NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23053, 2 June 1938, Page 12

NOTES AND COMMENTS

MORE DEADLY THAN BOMBERS Startling road casualty figures were given by Mr. F. W. Hirst, vice-presi-dent of the English Pedestrians' Association, in a recent address. "According to a Catalonian Government statement," he said, "1542 peoplo were killed and 1979 wounded in Catalonia in 212 air raids and 17 bombardments from the sea from the beginning of the civil war (July, 1936) to February 5 last. During the same period 1637 have been killed and 82,507 injured in the London Metropolitan police area in road accidents. The figure for the whole of Great Britain is 10,235 killed and 343,389 injured. If you ask almost anyone," added Mr. Hirst, " 'What is your main objection to warp' he would probably reply, 'The loss of life and limb, the agony of wounded and dying soldiers, the anguish of those at home.' Yet many fervent lovers of peace who would bo ready to sacrifice almost anything to prevent another war watch with a patience worthy of a better cause the daily toll of our roads." CHAMPION WEIGHT-CARRIER "Why is there no statue to the British, taxpayer?" asks Mr. Beverley Baxter, M.P., writing in the Sunday Graphic. "He is the real hero of the peace, the champion weight-carrier of all time, the imponderable and unconquerable force in the whirligig of postwar history. Let us dismount one of I the many generals who dominate the squares of London and put up a bronze memorial to the man who really matters. It could be done quite cheaply, j There would be no horse, for the tax- | payer rides in the train, the omnibus i or the underground. There would bo no medals to be engraved, for the only acknowledgment ho ever gets from a grateful Government is a final notice and a receipt. But what a man! I intend to raise this matter in the House of Commons. Wo should erect a statue in Parliament Square to the Man Who Pays, and once a year the Chancellor of the Exchequer should be made to bow three times, after which the Members of both Houses of Parliament should file past." GOOD WILL TO MEN Mrs. Franklin Roosevelt, the wife of the President of the United States, is the author of "This Troubled World," a book in which she gives her view on the remedies of the world's ills and the methods which must be adopted for peace and disarmament. On the general question Mrs. Roosevelt says:—A friend of mine wrote me the other day that she wondered what would happen if occasionally a member of Congress got up and mentioned in the House the existence of brotherly love. You laugh; it seems fantastic, but this subject will, I am sure, have to be discussed throughout the world. We will have to want peace, want it enough to pay for it, pay for it in our own behaviour and in material ways. Some time we must begin, for where there is no beginning there is no end, and if we hope to see the preservation of our civilisation, if we believe that there is anything worthy of perpetuation in what we have built thus far, then our people must turn to brotherly love, not as a doctrine, but as a way of living. If this becomes our accepted way of life, this life may bo so well worth living that we will look into the future with a desire to perpetuate a peaceful world for our children. With this desire will come a realisation that only if others feel as we do, can we obtain the objectives of peace on earth, good will to men. POPULAR PSYCHOLOGY "This development of public interest in psychology has become positively embarrassing to the psychologist himself," said Professor James Drever, University of Edinburgh, in a speech on "Psychology and the Community." "There is no want of charlatans in the field of psychology In recent times there has been an enormous development, not merely in the science of psychology, but also a development of public interest in the science. The serious psychologist who is in charge of university work in psychology is apt to be a little uneasy as to what has happened, because obviously the popularity of tho science or the popularity; of any subject always is the opportunity for the charlatan. What often masquerades as psychology at the present time will very seldom be recognised as such by the professional psychologist. There are varieties of stuff presented to the public, and all levels of psychological insight from pure nonsense, and pernicious nonsense at that, to a level which is little if at all above tho level reached in some of the detective stories we read. In fact, tho situation has become so serious that tho British Psychological Association, over which I have the honour to preside, has decided to consider what action we can possibly take to protect the public against exploitation in tho name of psychology.'' NEW DIPLOMACY'S DANGERS The crowd, tho masses, tho millions, receiving through eyes and ears, by nowspapers, radio and cinema a continuous stream of world life, have rushed into foreign policy, . writes Senor Salvador Do Madariaga, who represented Spain for so many years on the League of Nations at Geneva. There was a day, ho continues, when nations concluded agreements, then kept or broke them according to plan. The chess of diplomacy had its rules; even tho breaking of them could bo more or less accurately adumbrated and forestalled by an expert player. But nowadays what a nation thinks and feels at tho time a pledge is given is no guarantee of what she will think and feel when tho time comes to honour it. The masses want to know and have a say in all that is done in foreign affairs, a change for the better in many ways, but one which makes world relations unpredictable, and therefore fraught with danger. Diplomatic relations are no longer a game of chess; they are rather like the mighty movements of waters, tides, floods, storms and cataracts —save that they are made of human waves and are not beyond the influence of magic charmers, dainbreakers and storm-raisers. Once the machinery for playing on tho millions has been set up by somo efficient minister of propaganda, a loader may play with a nation as an organist with an organ and raise waves of passion, seas of emotion, cataracts of fury, storms of war.