NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23042, 20 May 1938, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS

SPREADING HOLIDAYS A new chapter in the history of British holidays opens with this summer, notes the London Observer. The concession of "holidays with pay" has already been widely made. It is a true social advance, as all must admit who have noted what Germany's "Strength Through Joy" movement has done for the health and spirit of an industrial population. But it must bo seen to at once that the boon is not diminished in value by lack of method and forethought. The millions added to the holiday-making crowd cannot possibly bo accommodated in the conventionally brief holiday season. There are not lodgings to hold them, nor trains or coaches to carry them. The spreading of vacations over the whole area of the summer will have to bo undertaken at once. BRITAIN AND GERMANY Herr Hitler's conciliatory gestures have "been disregarded and his offers brushed on one side, writes the Marquess of Londonderry in his book, "Ourselves and Germany." German armaments have been rapidly and efficiently built upon a model which thoso who claim to speak with authority in the Reich assert is designed ultimately to make that country invincible on land and sea and in the air. Herr Hitler has repeatedly solicited tlj.o goodwill of England and the friendly co-opera-tion of the German and English peoples. The time may well be not far off,, should the present unsatisfactory and uncertain state of Anglo-German relations bo allowed to continue, when the Germans will bo able to dispense with the hope of any understanding with us and to strike out along a course of Weltpolitik frankly antagonistic to Great Britain and her many imperial and commercial interests. FORCE TO BACK DIPLOMACY "We are living in a dangerous world, hut the strength of Britain is already such that anybody will pause before committing his country to an attack on the British Empire," sajfcl Mr. Ormsby-Gore, the Colonial Secretary (now Lord Harlech), in a recent speech. "I am satisfied that we have to endeavour to get reconciliation wherever we can, and above all, we have to try and look forward to the day when we can get back to an effective League of Nations and to something approaching collective security, by getting a more comprehensive vie*." Was it not perfectly clear, ho continued, that diplomacy to-day was quite useless unless there was armed strength behind it, and a national resolve behind that armed strength? They had to face the fact that diplomacy and representations—sending Notes and making speeches—counted for nothing unless behind them there was the power to back them up by national force in the last resort.

TWOS, THREES AND MILLIONS I lately received a letter from a lady who is greatly troubled, writes Mr. St. John Ervine, the dramatic critic. She is the mother of three sons, each of whom is still at school, and she is full of concern about the world which they are about to enter. Wherever she looks she sees signs of a gross materialism which appal her as a woman and as a mother. She makes no reference to the horrible mood which prevails in international politics or to the prospect which oppresses so many people to-day, that these young we are rearing so carefully may be slaughtered in masses to satisfy dictators. She has the wisdom to perceive that the larger wickedness is only the outcome of the smaller, and that the things wo do by twos and threes are the cause of the things we do by millions. If the individual's outlook on life is entirely gross, has he any ground for complaint when he discovers that the general outlook on life is gross? Communicating his own bad ma unci's to other people, can lie reasonably complain if they better his instructions and become as ill-bred as ho is himself? What my correspondent wants to know is, if wo are loose in our language, ought we to feel surprised that we become loose in our behaviour and if wo are loose in our behaviour and loose iji our attitude toward misbehaviour elsewhere, can wo fairly complain if nations behave no better than individuals?

GETTING THE SECOND WIND We are all familiar with the phenomenon of the second wind, writes Mr. Milton Wright, iji his book, "Managing Yourself." You are working, at something—never mind at what task —and you begin to feel tired. You keep on and it makes you still more tired. Still you keep on, and then the transformation comes. Maybe gradually, maybe suddenly, your fatigue is gone. You find yourself working more smoothly, more easily, moro quickly and more effectively than when you began to work. Tho task becomes a pleasure. You do not tire so quickly. It is a characteristic of this second level of energy that it is more abundant than the first superficial level of energy on which you started out. When you do reach the end of your second wind, you may still keep on. There is yet a third level of energy that is longer and moro abundant still. There is even a fourth level. Why, then, should you ho so weak as to give up at the first sign of feeling tired? It is quite unnecessary. Yon need have no fear that pushing on past the first level of fatigue and into tho second or third energy level is a dangerous thing to do. These deeper wells of energy are not merely reservoirs to bo used for emergencies only. To bore into them is not to approach exhaustion, to draw on resources which cannot be replaced. Those energies are repaired, restored apd refreshed by precisely the same means as are the more superficial energies to whoso sagging you were going to succumb at the first sign of fatigue. As William James has put it:—"lt is evident that our organism has stored up reserves of energy that nro ordinarily not called upon, but that may bo called upon; deeper and deeper strata of combustible or explosive material, discontinuously arranged, but ready for use by anyone who probes so deep, and repairing themselves by rest as well as do the superficial strata. Most of us continue living unnecessarily hear the surface."