NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23213, 6 December 1938, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS

TOO OLD AT FORTY-FIVE The International Labour Office has prepared a report on unemployment among elderly workers, in which it is stated that age begins to appear as a definite disadvantage in securing employment at about the age of 45, notes the Spectator. This is a problem which may be solved in the more or less distant future by the effects of another problem which the report also considers, that of the falling birth-rate, for industry may bo driven by the scarcity of younger labour to have recourse to older however, the various countries represented offer a variety of remedies. These involve either direct measures to persuade or compel employers to engage older men, or indirect measures which cover the whole field of the social services. Not only tho general sanitary services, but those concerned with housing, food-supply, knowledge of nutritional values, hygiene, and facilities lor healthy recreation, all have a direct bearing on the health of the people—and to that extent on tho vigour and efficiency of men of 45.

THE FLASHING STREAM Many are persuaded by despair that against the violence of the contemporary world there is no remedy b.ut to escape or to destroy, writes Mr. Charles Morgan in the introduction to his new play, "The Flashing Stream." But there is another remedy within the reach of all —of a woman at her cradle, of a man of science at his instruments, of a seaman at his wheel, or a ploughman at his furrow, of young and old when they love and when the}' worship— the remedy of a single mind, active, passionato and steadfast, which has upheld the spirit of man through many tyrannies and shall uphold it still. This singleness of mind, called by Jesus purity of heart, the genius of love, of science and of faith, resembles, in the confused landscape of experience, a flashing stream, "fierce and unswerving as the zeal of saints," to which the few who see it commit themselves absolutely. They are called "fanatic*," and indeed they are not easily patient of those who would turn them aside: but, amid tho confusions of policy, the adventure of being man and woman is continued in them. QUICKENING MODERN TEMPO

"We are entering upon a period," declared Mr. Anthony Eden the other day, "when the whole tempo of our Jives will be radically altered." No sooner, comments the Sunday Times, do we grow accustomed to the Tin Lizzie than we are faced with the tank; acceptance of the internal combustion engine is the signal for the appearance of the 400-mile-per-hour bomber. It is prehaps true that we have, some of us, been lagging behind the tempo of this brave new world. "Swift speedy Time, feathered with flying hours," has left us behind; when we should have been forging ahead with Eyston we have been sighing for the covered waggon. How delectable, we have thought, to go back even to that hyperbolical Rocket! And yet for each age contemporary speed has seemed too fast, and there must have been many complaints about Jehu's chariot. The trireme of one epoch is the Normandie or the Queen Mary of another. But always for the individual one problem remains. Let him, indeed, adjust his life to the tempo of his times. In his heart he must still, for the sake of his own integrity, keep the tempo of the one-horse shay.

INDIVIDUAL SUBORDINATED "In Germany it has been said that everything that is not prohibited is compulsory," said Lord Samuel, in his presidential address to the British Institute of Philosophy. "The individual human soul and intellect is made subordinate. No one is allowed to say 'l.' Everyone must sny 'We.' People are not allowed to know facts that are vital to them. If the thinkers of the world know that all this is wrong, have they not the duty to rise up and say so? The British people always have a healthy practical spirit which seeks to arrive at positivo results and is not discouraged by obstacles. So in international affairs we shall still seek to establish the policy of 'peaceful change' and to restore the collective discussion and guidance which is a condition of the sane ordering of the world. In national affairs wo shall still stand fast for our own ideals of freedom and justice. If we can succeed in the political sphere, then the strong moral forces innate in the people will bring things of value after—in religion, art and letters, and in social conditions, in all the elements that make a worthy civilisation. So these two troubled postwar decades may bo followed by a third that is better."

AMERICAN ANGLOPHOBE The latest outburst of the Hearst Press in the United States concerning the British Empire recalls Mr. W. R. Hearst's nation-wide broadcast a few weeks ago when ho replied to the broadcast made to America by Mr. Winston Churchill. Mr. Hearst said:— "England is in a disturbed state of niijpd over the consequences of the Czechoslovakia!! situation. England wants peace, but the Versailles lreaty was not a peace treaty. England is now afraid that the domination which she and France have exercised over Europe since the execution of the Versailles Treaty will be jeopardised. She needs help. And where should she turn for help except to good old Uncle Sam, so sought after when he is needed, so scoffed at and scorned in all intervene ing times? English propaganda is again flooding the United States; English soft soap is again being poured over Uncle Sam's devoted head." Referring to Mr. Churchill's suggestions regarding the joint duty of the Eng-lish-speaking peoples, Mr. Hearst declared: —"It is no part of the duty of this English-speaking nation, the United States of America, to support the British Empire in her ambitious schemes to dominate Europe, absorb Africa, and control the Orient." Mr, Hearst agreed AVith Mr./ Churchill's statement that all the world wants peace and security. But "if England only wants peace to prepare for war; she has gained that by the sacrifice of Czechoslovakia, but she has certainly not gained the abiding faith of the rest of the world in her 'faithful and zealous comradeship.' America must not succumb to the purely selfish propaganda of foreign nations. America must not be drawn by sentiment into the disasters of another foreign war."