NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22726, 12 May 1937, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS

MR. BALDWIN'S ACHIEVEMENT A tribute to Mr. Baldwin, the "greatest Minister of them all," was paid by Mr. Hore-Belisha, British Minister of Transport, in a recent speech. "We have benefited from the Prime Minister's career," he said, "not only from what he has done in his life, but from the manner in which he has lived it. In achievement he has rendered two supreme services. He has softened the feeling between class and class, and he has softened the feeling between party and party. These public services he has been able to render because of an essentially human quality. In his private conduct he has shown a contempt for material advantages—a chastening corrective and an enviable example in a striving and unphilosophic age." THE PERSONAL TEST Christianity, beyond other religions, has nourished the conception of personality and of the value, responsibility and influence of persons, says the Dean of St. Paul's, Dr. W. R. Matthews, writing in the Sunday Times. Nevertheless, it is far removed from what is j normally described as "individualism." It does not insist on the rights or on the value of the man as he stands alone and unchanged. Personality has been reverenced because it lias the possibility of becoming the vehicle and instrument of the divine life in the world. If Christianity has anything to say at all. it begins by the assertion that the ultimate issues arc settled, not :in large and sweeping movements of impersonal forces, but in the secret places of the souls of common men. RELIANCE ON ARMED DEFENCE Such is the cost of armed defence, says the Spectator in commenting on the total of £278,000,000 allowed for defence in the British Budget. Armed defence is Britain's policy —and every other State's likewise. "Noli me tangere" might be taken as fit motto by every Government in Europe. Sir Samuel Hoare devotes a considerable portion of his speech on the Na\\ Estimates to insistence on the perils any enemy attempting an air attack on the British fleet would run. M. Maisky, putting a liberal interpretation on his functions as ambassador, proclaims to all whom it may concern that Russia is strong enough to repel any attack on her frontiers by any Power or combination of Powers, and to do it singlehanded. And General Gocring, on whose lips defiant sentiments are more appropriate, declares that Germany is now invincible internally and externally and that none dare attack her, adding that "we must-grind our swords shaker and sharper, because this will be the best guarantee for the maintenance of peace." An impressive, anthology from the speeches of representatives of three of the chief signatories of the Kellogg Pact for the renunciation of war. A RELIGIOUS CRISIS Anyone who considers the civilised world to-day in a realistic manner must i recognise that to probably 50 per cent ! of Europeans the Easter festival means ! nothing, writes the Dean of St. Paul's, Dr. W. R. Matthews, in an article in the Sunday Times. In one vast territory ; denial of God is a part of the official i " ideology," and Christ an object, not | of reverence, but of derision; in many others the faith has faded among .wide circles, and, for practical purposes, its place has been taken by enthusiasms for the State, for a Leader, for a social revolution, for a variety of ends which have their whole meaning in this world. It is true that never in the past has Europe been a complete spiritual unity, but, until quite recently, it could be assumed that, on the whole, an appeal in the name of Christ would stir some deep chord in the soul of most men; though they sinned, they knew Whom they were sinning against. The " Recall to Religion," issued by the Archbishop of Canterbury, is understood very imperfectly if it is regarded as a campaign to fill the churches, or even to convert individuals. It is, in fact, a campaign in the struggle for the soul of civilisation, or, rather, in the decisive conflict on the question whether civilisation shall have any soul at all. The crisis is at the root a religious crisis. " Can two walk together unless they be agreed? " Can men build up a tolerably coherent society unless they bo agreed on the true values of life and have a common mind about the purpose of our existence? LIMITS ON MIGRATION Writing of the prospects of renewed emigration from Britain to the Dominions, Earl Winterton, M.P., says a solution of this problem can never be found by wild and inaccurate statements based on mere sentiment or prejudice. Of the thousands of square miles of empty spaces in Canada and Australia, the vast majority lie within the Arctic circle in the one case and in the region of low rainfall and desert conditions in the other. There are many districts in both Dominions where closer settlement and more intensive cultivation would support a larger population, and means to that end are being taken,-, even if somewhat tardily, by State and Provincial Governments. But the huge areas of rich, virgin land exist only in the imagination of enthusiasts. There is a lot of what may bo termed "margin land" which, given a more equitable world price balance of primary commodities and manufactured goods—a desideratum still far off, though nearer than a year ago—could be profitably farmed. When this increased profit in primary production comes there will be room for many British migrants to participate in it. But they must be trained and suitable for the work. It is no disparagement to the people of the British Isles (since the cause is environmental rather than racial) to say that only a small proportion comes within this category. A necessary equipment for pioneer farming is willingness to work in certain seasons from dawn to dusk, ability to bear extremes of heat or cold, and to endure isolation and be dependent upon oneself. Some previous agricultural and pastoral knowledge is desirable, though many settlers have achieved success without it, where others, relying too much on experience gained in the very different conditions of farming at home, have failed. But the other qualities are indispensable alike in the man and his wife. They arc not necessarily present even in those whose lot, in Britain, is such that migration would offer great opportunities and attractions.