NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23078, 1 July 1938, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS

CHINA'S DEFENSIVE POWER Notes of a revealing recent conversation on China are published by "Janus" in the Spectator. The conversation was with a very competent and well-informed Chinese now in Europe. "Are yon going to be able to hold Soochow (the object of all the recent fighting in Shantung) ? I asked him. I don't know," he answered, "and it doesn't matter —to us. It matters a great deal to the Japanese to fail to take it, but if we lose it wo simply fall back a little further," and be pointed out on a map how relatively slight Japan's penetration into China was. "Wo have plenty of supplies coming in and plenty of men. Tho further Japan advances the more her communications will bo exposed, .and meanwhile sho is cementing China's unity all tho time."

REPUBLIC OF LETTERS " It is a comfort to know that there is a brotherhood of men and women who love books," said Lord Baldwin in opening a library at Liverpool. "It is not a brotherhood that has its borders closed. Anyone can belong to it. Wo recruit from all ranks and we are a spiritual republic. A library liko this is a trcasure-houso of tho greatest language in the world, The English tongue never needed guarding more than it does to-day. Hero is the best; and let young people soak themselves in their mother tongue. They can have no greater safeguard against tho secondrate, third-rate, meretricious, cheap and trashy. They can never be attracted to these if once they are soaked in the best their mother tongue can give them. Every student of economics will remember a thing called Gresham's Law, and what happens if you attempt to keep a debased metallic currency on a par with a better metal. A bad, debased language can drive out the good words from our language, and if that law continues to act, as it will in circumstances, we may see tho English language driven out of this country, and .nothing left but bilge!"

PSYCHOLOGY NOT ENOUGH I think religion would be well served just now if our psychologists would talk not about their' patients but about themselves, in full admission of tho failure of their own methods to give them massive content and peace, with regenerative change, writes the Rev. A. E. Whitliam, discussing tho limits of psychology in his book. "The Discipline and Culturo of tho Spiritual Life." Tho needs of tho human heart are too desperate for any foolery of make-believe, however solemn, pontifical or unctuous; they are too desperato for many methods that are not makebelieve. For the true psychologist is not fooling, nor is he treating unreal things, noj* is he treating them in an unreal way. But ho is not ablo to treat tho really serious things in an adequate way—not tho serious things I think of when I think'of religion. There is a vast field for him to work in, the field of nervous disorder and mental derangement; and, as most of us ought to be in a mental homo for part of our life, and some of us for a good part, he is of constant use. But I may be as normal as the sunrise and sunset (mentally), yet be the most eccentric piece of goods morally and spiritually; and in these regions there is very much more to be done than can be dono by the psychologist, especially ! when you know it is being dono by a psychologist.

BUSINESS INTEGRITY "Was it not Mark Twain who said, 'Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they arc more deadly in the long run'?" asked Mr. Leslie Burgin, British Minister of Transport, at a meeting of the British Bankers' Association. "The chemist in the laboratory has open to him a simple tost by which he can instantaneously determine acid cr alkali. So every banker, every Chancellor of the Exchequer, and most leaders of tho world would give a good deal to have a similar test to find the credit-worthy borrower. In the long run business, meaning thereby interchange, depends upon standards of integrity. There is a growing conception that the simple virtues have never been ol greater worth. Treaties, bargains, understandings, contracts, are not oni> useless, but may be dangerous unless based on good faith. The morals of out day-to-day contacts with each oihei should be the pattern and example ol tho morals of our dealings with eacli other on a larger scale in commerce and national interest. In spite of signs tc the contrary in some parts of the world, I confess I am able to believe thai honesty is appreciated, has its reward, is good banking security and first-class policy. A casual disillusionment oughi not to upset your standard of values any more than an attack of jaundice upsets your idea of tho colour of tlu skin."

VALUE OF LIVES NOT LIVED The law is often, if not always, an nss, and nothing oonlcl make it look sillier, says the Spectator, than a series of cases which have been brought hefore the Courts siijce the Law Reform Act. of 1934 provided that causes of action vested in a dead man should survive ,for the benefit of his estate, and the House of Lords in 1937 decided that this ■ meant that a dead man's executors .could sue for Lis loss of expectation of life in case of accident. Thousands of people are killed in motor-car accidents every year; and when death is duo to someone else's negligence, their estates can recover damages for the life the dead men have not lived. What is its value? In tho Courts a few weeks ago, a common jury, in tho case of a child of three, said it was £IOOO. but .Mr. Justice Charles thought £l5O adequate. It mighr with as much reason have been put at £1,000,000 or Id. In the caso of another child of three loss of expectation of life was assessed at £9O, of a child of eight at £ISOO, of a woman of 71 at £6OO. Any enactment likely to bring tho law into contempt is to be deplored, and any law that places on Judges the responsibility for making decisions of whose Tightness there can be no rational criterion is a bad law. There seems to be every reason why the Courts should be relieved of the task of assessing the monetary value of life itself; at least si regular scale ot charges might be drawn up.