NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22722, 7 May 1937, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS

LAST LINK OF EMPIRE The crown is now the last t link of Empire, writes Mr. William Courtenay in his book. "Airman Friday." The loosening of political ties with Whitehall; the Statute of Westminster; the assertion and recognition of complete self-government in all the Dominions has paradoxically, instead of drawing our people farther apart, brought them nearer together. The magnet is the Monarch. The majesty, the might, the panoply, the splendour and the glorious history of the English Crown which has endured for a thousand years in England while crowns and thrones have perished all round, is the mystic, spiritual link between us all. SELECTIVE EDUCATION We all shed, and need to shed, a great deal of the information which we have acquired, whether during our schooldays or in after-life, writes Mr. Guy Kendall in his book, " A Headmaster Reflects." 11 carried about always, the burden would be intolerable. But the real interests which we have acquired and the power of understanding many facts of different kinds, whether of science or art, of literature or history, of business or politics, can always be of value to us. We. are bound to acquaint children with more knowledge than will actually be serviceable in after-life, because we cannot wholly foresee what will be serviceable in each case, and what will not. But even in j the education of childhood we are more j and more falling back on the guidance I of the interests of the child, germinal j though they may be. In after-life what i knowledge a man retains and what | power of acquiring more knowledge he j develops is wholly determined by his i interests. | ROAD ACCIDENT CAUSES i "We find that some 50 per cent of ! the accidents happen on straight | roads." said Captain Hudson. Parliamentary Secretary to the British Min- | istry of Transport, speaking in the House of Commons on the results produced by an analysis of 100.000 road accidents. " This makes one rather wonder whether faulty construction of roads is the most important of the factors dealing with road accidents, or something else which is causing the serious number of accidents we continue to have. Taking the main causes of accidents, some 3:5 per cent are caused by motors, some 28 per cent by pedestrians, and some '26 per cent by cyclists. Incidentally, last month's figures, which show that 321 persons were killed on unrestricted as against 140 on restricted roads, reveal how unwise it would be to rely on the speed limit alone for preventing road accidents. In the case of restricted roads only 2 per cent proved fatal, as against 4 per cent on the unrestricted roads, which, of course, proves that people, if I may put it that way, are hit harder on the unrestricted roads and, therefore, the percentage of fatal accidents is greater. But I am making that point -only to show that we cannot rely on the speed limit alone to bring about a large reduction of accidents." EMPIRE'S FOREIGN POLICY Foreign affairs would be one of the major subjects for discussion by the Imperial Conference which is to held in London immediately after the Coronation, said the Foreign Secretary, Mr. Anthony Eden, in an address at Aberdeen. "It is impossible to overestimate the value which can be derived from a free interchange of views between the Governments of the members of the Commonwealth on these issues, particularly at tho present time," he added. "We intend to lay the facts, as we see them, fully and frankly before the conference, and to endeavour to reach in consultation agreement on lines of action which will contribute both toward the prosperity of the members of the British Commonwealth and toward the peace of the world." The British Commonwealth had been and, he believed, would remain one of the greatest stabilising influences for peace and for progress in the modern world. "There is, however, another such great stabilising factor," said Mr. Eden, "the influence and authority of which is of evident advantage to mankind as a whole. I refer to the United States of America. When we look at the troubled state of the world to-day it is a comforting thought that over the vast area where the United States flag flies thero is a great peace-loving and progressive influence at work." CLIMATE AND ANIMALS Counting animals may seem to the uninitiated, says the Listener, to bo an unprofitable and academic occupation, one of those tasks that load to the accumulation of knowledge that no one is ever likely to make much use of, but the first annual report of tho Bureau of Animal Population at Oxford shows that such scepticism is quite unwarranted: much useful information has already been gained from the study of fluctuations in the number of animals. The relation of animal population to climate is one of the interesting points that may appeal to the nonspecialist. Research on vole plagues, for example, has shown that the numbers of voles, which are small rodents, fluctuate with a three or four-year periodicity; and quite recently tho superintendent ofthe Scottish Meteorological Office has discovered an identical rhythm in factors*affecting storminess. The two rhythms are presumably linked, with weather as cause and vole fluctuations as effect. Another subject, in which the bureau has had the willing co-operation of nearly 700. observers, and of important official and commercial organisations, is the fluctuation in numbers of the snowshoc rabbit in the North American continent. At one time it was thought that this fluctuation was determined by the 11-year sunspot cycle, but research now shows that the period averages a little loss than 1.0 voars, and is probably linked with some hitherto undiscovered climatic cycle. Krom these two examples it can bo seen that animal population figures may serve as a now type of meteorological indicator, b.v which climatic changes may be assessed and perhaps foretold; mid ab the same time, when research is concentrated on pests like the vole, knowledge of fluctuations is obviously of considerable value to forestry and agriculture. Counting animals, like much other scientific research, is by no means the barren study that it may 6eem at fiibt glance.