NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23082, 6 July 1938, Page 12

NOTES AND COMMENTS

CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW Chelsea Flower Show is a horticultural shrine of magnetic attraction which this year shows no diminution in the splendour of its floral wealth, no lessening of that amazing enthusiasm which thrills with a single mind the vast numbers assembled on those few acres in the name of gardening, writes ]\lr. A. T. Johnson in the Sunday Times. The one predominant impression that the visitor to Chelsea comes away with is that wo British arc a nation of gardeners. For, describe this event as you will—a cosmopolitan garden party, a garden industries fair, the greatest flower show in the world —you cannot fail to observe that those who throng these grounds are drawn from every grade of life, that this brotherhood of gardening is not only a national institution, but a national tradition more deeply rooted in the heart of England's soil and England's pcoplo than any other pursuit.

ROAD TRANSPORT'S VALUE Road haulage has been the stormy petrel in transport for the last dozen years, with the result that many aro apt to regard it as something new, writes Mr. J. S. Nicholl in tho Listener. Actually road transport is a very ancient industry—its history is tho history of tho wheel and tho road. I do not think anyone knows when tho wheel was invented, but Solomon had 1400 chariots and it was regarded as an ancient device then. The road carrying industry is a vital part of the nation's transport, both in peaco and war, and it is not afraid of being judged on its own merits. To me its most valuable services lio ip the contribution it has made toward improvements in tho general standard of living—the way in which it has reversed the tendency for the population to be concentrated in restricted industrial areas and brought to the country-dweller luxuries unheard of by him thirty years ago.

" DISASTROUS FORMALISM " The most imperative need is peace, and the first question to ask about a given policy (such as the recognition of Italy's conquest of Abyssinia) is whether it tends to buttress peace, or at least diminish the danger of war, not whether it conforms in all particulars with the provisions of the Covenant, says the Spectator. The AngloItalian accord cannot bo justified by the latter criterion; it can by the former. The Covenant was formed to guide the actions of a League in which a vast predominance of power over any challenger was axiomatic. To assign to it the same function in a world in which three great totalitarian States are not merely outside the League but defiantly hostile to it argues slavery to a disastrous formalism. You do not bring a hostile State nearer to Geneva by running foul of it further. A policy of appeasement need not cut across the League's ultimate and fundamental aims because at some point it cannot be squared with this or that article of tlio Covenant. The task of statesmanship is to create a world in which the League can function as it ought at a moment when a pedantic application of procedures framed for completely different conditions would plunge civilisation in a disaster in which the first and most inevitable casualty would be the League itself.

PHYSIC FOR THE MIND "A library is a heavenly pasture in which one can find sustenance and nourishment. I am thinking particularly of 'ordinary men' like myself," said Lord Baldwin, in a recent, address. "I like to think that a library exists largely for the purpose of keeping my mind sweet and keeping my resolution firm. There are times when books are the only physic for the mind. I had had 20 continuous years as difficult and as hard as have fallen to the lot of most men. I looked forward for many years to my hour of release, and I always pictured myself sitting down and doing two things, reading and thinking. I found when I left office that I could do neither. For months afterward I felt unable to do anything. Then gradually came to my sub-conscious mind the thought that I must go back to the poets. The first book I picked up ajid read after some time was Wordsworth's 'Excursion.' I read it night by night. That did me good. I then felt the need of something rather different. I began to contrast the peace of those books with the restless world outside. I thought of Europe once more, as in the past, fluid. I thought of the great crises iji history, and I took down 'The Dynasts.' Later I went on to read the letters of Erasmus, which I had not read for more than 50 years. They are the letters of a mind fine and {sensitive, which lived in a time when Europo was breaking up."

DEMOCRATIC FRONT "Much is said of war in Europe," said M. Paul Reynaud, French Minister of Justice and Deputy Premier, speaking at Leeds. "What is the position of our two pacific democracies, Britain and France? Must they abandon all their ideals ? Must thc.v renounce their traditional policy of the defence of Europe against the hegemony of any single Power? The situation is not the same in Europe to-day as it was in the past. It is no longer a matter of a change of rulers in any particular land involving little or no alteration in the lifo of the people. The very composition of life, the liberty of acting and knowing, of thinking and I believing, ore at stake. Our first duty is not to underestimate our own strength. The democracies have no reason to give way in Europe. Their potential war strength is infinitely greater than that of their possible opponents. As to raw materials, their supplies amount in certain cases to the virtual control of markets. Their mastership of tho sea nnd their gold reserves would enable them to obtain supplies from all over the world. But even these advantages do not free us from the necessity of making such preparations as the armaments of others impose upon us. Therefore, with tho fevered rearming of other countries, our people must ask themselves tho question: 'Can democracies bo persuaded to mako, for tho defence- of their ideals and of their vital interests, sacrifices as heavy ns those which dictators impose upon their peoples?' This effort of democracy is essential for tho prevention of war."