NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23150, 23 September 1938, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS

NEW ANGLE ON REFUGEES I think it would bo possible to write history to show that races have prospered just in proportion as they have been refreshed with new blood, writes Mr. .T. A. Spender in the Yorkshire Observer. The excess of nationalism is sufficiently dangerous without being aggravated with racialism and antisemitisni. The countries with stationary or declining birth-rates must keep their doors open, the countries with an excess of population must have outlets. If there is not this voluntary give and tako and mutual reciprocity between nations, the causes of strife will multiply and there will bo no hope of lasting peace. Not to be loss but to be more hospitable to the strangers within or knocking at our gates is one of the lessons which tho world most needs to-day. Tho most practical conclusion for tho inonfent is that we must all do our part in solving the terrible refugee problem, which has just been explored at the Evian Conference. POSITIVE PEACE EFFORT "There are in tho world to-day fears, suspicions, and what many regard as injustices, which might well bo the underlying causes of another war. It is tho task of all men of goodwill to work constructively to remove them if they can," said Sir Kings'ey Wood, British Air Minister, in a recent speech. "The strength of Great Britain is a decisive factor in the. preservation of peace. With that belief we are determined to press on with the rearmament of Britain with all speed, confident in the knowledge that no country will ever havo any justification for accusing us of aggressive intentions or actions. Ihe defence of our country and, above all, tho defence of peaco, will always be our objective. A policy of rearmament is not sufficient in itself to ensure the maintenance of peace. We must make positive efforts to achieve it. We must secure such effective co-operation between tho nations that all may live together in amity, trading freely with one another, and ready to settle their differences by other moans than force." WHITE OR BROWN BREAD There has always been a dispute as to'whether tjio stone-ground flour or the white flour is the better food, whether ono ought to eat white bread or brown bread, writes Sir Daniel Hall, tho English authority on agriculture, in his book, "Our Daily Bread." Now modern science has discovered that certain valuable constituents of food called vitamins are present in the husk and germ, but not in white flour. People are apt to get rather excited about this question of white or brown bread, moro positive perhaps than tho science -of the matter should allow. But as in so many of these cases there is no single answer. It is probable that brown bread containing a certain amount of the husk is better for children or grownup men and women who lead quiet lives in towns without much exercise, but men doing hard work can get better value out of white bread. Though the germ is so highly nutritious it cannot bo left in the flour because it contains certain fats which make the flour keep badly and other substances which tend to make the bread soft and sad. THE FUTURE IN SPAIN "I cannot help feeling that in years to come this Spanish revolt or civil war, whatever you desire to call it, will tako an infinitely smaller place in history than it occupies in the thoughts and more particularly in the press of the world at this moment," said the Marquess of Crewe, speaking in tho House of Lords. "It is probably not unnatural that it should be so, bec.iuse tho horrors of the war there havo been accentuated, as they have been in tho war in China, by the diabolical nso which science has enabled warring nations to make of modern invention, and therefore the newspapers ar? full of heartrending accounts of massacre. It is, therefore, not astonishing that the minds of men and women all over the world should bo directed toward news of tho conflict. But I repeat that in my. opinion it will not in itself, in any history written in the future, take at all the samo place as it now occupies. I think in ono sense it will bo like 'a mist that rolls away.' Spain, as I firmly believe, will emerge from it, and will in somo way work out her own destiny—in a way which T for one shall not see. but not, I believe, a destiny which will make her subservient either to the principles of Home or to the principles of Moscow. I have an intense belief in the firmness and depth of the Spanish character. In what form it will emerge 1 cannot pretend to predict." NATIONAL SERVICE

It would . seem probable that the threat of a new type of warfare which will involve the whole population is beneath the surface creating a new attitude toward national service in Great Britain, says the Economist. Certain it is that the great mass of people will look to the Government to tell them what to do, and a very great number would wish to be prepared in advance, if such a change is indeed taking place, it would only mean that British public opinion is falling into line with that of other democracies. On this matter, British opinion stands alone in suspecting that conscription is a weapon of autocracy or a sign of tyranny. In actual fact it was invented in the most democratic period of the French Revolution; it was used by tho Americans in their war against England, and is to-day regarded not only in that country, but in other democracies as a sign of equality of service. Nor can it be condemned out of hand as fostering militarism when it is remembered that compulsory service in some form exists not only in France and Czechoslavakia, but in Scandinavia and in Switzerland, and that it was adopted in some of tho British Dominions. Indeed, it is one of tho chief ways in which most democracies in the world givo effect to tho principle that the citizen has duties to tho State as well as rights. In many countries it would bo argued that a citizen army is a safoguard of democracy, while a professional army is an organism with class interests of its own, potentially dangerous to the democratic principle/. . . There is no likelihood whatever of Britain becoming warminded or of its policy becoming aggressive. But it is equally true that it would have a steadying effect on international politics if it were demonstrated beyond question that the people of Groat Britain were ready forthwith to take whatever action might bo needed to fit tho country for the defence of democracy, and international decency*