NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22975, 1 March 1938, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS

TEMPERAMENTAL PACE Pace and sense of value are the two fundamentals of human, temperament, write 3 Dr. Murdo Mackenzie in his book, "When Temperaments Cla&h." They are the means through which folk live human lives. They emerge when imagination separates human from nonhuman existence. They mark where biology and physiology end and where psychology begins. To study humans without assessing their temperamental pace and their temperamental sense of value is like judging the capacity of a lion without looking at his teetlror the competence of a golden eagle without examining its talons. It is the proper use of the claws, the teeth, the muscles, the eyes and the ears' which makes the successful lion and eagle; it is the proper use of the temperamental pace and sense of value which makes the efficient human. Great humans consciously or unconsciously know what their bias is and release it to the full." FAMILY ALLOWANCES The decision of an English firm of glass manufacturers to introduce a system of family allowances for their workers is more than a commendable piece of social benevolence, says the Spectator. The proposal, which is now operating, is to pay a bonus of 5s a week to employees for each child above three of school age. In one of the firm's works alone it is reported that at least 500 families will receive such benefits. At the same time, so far as there is a family allowance problem, it cannot be solved in this way. If individual employers undertook to endow large families the temptation to employ only men with small families wouid be irresistible. The only obvious way of avoiding that difficulty is by adopting the system, widely practised on the Continent, of equalisation funds, by which employers in a given area or industry pool the cost of bonuses, or, alternatively, by the State instituting a national family allowance system and paying the bonuses itself. MATTERS OF TASTE Speaking in defence of what is called vulgarity, Mr. Louis MacXiece said in a recent 8.8.C. broadcast: —"What is called simple *ood taste in decoration scares ine. X don't like too much fit—-ness-for-purpose —what is called functionalism. I don't care for simple lines, or natural colouring on curtains or chair covers, or pastel shades on the walls, or steel furniture, or woodwork with no carvings on it. I get tired of blank spaces, and often find myself yearning for wallpaper instead of" distemper. And once the wallpaper is there I should like to have it covered with roses. And like some other people I find it easier to work in a room which is definitely over-decorated. A\ hen it comes to art, I am all against the rarefying effects of good taste, and have no sympathy with the idea that artists are people who should not soil their fingers with life. I don't agree that the style is the man. I always feel a vulgar curiosity to know what the man is talking about. In the case of pictures, I take a vulgar interest in their subject. In thai case of music, I have a vulgar preference for semething with a tune." A VERY OLD MAN'S FAITH Prebendary Carlisle, founder of the Church Army, who is 91 years of age, answers the hopelessness and despair of those under 30 who have recently been writing to the Spectator. He says:— The times are serious; the times are hopeful. I am old enough to know in my own experience that when we were most conscious of evil, then were we most keen to try to see things right. When in the eighteen-eighties my fellow-workers and I were half-killed night by night because we dared assault the enemies drink and lust, then came the most powerful portrayal of the Divine hand in human affairs. It was shown by the winning over of our most bitter antagonists and opponents, who in their turn helped us to win others: "I have lived, seen God's hand through a lifetime, And all was for best." The end, so far as this life is concerned, cannot, for me, be far away. God's in His heaven. I will not go on to say all is right with the world, because it isn't. But those under 30 —yes, and others too—should see in these stern times not causes for despair, not reason for closing the eyes and drifting with the tide, but opportunities. RED CROSS IN MODERN WAR

Writing on the use of the red cross in modern war, the Lancet says:—"The aeroplane and the blockade have extended the boundaries of warfare so that every civilian becomes a combatant. Those who make war to-day intend to win at almost any cost, and it is not surprising to find them more and more inclined, for example, to torture and kill their prisoners when it suits them and to bomb hospitals by way of routine. The red cross is a symbol of neutrality—comparable to a flag of truce under which the wounded are rescued and cared for. The wearer of this badp*> has certain privileges and in return xor them agrees to bear no arms and to render similar service to the enemy if they take him prisoner. The idealist may therefore look upon the red cross worker as the representative of peace in the midst of war, of sanity in the midst of madness—a man serving something higher than either combatant can serve. The military authorities, however, more realistically, regard their medical corps merely as auxiliary services necessary to success in any large or prolonged operations in the field. The value of a doctor to them is such that during the late war they recalled medical students who had been expensively trained as combatant officers and sent them back to medical schools to qualify as non-combatant medical officers. To-day wo see the Committee of Imperial Defence taking steps to secure the aid it would urgently need from medicine if war were to break out; and this is only its duty. The plain fact is that the doctor serving a modern army in any capai itj is no more neutral than the munition worker or the artilleryman. And since neutral he will bo bombed. he is bombed he will be compelled to remove or camouflage the red cross that no longer protects him—as had to be done by hospitals in Abyssinia and is being done by "hospitals in Spain."