NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22618, 5 January 1937, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS

HEALTH CAMPAIGN When opening the fifth Public Health Exhibition in London, the Minister of Health, Sir Kingsley Wood, said that in the time of Qsieen Victoria the cure of disease seemed the most important thing. In King George's reign prevention took its place beside cure. No*-, they were at the beginning of a new reign and, he hoped, on the threshold of a new and perhaps greater conception in health matters. They must be particularly hea'thbuilders; and it was in this sphere that experts —doctor?, social workers, voluntary organisations, and municipalities —were more and more devoting themselves and giving consideration to problems like nutrition and physical selfequipment. They must make good health the birthright of the citizen. T.U.C. AND COMMUNISM "I think it was very striking when the Trades Union Congress last September refused to have anything to do with Communism," said Mr. Baldwin. in a speech in Glasgow. " It is a sign of the times, and it is frankly what I would expect from that organisation. because, after all. what is that organisation? It represents many millions of my own fellow-countrymen. T always have taken the view thai then 1 is more political horse sense in my own fellow-countrymen than among anybody else's fellow-countrymen and therefore they can do none other. The men and women who form our trade imions are just like thoM? who work or serve in any other walk of life, and they want progress; but they want to work for it by orderly means, and they do not believe you are going to get progress by creatine chaos on the way. They do not want disruptive forces —red or black." SAFEGUARDING DEMOCRACY Describing the Public Order Bill which among other things forbids the wearing of ''political'' uniforms as a "protection of democracy" bill, Mr. Bernays. in the House of Commons, said that in normal times he would have approached this bill with considerable repugnance and distrust, but these were not normal times. They had seen democracy in other countries collapse under the hammer-blows of force. The downfall of every democracy since the war could be traced to one root cause —the failure of democratic Governments to realise the danger in time to take resolute action. If democracy was to survive it must be conducted according to definite and recognised rules, and one of them was that no political party should resort to any weapon other than reason and argument. The uniform in politics symbolised force. The triumph of the Nazis in Germany was an awful warning of the conditions that would prevail when the battle was set not between rival parties but between rival uniforms. He admitted that the parallel of Germany could be carried too far, but it could not be ignored.

RELIGION IN ENGLAND The Archbishop of Canterbury, in a sermon at Leeds, said there were signs that Christianity -was passing into a period of special trials and difficulties. In one country at least all the force of education and of government was being exerted to destroy Christianity, and in other countries very close the idol of the State was being enthroned to the exclusion of the Gospel. Was England really Christian to-day? Thoughtful men were convinced that we were witnessing another and even wider revolution in the mental habits and outlook in the very souls of the people. The intense speed of modern life, certain phases of the popular press, the cinema—all these things were driving human souls into res-tlessness. The Christian faith to-day was not so much denied as merely passed by as something that no longer appealed in the high excitement of modern life. A new England was appearing to-day—an England closely concerned with the large new areas which were springing up around the great cities. Was this new England which was materialising before their eyes to be Christian ? Happily the material conditions surrounding this problem were infinitely more favourable than were the conditions obtaining 100 years ago. Even so, and supposing the people in those new districts were well housed, well fed. well employed, and well paid, they might, unless the Church disturbed herself, be only so many "white sepulchres." To supply the spiritual need of those new areas stood in the very forefront of the Church's duty to-day.

WAR NOT INEVITABLE people were making prophecies that a world war was inevitable, said Sir Samuel Hoare at a luncheon of the Foreign Press Association. That wan not the view of the British Government. They realised the complexity and danger of many current problems, but were not prepared to accept this dangerous and pathological prophecy, and they were determined to take every action in their power to make it impossible of fruition. Intellectually Great Britain was still an island and London was much more than a Continental capital. What concerned Great Britain most was her position as a world State, and sha was increasingly subject to influences that arose from the fact that he- Government was one of many coequal, independent Governments. This meant that certain extra-European views were brought to bear on European problems that might in the long run be useful for their settlement. Their intellectual detachment from the Continent meant that they could take time before making up their minds. Their isolation meant that they had no traditional prejudices and liked to let bygones be bygones. That must be accepted as a British characteristic which, he thought, would remain constant. For these reasons they refused to enter into the wars of ideas that seemed so prevalent at the present time, just as they had refused to enter into the wars of religion in the seventeenth century. The fact that they could take time to make up their minds on great questions made it all the more important that when thet- were made up the.v should have behind them the power of action. They could not have two time lags.