least Germany): "Wlfet percentage of its population can a country safely afford to send forward to the university without incurring tho danger of producing an unemployed intelligentsia, which may have disastrous social and even political eifects?" Wo may also bo brought up against another problem': "How big can a university afford to become without losing the essence of its intimate quality?" Both of these are grave questions; and perhaps particularly grave is the question of the right sizo and tho just proportions of the ideal university, and also of the ideal college in tho ideal university. Tho old universities in England, and some of tho Scottish universities, are perhaps already beginning to feel tho pinch of this question. CIVIL AVIATION "Twenty-seven years ago the first aoroplano flew the Channel. To-day the British Air Mail links the Empire, following the lead of the pioneers who with ships, cables and radio, cast over the world-map a web of communications with theso islands as its centre. Seventeen years ago a few hardy air passengers climbed into a cold noisy box, and a mica lid was snappod down on them. To-day thousands of passengers obtain three-course breakfasts, five-course lunches, and six-course dinners in luxurious and silent air liners," said Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Francis Shelmerdine, Director of Civil Aviation in Britain, in a recent broadcast address. "The air journey to Brisbane in Australia makes you a present of one month in time saved over the sea journey. Thd air journey to Calcutta saves you a fortnight, in the past three years the traffic on Empire air routes has doubled and the mileage of air services in Britain has increased 35 times. Not only tho speed of air travel, but tho speed of progress is romantic. Some iwople soe the aeroplane as tho messenger of agony and destruction. I am fortunate in that my occupation makes mo see it as tho speediest of all means of transport. It is of more and more importance in the world's system of communications, upon which civilisation is built and without which we should lapse into barbarity."