NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22470, 14 July 1936, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS

VICTORS AT JUTLAND The fact that the Germans have been triumphantly celebrating the anniversary of "the victory of Skagerrak," or as we call it, Jutland, and that we, as our manner is, have let the day go by default, gives the world—particularly a new generation with no personal memories of 1916 —some excuse for "believing that it really was a German victory, says "Janus," writing in the Spectator. I am glad to see the naval correspondent of the Daily Telegraph calling attention to that danger, for even in this country the idea that the British Fleet was defeated at Jutland could easily take root. The answer to the German claim, of course, is simple. The purpose of each of the rival fleets was to hold command of the sea. The British Fleet held it (so far as the surface of the sea was concerned) even more incontestably after Jutland than before. German cruisers did achieve one or two useless raids on the east coast of England before Jutland. They did not even attempt any after it. PHYSICAL EDUCATION ■Most English people are notoriously ready to pooh-pooh "physical culture" as distinct from competitive athletics and are slow to realise that the comparative neglect of the more formal and deliberate exercises has left the English distinctly behind many other European nations in the general level of physical fitness, says the Manchester Guardian. A correspondent who is able to compare the position here with that in Germany gives an emphatic reminder that English complacency in this respect is not shared by others. It is indeed in some part from sheer carelessness that Britain has come to the point at which about half the men applying to join the army or the navy are rejected as physically unfit. But the danger is beginning to be recognised, even in Whitehall, and a recentcircular of the Board of Education to local authorities devotes a good deal of attention to the improvement of physical training. The authors of the "Ten-vear Plan for Children," issued last December, rightly drew attention to the lack, in nearly all schools, of adequate gymnasia in which children can perform exercises at once interesting and physically beneficial. SOLVING THE GREAT ENIGMA

In explaining his object in writing " A Pilgrim's Quest for the Divine," Lord Conway says:—l am not writing as o. serious philosopher, nor as a wellequipped man of science. 1 desire hero only to write as an ordinary intelligent person trying to find a way through the adventure of this puzzling world. The impulse that led me to take the work seriously in hand was the maelstrom of misery that engulfed millions of human beings during the Great War, for whom there appeared to be no recompense. That was the time when almost every day brought its holocaust of victims, not merely giving up their own lives, but dragging down with them their wives, parents, and their young people of both sexes. Small wonder was it then that from that time, in those circumstances, the desire to obtain solid ground for belief in some sort of a future life became more insistent than ever before. The great Enigma is not solved by death, but by life. The tremendous importance of life lies in this, that during every hour of it a man is making or marring his eternal soul. Every hour thus becomes significant. What a man does for himself in each is an eternal deed.

A WOODEN CONSTITUTION The United States Supreme Court's decision invalidating the State of New York's minimum-wage law for women and children gives even Republicans reasons for desiring a reform of the Constitution, notes the Spectator. Previous findings of the Court, such as the invalidation of the Guffey Coal Act. could be interpreted as a defence of State rights against Federal encroachments. But this last decision leaves even the States powerless to pass social legislation that interferes with "freedom of contract." The defenders of State rights find there is nothing to defend. The ruling invalidates the mini-mum-wage legislation of 17 other States, and gives the power to regulate wage contracts to the employers alone, which, in Senator Borah's opinion, means the great monopolist trusts. But not only the United States will suffer by the Supreme Court's decisions, for they deprive the Federal Government of even indirect power to enter into international agreements, through the International Labour Organisation (of which the United States is a member), regulating wage rates and labour conditions, and while they remain unregulated it will bo so much the more difficult for other countries to make efficient agreements. CHANGELESS PRECEPTS Rabbi Israel Abrahams, preaching at the Great Synagogue, Manchester, on the Jewish festival of Shavuoth, which celebrates the giving of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, declared that the time was long overdue for the Western world to come to terms with its Scriptures. "Ostensibly we accept the dominion of religion," he said. "For the majority of us the Bible still remains Holy Writ. Yet every day civilised man continues to act in a manner which brings religion into disrepute, offends almost every principle of righteousness and mercy, and endangers the foundations of peace and international brotherhood. Possibly the fault lies with our religious interpreters and Bible exponents, who have in the past overstressed the question of faith. Faith is only the beginning; to be of value it must inspire conduct which is at all times consonant with the highest postulates of faith. The question must never remain 'Do you believe? — it must continue, 'Do you act as though you believed?' The precepts of true religion do not change; they are the word of God. The Ten Commandments are to-day, as at the time of the Sinaitic revelation, the fundamental basis of civilisation. Every attempt to nullify them implies retrogression. Not a little of the world's suffering to-day is due to the breaking of the second commandment. Dictatorship is an implicit denial of God's sovereignty. Chauvinism is as much idolatry as the worship of Baal."