NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23019, 22 April 1938, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS

MILLION PUBLIC SERVANTS Mr. Henry L. Mencken, the eminent American critic, who founded the American Mercury, has now become editor of the Baltimore Evening Sun, says the London correspondent of the Manchester Guardian. All journalistic America held its breath to see what he would do for his first surprise. They were not disappointed. The paper has now reached mo. The editorial page has one. column of leaders and the other seven are a half-tone screen block with nothing on it. The chief leader explains that this is "a graphic representation of the Federal Government's immense corps of job-holders. Each clot stands for one job-holder, and there are a million odd of them. There are 825 dots in each row, counting from side to side, and 1213 in each row, counting from top to bottom. That makes 1,000,725 in all." The leader sukgests that, as the chart is too large for the taxpayer to paste in his hat, ho should frame it and ha«g it on his parlour wall beside the portrait of Mr. Roosevelt.

HUMANIST MORALITY Cruelty is, to the modern man, absolutely unpardonable, writes Dr. W. R. Inge in the Evening Standard. Next to cruelty, the modern man hates the complex of qualities which make up the character of the cad. The cad is mean, cowardly, and untruthful; he has no sense of honour, and takes unfair advantages; he is a false friend and a treacherous enemy. In every relation of life he contradicts the character of the gentleman, ■ which is no longer a class distinction but a national ideal. Humanist morality seems to me to be nearer to the New Testament than the teaching and practice of the medieval Church. Its standard of values is confused and seoular, but even if it goes no further than Lindsay Gordon's lines, Xiife is mostly froth and bnbble; Two things stand like stone — Kindness in another's trouble, Courage in our own, I think our Saviour might have said to one professing it, "Thou art not far from the Kingdom of God.' 5

DREAD SEQUEL TO REVOLUTION What is happening in Soviet Russia to-day appears to illustrate what Mrs. Naomi Mitchison has to say in her new book, "The Moral Basis of Politics," in which she points out that counter-revolutions are often more violent than revolutions. It is fairly obvious, she writes, that anything which is achieved by violence cannot be achieved without hate; a few people may bo able to be violent without hate, but I think this is exceedingly rare. And hate is anti-moral and in practice stops people from getting out of the personal field, since hate is a thing which, like the power instinct, permeates not one appetite alone, but the whole self. Equally it creates hate, fear and irrationality in others and, in turn, a counter-force. It is an obvious historical fact that counter-revolutions are always much more unpleasant and violent than revolutions. Usually the original revolutionaries are trying to .think in wide and moral terms, although many of them cannot do so, but the counter-revolutionaries are in general so full of hate and fear that no moral point of view is possible for them, and they cannot look outside their immediate selves or immediate group of selves.

HERE AND HEREAFTER $ By contrast with the 3ecular doctrine of progress with its exclusive interest in what is seen and temporal the Christian doctrine of progress is different, since it is religious to the core, writes the Rev. J. S. Whale in the Listener. Christian optimism certainly includes this interest in a better order of things on earth: it takes nothing away from this honest, one-sided enthusiasm for the redemption of the world, but it adds something to it — another dimension, as it were. It shares the reformer's indignation at wrong, at needless misery, disease and folly; his healthy rage against the nauseating other-worldliness which would neglect social duty here and now. It knows that if God's will is to be done at all, it is to be done here, on earth. Nevertheless, just because the Christian hope is a religious hope, it looks beyond this earth to a city that hath foundations whose builder and maker is God; it looks beyond time and death. This world can never suffice us; here we have no continuing city, but we seek one that is to conic. The Christian faith understands facts such as food and clothes, houses and education, cities and empires—only against the background of their impermanence. It cares profoundly about to-day, because it cares still more profoundly about the Last Day.

BRITISH FINANCIAL BULWARKS The modern army can wage, war only as long as its country's credit can finance the operations of war, and those operations grow costlier every year, writes Mr. Charles A. McCurdy, K.C., in the Daily Telegraph. Britain's capacity to finance a war depends on the existence and effective working of' free institutions which can turh into liquid

and, therefore, spendable form the accumulated savings of the people. British banks and insurance companies are the most important of these institutions. Experience has known no time when, no place where, and no circumstances in which a draft on any one of tho great British banks would not be honoured. As fast as tho British Government is compelled to pledge the credit of nationals, just so fast can British banks turn that credit into current purchasing power. The part which British insurance companies play in the system of war finance is equally important. A large part of tlioir immense resources consist of titles to wealth which could, in case of a national emergency, be changed into liquid form and made available for current national, expenditure. It is not enough that British banks and insurance companies should be strong. They must be strong enough to command world confidence in their strength. They are the basis of tho financial prestige of Great Britain, and while commodity prices may rocket upward or crash downward, 110 such instability is even thinkable when it comes to the price movements by which foreign powers may gauge the stability of British financial institutions.