NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23026, 2 May 1938, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS

UNION MADE INEVITABLE It has been rightly said that Napoleon made Bismarck's Germany, writes Mr. J. L. Garvin in the London Observer. No less is it true that the Allies and their Associate (the United States) in 1919 remade Hitler's Germany and on a larger scale. In their attempt to over-capitalise victory and fix a temporary omnipotence for ever they destroyed the old Austro-Hun-garian Empire instead of transforming it into a great federation of free peoples. When the Allies and their Associate dethroned Vienna from its ancient place as metropolis of the Danube; when they reduced Austria proper to an isolated and forlorn fragment, incapable by itself of an existence worthy of its past—when they did these things they themselves made inevitable the ultimate Anschluss between Germany and Austria which was achieved on March 12. „ ORIGINS OF HUMOUR Humour defies definition. As Chesterton says, it boasts of being indefinable. Indeed, says the Listener, to attempt to define it would be as sad a business as attempting to explain a joke. And if the nature of humour is indeterminate, its origins seem equally obscure. Mr. J. B. Morton says that humour has its roots in religion. The scientists on the other hand have told us that humour and laughter have their beginnings in the exultations of the savage over his fallen foe; and certainly if we want some modern confirmation of this latter theory, we need look no farther than the nursery, where nature in the raw is seldom mild. Here we find that few things amuse a child so much as the sight of someone else discomforted. The man who sits down on a chair that isn't there may raise Cain, but he seldom fails to raise a laugh. And it may be that because there is something of the child (and not a little of a savage) in most of us, the knockabout type of humour has, and always has had, a universal appeal. Joey the clown sends I laughter ringing down the ages. CYCLISTS ON THE ROADS One-fifth of the killed and nearly oneI third of the injured in the London ! Metropolitan area were pedal cyclists, and the cyclists were generally to blame, said Mr. H. Alker Tripp, Assistant Commissioner of Police, London, giving evidence before the House of Lords Select Committee on the Prevention of Road Accidents. It was difficult to find a solution. The police would bo very glad to have cycle tracks wherever possible, but they were least possible where they were most wanted—namely, i in towns. Even so, special tracks could j not be a complete safeguard. About 75 J per cent of the cycling casualties j occurred at crossroads where cycle j tracks were impracticable. Another im- ! portant difficulty was that pedal cyclists j who might be responsible for offences on ! the roads could not be traced. The | Commissioner of Police took the view ■ quite definitely that the registration i and licensing of pedal cyclists would j be a considerable help toward the rei j duction of accidents among them. He . i did not advocate any further regulaj tion of motor drivers and he was satisfied that the penalties that could be • imposed by statute were adequate. | "A GAMBLE WITH LIVES" . I v —™" , « "It is quite true that in these days i no one can say where or when a war . will end once it has begun, or what Governments may ultimately be eni tangled in a dispute which originally , might have been confined to some remote corner of Europe," said the • British Prime Minister, Mr. Chamberlain, speaking at Birmingham. "But at i least we ought to reserve to ourselves i the right to say whether we consider [ it necessary to enter into such a war or ' not, and we ought not to hand over to j others the determination of our action I when it might involve such tremendous r consequences to ourselves. Sometimes I we are told that if only wo took a bolder course, if we were to lay down here and now precisely the circumstances in which we would or would not go to war, we should give such a warning to the world that there would in f fact be no war. That would be a gamble, and it would be a gamble not with r money, but with the lives of men, women and children of our own race . and blood. I am not prepared to enter 3 into a gamble of that kind, and though f the stern necessity for war may arise in £ the future, as it has arisen in the I would not give the word for it unless ' I wero absolutely convinced that in no 3 other way could we preserve our 5 liberty."

FACTS AND THE LEAGUE The main objective of all British policy must be honourable peace, said the Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, speaking at Bristol. First, they must; be prepared to fa<?e the facts; and the more unpleasant and obstinate the facts were, the more necessary it was to face them. Many people would ask the Government to call the Assembly of the League in order that it might pass resolutions condemning things of which British opinion was held to disapprove. He could not believe that that would at this moment do any good to the League or to the world. The League of Nations was the expression and embodiment of some of the deepest longings of devoted men of all nations, who have dreamt dreams and seen visions of peace —based upon universal co-operation and protected against the law-breaker by the combined forc§ of all. Those ideals would remain, and he believed that after successive generations had striven for them those high purposes would one day be won. But the League had never been, and was not, the universal body that its founders hoped, and its power had been seriously and progressively impaired by the withdrawal of Germany, Italy and Japan. Britain still intended to make the fullest use she could of the League within the limits which she was obliged to recognise, and those were not disloyal to the League ideal who had regard to its actual capacity. Was it good sense to ask a 10-ton lorry to carry a 20-ton load, or that great little horse Battleship to carry 15 stone round the Grand "National course at AintreeP.