NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23143, 15 September 1938, Page 12

NOTES AND COMMENTS

IDEALISTS' WAR CLAMOUR Next to sentiment and moral enthusiasm gone astray, the commonest cause of war is the desire for short cuts to the desired end, states "Scrutator," writing in the Sunday Times in discussing the trend of British public opinion on foreign policy. There are no safe short cuts where the destinies ol nations are concerned, and one would rather trust a cold, enlightened selfishness to avoid war than moral fervour or championship of an ideal. For several years now the idealists, or at any rate tho ideologists, have been the nearest approach to an organised war party in a world which both wants and needs peace. e

BRITISH COLONIAL HERITAGE Britain gained part of her Empire from wars of national defence, pointed out Professor B. Coupland, professor of colonial history at Oxford University, addressing tho British Empire Summer School at Cambridge. J. ho acquisition of tho Empire, he said, was "just a human story —a piece of human history." "Englishmen, after all," he said, "are human beings. If they had been angels, or even uncompromising Christians, I suppose they would, if they had fought any wars, have returned all the prizes of victory to the defeated enemy. If they had been the first to get to empty continents, they would have shared them with other people. But every British human nature is not God-like, and I venture to say that it is only for those nations who are nearer to the angels to cast any stones at us."

LOW PROFITS AND RECESSION A reader asks me bluntly whether tho economic downturn out of which America seems to be emerging was not duo to tho small margin of profit in business operations. I am inclined to say yes, writes an economist in the Christian Science Monitor. There is nothing "cagey" in this qualification; for 1 have never lielH. unlike so many folks, that one variable will explain such a complicated thing as a business depression. .But 1 do feel and ha\e said so before—that a major reason for tho setback that started in 1937 was the manner in which profits and the prospects of profit had been diminished by political and labour action. 7n a book which Mr. Bernard B. Baruch onco recommended, Professor D. H. MacGregor's "Enterprise, Purpose, and Profit," there is a very searching investigation of tho business cycle. The author mentions all the motivations of upturns, and winds up with this statement: "Enterprise has had priority over the other primary indices, and thfi changes upward or downward liavo depended on the prescience of enterprisers." Now to be enterprising you miist- bo hopeful of a future that will yield a profit. Nobody knows what is tho piiniinum profit that will encourage enterprise, but the view that profits as a whole wero dangerously low up to 1937 is, I think, supported by the data.

DIRT-CHEAP ENGLISH ACRES A speaker of world-wide experience said at Rotliamstcd, the oldest and best of agricultural stations, that agricultural land was cheaper in England than in any other country, including a great part of Asia. Immediately after leaving this Rothamsted gathering, writes Sir W. Beach Thomas, 1 heard that a budding fruit farmer had just bought 100 acres for £IOOO. The land is good, the position good, the advantages of modern civilisation in transport and power aro available and the greatest market in the world is not more than 80 miles distant. Another young farmer of my acquaintance bought a farm of similar size in the North Island of New Zealand for £3O an acre. It carried no building and very little fencing; and the market for almost everything it produces is London, some 12,000 miles away. Why is it that in teeming England, which spends at least £300,000,000 on imported food, land is (literally) dirt cheap as compared with acres no better favoured in climate and soil, and immensely remote from ' markets ? Ten pounds an acre for good land close to London is a ludicrous price; and similar land may be bought yet more cheaply. My conviction is that there is no economic reason whatever for this "knocking" of the price of English land. The reasons must he social and psychological. Our civilisation is rigged in favour of the town (and therefore of the middleman) and our minds are subdued to its urbanity. We are content to bo the market, of the world and to permit a prairie at our elbow.

BRITAIN AND THE LEAGUE "But if we,rightly appreciate all the work tho League of Nations has been able to do," said the British Foreign Secretary, Viscount Halifax, speaking in the House of Lords, "there is no reason at all why, under the influence of generous emotion, wo should close the door to reason in tho matter of tho examination of the practical strength in tho political field to be exerted by the League to-day. It is, of course, undeniable in a world of great Powers that it is a source of great weakness to tho League that four of the greatest Powers should stand outside, some of whom are not only out of sympathy, but are opposed to the whole idea and method of international discussion for international purposes for which tho League stands. It is not tho machinery which is at fault, but it is tho unwillingness of peoplo to take advantage of it to adapt it and to make it work. Tho possibilities are there, but there is not, we must admit, a sufficiently general desire to see its possibilities exploited. If tho League is ever itself to fulfil, or if it is ever to show the way by sonic other translation of its purpose to fulfil the idea of a better order for tho world, it is necessary tliat all great nations should be brought to co-operate in the attempt. I do not delude myself by supposing that it is possible for us to hope lor any such early immediate issue, but that must remain, I think, the objective to which a great part of our endeavours must bo directed. The difficulties which confront the League are, of course, great indeed. It is quite true that tho League is in rough water, and that difficult and testing times no doubt lie in front of the League. But, none the less, our intention is to foster and sustain tho League to tho utmost of our power, doing our best to adapt its practice to circumstances, as prudence and wisdom may suggest to bo most necessary, because wo bolievo the League itself in fact enshrines principles vital to world society."