NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22538, 1 October 1936, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS

CHILDREN'S INTELLIGENCE "The growth of intelligence ceases at tho age of 14, and the man of 40 has no more intelligence than the girl or boy of 14," said Dr. Thomas Wright, headmaster of Coatbridge Secondary School, in an address to senior tench* ers. "If a problem could be chosen that was outside the scope of any special knowledge or experience possessed by the older person, tho grasp and of the 14-year-old child in the solution' of that problem should be as great. It is suggested that intelligence begins to decline at 35. This may explain why such matters as politics are sometimes handled in such an absurd fashion." HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT

The real root of any satisfactory solution of the nutrition and diet problem lies in the mother's skill in cookery and management of the money at her disposal, writes a correspondent of the Listener, in combating the argument that income lies at the centre of the problem. It is frequently quite true today that "God sends the food but the Devil sends the cooks." In the days when England was an A 1 nation vilhge mothers kept home marvellously and on a very small amount of money, simply by roast n of their practical knowledge and industry. I know this for a fact. In the Devonshire village that was my home 50 years ago there w?s no distressing poverty, although the farm labourer's wage was only 12s a week and he paid Is a week for his cottage. Ke had a garden, lie kept a pig and could get as much skim milk as his children could fetch from the farm. Every member of the family was industrious, the children looked and were healthy and well-nourished. But the point I want to emphasise is the necessity for restoring our unsophisticated good English cookery of the days gone by. If you get hold of a wife who can make Is do the work of 2s and at the same time keep the family happy, the husband's wage is obviously doubled.

WORTH DEFENDING "If this country is worth living in it is worth defending," said Sir Thomas Inskip, Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence in Britain, speaking at a service organised by the British Legion. Everybody had implanted in them, said Sir Thomas, a deep instinct of the sanctity of their homes, and one of the most remarkable facts in human experience, at any rate in the records of Britain, was that many of those who had least cause to he grateful for what the nation and others had done in the way of providing them with homes had been most sensible of their duty to protect the security of the homes of the nation. He could not but attributo the way in which many out of the crowded slums and streets of great cities rallied to the cause of the nation twenty years ago to the fact that God had definitely implanted in the human spirit an instinct that demanded that the homes of the nation should be secure. When one remembered those facts one '•cad with astonishment sometimes that there were those who said that defence was un-Christian. If so, it seemed to him very strange that the Christian teaching took the virtues of tho soldier as the ideals of the Christian. They were told, and they had seen many timc-s, that the soldier or sailor who showed the truest qualities of his profession was a man not only of courage but of gentleness, courtesy, and consideration for others.

ONE OF THE OLD SCHOOL Though Frederick George, first Baron Banbury of Southain, was never a foremost figure in our public life, he was a notable one, for he was a great character, says the Morning Post in recording his death. In the Conservative Party, to which he rendered long and ioyal service, he occupied a place all by himself; for he did not allow allegiance to his party to interfere with his personal convictions, which were strong and uncompromising, on many questions. When Sir William Harcourt exclaimed, "We are all Socialists now," he reckoned without Banbury, who never reconciled himself to the socialising tendencies of modern legislation. It was his opinion that there was far too much legislation, and he set himself obdurately to stem the tide. For years his principal activity in the House of Commons, where he sat for 32 years, was to block the bills that were called after opposed business was over; and he killed them remorselessly, as his friend Mr. Vicary Gibbs observed, "with one wave of his faultless hat" —the gesture that accompanied his ejaculation of the two words "1 object." His oddities, as they seemed to be, were founded on sincere convictions and generous impulses—as witness his hatred of cruelty to animals in any form; and his unflinching courage in opposing what he believed to be wrong. In public life, he leaves no successor, for politically his was a creed outworn. The stream of tendency had passed it by—a stream that no "wave of his faultless hat" 'could stay, INTERVENTION IN SPAIN

The extreme delicacy of the situation in Spain and the temptation of foreign nations to intervene in her domestic affairs seems to be just one more complication in an unprecedentedly disturbed world. Yet the problem is not new, as can be noted by examining the principles of non-intervention laid down by Lord Castlereagh and adopted by Canning during another Spanish domestic crisis. In his famous State paper of May 5, 1820, Lord Castlereagh wrot«: —" The present state of Spain, no doubt, seriously extends the range of political agitation in Europe, but it must nevertheless be admitted that there is no portion of Europe of equal magnitude in which such a revolution could have happened less likely to menace other States with that direct and immediate danger which has always been regarded, at least in this country, as alone constituting the case which would justify external interference. If the semblance of such an intervention is more likely to irritate than to overawe, is it not prudent at least to pause before we assume an attitude which would seem to pledge us in the eyes of Europe to some decisive proceeding? Unless we are prepared to support our interference by force, our judgment or advice is likely to be but rarely listened to, and woyld by frequent repetition soon fall into contempt." The concluding sentences, notes a correspondent of the Times, form also a pertinent comment on British policy with regard to the ItaloAbyssinian war.