NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23194, 14 November 1938, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS

ORDEAL FOR PEACE When the issues of peace and war were still in the balanco during the Czechoslovakia crisis, Mr. Harold Nicolson, M.P., in his review for the British Broadcasting Corporation of the week's events, said: —"'lf the worst comes to the worst, there arc certain things of which we are all positive. Wo know—the whole world knows—that the Prime Minister, during the last days, has fought for peace and only for peace. He has not flinched from physical ordeals, from moral mortifications, or from what Lord Baldwin once called 'the hardest of all a politician's sufferings—the attribution of false motives.' Mr. Chamberlain has known that the baser feelings of pride, vanity or anger should not be allowed to weigh in the scales of peace. By accepting personal humiliation at the hands of Herr Hitler, and for the sake of peace, he has acquired a dignity such as few statesmen in history have ever won. If he fails, then his record is not one of which Britain will ever feel ashamed." NURSES' RESOLVE

Nurses from many countries gathered in conference in Switzerland framed a message to their fellows all over the world, beginning:—The world to-day stands at the cross-roads, and civilisation must listen either to God or to guns. The nursing profession has always been in the forefront of the battle for civilisation against the undermining forces of disease. The battle rages more fiercely than ev3r to-day against the world diseases of fear, greed, strain and disintegration. Florence Nightingalo reformed the nursing profession in her time. Sho was able to do this because sho had first a passion for her country and a longing to meet the needs of other people. Sho had no thought of personal reputation, ambition or comfort. She was carried through by her vision and determination, and her faith in the guidance of God. If wo nurses today are to serve God's purpose for our country wo must make a willing sacrifice of personal ambition and security. This can only begin with co-operation and lasting peace in our own lives and in our own profession. It is up to us to see that the new world has this firm basis of health to build upon. THE CRITICS CONFRONTED

Those who criticse British and French Ministers for yielding to what they describe as German intimidation are presumably prepared to risk war in defence of the territorial integrity of Czechoslovakia, says tho Scotsman. If they are not so prepared, they have no right to criticise. It will no doubt be said that Germany would not have gone to war to secure the "liberation" of the Sudetens. She might threaten war, as indeed she has done by mobilisation under tho guise of army manoeuvres, but she would not in the last resort invade Czechoslovakia if she thought she would bo opposed by France and Great Britain. It is possible to argue along these lines, but it is not a convincing argument. At the very least there was a grave risk that Germany was not bluffing, and if she were not bluffing it would be too late to draw back when Berlin had given the order to -march. We could not then call off the fight and make the proposals for the secession of the Sudetens which wero approved at Downing Street. The responsible Ministers of France and Great Britain know far more about Germany's intentions and Germany's military preparedness than do their critics; and if they believe that a further bid for a jjeaceful solution should bo made they are no doubt acting with reasoned judgment. FACTORS IN EDUCATION

The interdependence ;if the family, school and church in the education of youth was stressed by Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia University, in an address to students. "The American college has long since come to occupy a vitally important place in the training of our nation's youth," Dr. Butler declared. "The colleges rest upon the family and the school, and needs the co-operation of the church. It receives youth at just about tho time when the ancient Roman parent provided for his son the toga virilis, and for three or four years it inspires, it instructs, it disciplines, in order that those may bo years of abundance in the life of that youth of to-day which must take responsibility for its share in the guidance of the civilisation of to-morrow." College instruction is called a liberal education because it prepares men to live in a democratic state, Dr. Butler said, adding that "no liberal education is possible in tho present-day totalitarian states, since it is fundamental to their policy, and, indeed, to their continued existence, that all youth bo cast in a common mould and that absolute obedience and conformity bo given tho place which wo have been so glad to reserve for liberty." GOVERNMENTS AND TRADE

Governments come and Governments go, but in Britain up to now—if Sir William Beveridge, the eminent economist, is right—they have no more been able to chock tho irresistible ebb and flow of national trade than King Canuto could stop the sea, says tho Christian Science Monitor. Sir William has been making a statistical study of the recurrence of good and bad periods in employment in Britain covering tho period from 1860 to 1938, and he has como to the conclusion that the so-called trade cycle is a fact. Those seventy-eight years were marked by alternato periods of rising and falling employment, each rise or fall generally lasting for throo years or more, but with some deviations in tho length of timo between tho peak of tho boom and tho nadir of tho slump. Plotted as curveß the levels of employment were seen as wave-like movements of unequal, but not indefinitely unequal, length. Now, although these periods have boon studied in tho main from British statistics, they r«flect -jibe conditions of tho world as a whole, sinco British trade is much governed by its exports and imports, its prosperity or the reverse dependingto a great extent on the world demand for goods. Whatever trade is flourishing Hie government of tho day in every country seeks to take the credit; when trade is depressed it is blamed. Yet, in 1931 and 1932 wo find three countries—the United States, Great Britain and Sweden —all suffering from a depression, though their governments were of widely different j complexion,