NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22714, 28 April 1937, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS

NEW PACTS NOT NEEDED New peace conferences or agreements were not needed, said tbe late Sir Austen chamberlain, speaking in the House of Commons. Those that existed were quite sufficient for the purpose if it was intended to observe them. The difficulty was not that enough agreements had not been signed, but that they could not be kept. The Kellogg Pact excluded, if they kept their obligations faithfully, war in pursuit of a national policy and admitted only of war in defence of their own country or nation which had been wantonly attacked. No new political treaty signed by 52 or more nations, as he believed the Kellogg Pact was signed, could strengthen the obligation. What was wanted was the will to keep obligations. AVERTING A SLUMP A hope that it would bo possible to take advance measures to prevent a slump following the period of prosperity created by the British Government's rearmament policy, was expressed by Mr. W. S. Morrison, British Minister of Agriculture, in a recent address. Some of the conditions which in the past made a slump inevitable after a boom period were now absent. No longer was there an automatic gold exchange, nor were goods allowed to be imported freely from abroad into Britain. He thought they had learned a great deal from their misfortunes in 19.31 and the succeeding years, and he hoped it would be found possible for Britain to take measures in advance which would be suitable for at least diminishing those violent swings which were so destructive to security and confidence in the past. "NO NOISE BUT WEEPING" " Faith is confirmed by all experience; the Christian truth penetrates everything, giving a dignity to human life, an understanding of the immeasurable worth of others, reinforces the vocations of family life, of marriage and of citizenship, and gives due honour to the body and the fleeting moments of our existence," said Father M. J. D'Arcv in a recent broadcast. " Above all faith begins that true life of loyalty and brings with it the joy of knowing that one is never alone but accompanied by Him Who died for us to live within us. There is the real secret, of which I will say but this, that all other ideals are but distant rumours in comparison with it. Here, then, is the faith handed down to us, the way and the truth, and we are selling it for a mess of pottage. In a world in which there is so much mystery and pain, so much uncertainty and anxiety, it is all important that we should be anchored to truth and goodness. But we have cut adrift and have chosen the dark for our home and we worship the old idols and yield to the old superstitions. 'There comes no noise but weeping out of the ancient sky, and a tear is in the tiniest flower because the gods must die.' The opposite of faith is despair, and when we will not worship the true God wo shall be found seeking omens, and singing round a fire of human sacrifice." SABBATH OBSERVANCE Prominence out of proportion to its importance has been given to a recent case of Sabbatarian strictness, writes the Scottish correspondent of the Listener. Malcolm Campbell, of Applecross, was a member of the crew of the mail steamer which leaves Stornoway for thft mainland at 11 p.m. every Sunday night. On the ground that this involved him in Sabbathbreaking, the kirk session of the Free Presbyterian Church at Applecross offered him the hard choice between giving up his job and having the right of Communion withdrawn from him. It has since been shown that Campbell, an assistant steward, did absolutely no work on board the ship on Sundays, and that his Sabbath-break-ing was confined to being in his bunk when she sailed; but for those hidden reasons that are behind every case of the kind the man has chosen to bow to the spiritual authority of his kirk. It is a good story, but its interest is really in its pathos. It represents a rearguard action by a remote congregation of a small connection, seeking honestly, if blindly, to resist the onrush of modernism from its entrenchments in the remoter north and west —a resistance doomed to collapse before the efforts of the British Ministry of Transport and tho Scottish Travel Association to open up the Highlands. There is just this to be said about such repressions. They may seem harsh and ludicrous, but we may wonder if the disappearance of the spirit behind them is all for the good of the world. EMPIRE CONTACTS

Mr. Malcolm Mac Donald, Secretary of State for the Dominions, speaking at an informal gathering in London of the New Zealand Group of the Overseas League,.said they were all agreed that tho unity that had marked the relationship of tho peoples of tlio British Empire in the past should be maintained in the future. They were anxious that there should be harmony between the policies of His Majesty's Governments in Britain and in tho Dominions. How were they going to maintain that unity and that harmony in these troublesome times? In the old days, when questions of major policy were decided from Downing Street, there was no difficulty in maintaining unity, but since the concession of complete self-government to the Dominions, on major issues as well as on lesser matters, there had been six Governments to consult. That revolution in relationship had been carried through in tho past years quietly and in that scarcely noticeable way in which the British peoples accomplished their constitutional changes. That was perfectly all right so long as those policies were in harmony instead of in conflict with each other. It would be a very grave thing indeed if, in any emergency, the policy of ono Government should begin to diverge from that of another. Tho problem to-day was how in these new circumstances they were going to maintain the old harmony and the old unity. He thought they could do it in one way only, and that was by keeping in close and constant contact with each other.