NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23488, 27 October 1939, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS

HOLDING THE TORCH ALOFT "l'f tlio worst should happen and we are plunged into a war ior what wo believe to be a great irnuso, an almost overwhelming task will be laid on the spiritual leaders of the nation —by which 1 do nov. mean only the clergy," wrote, the Dean of St. Paul's, Dr. W. R. Matthews, a few days before the war broke out. "It is to keep alive the flame of idealism in the squalor of war, to recognise steadily that wo have a duty not only to our own nation but to humanity and tlio future; Jf we can do this we shall not weaken the spirit of endurance and sacrifice —we shall enhance it —and we shall secure tlio condition without which any enduring peace at the end of strife is impossible. I hope our national leaders will dare to speak to us in the great language of duty and honour and not in the small language of self-interest and self-preservation. It is the great language which the nation understands —for in its heart it believes ini God."

ENSURING PROGRESS "There is a growing conviction that man's scientific and material achievements have outstripped his spiritual development, and thus, if progress is to continue, it must be at a new level of consciousness which is the result of 1 man's realisation to the full of ; his spiritual possibilities," said Miss Beatrice Baker, an English headmistress, in a recent 8.8.C. talk. "And so if, our young people are to be trained to lead a full and happy life and" be prepared for whatever the future may' bring them, they must pass beyond the enjoyment of the physical side of.their, nature to nil appreciation of their in-, tellcctual powqrs and beyond this again to an appreciation of the creative spirit of the universe waiting for an opportunity to express itself in each one of them as in all men. The operation of the Divine Spirit is not confined to one race, one religion, one creed, but is universal —and this conviction is the one sure foundation for an international outlook."

UNPROFITABLE FARMING

In his address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Sir Thomas Middleton, the noted English authority, gave some remarkable examples of the unprofitableness of agriculture, not only in Great Britain but in the United States. For instance, in the well-farmed area of north-east Scotland, on a group of farms averaging about 450 acres (with 350-375 acres arable) and employing about £lO capital per acre, the farmer's income, after allowing 4 per cent on capital, has only averaged £l4O a year over the past nine years. Again, in a recent Cambridge survey in the eastern counties, covering 200 farms averaging 163 acres, the average earnings of the farmer, after allowing 4 per cent on capital, were shown in 1938 to be less than £2 a week. Nor are even these earnings cash; for in all cases they include the rental-value of the house and the value of produce consumed by the household. In the United States the farmers, after meeting necessary outgoings and wages for themselves at the same rate as for their hired men, earned in 1929 a bare 3.3 per cent return on their invested capital. In each of the three following years they earned less than nothing on it, the annual returns being minus 0.7, minus 2.8, and minus 4.2 per cent respectively.

A SINISTER ILLUSION

Discussing the world issues by which Britain was confronted on the eve of war, Mr. Harold Nicolson, M.P., writes: —Force is not enough. We British recognise, of course, that the vast machine of the National-Socialist (Nazi) system has gathered such disastrous impetus that it would seem almost impossible to reverse, or even to divert or check, its course. We realise that to meet this danger we must arm ourselves by day and night. Yet we also realise that our essential strength is based, not upon steel or gunpowder, but upon those moral qualities which will enable our people to endure the ordeals which may come upon them. And it is for this reason that so many of us are asking ourselves this insistent question: "Are we absolutely in the right?" It is at this point that we reach the enigma which is baffling so many of us. "If war," we ask ourselves, "is the greatest of all human evils, then surely no possible justification can exist even for a war of self-preservation." Yet even as we ask that question we know tliat were.Britain to surrender to brute force then the very evil which wo hate and dread would become triumphant throughout Europe, Africa and Asia. I here are those who are able to persuade themselves that even this would be preferable to the destruction of our cities and our children and that they can avoid war by refusing to have anything to do with it. I fear this is a sinister illusion.

STATE REGULATES RELIGION

Christianity has gained official status in Japan, but under restrictions which make it not impossible that tho churches may he made to subserve tho interests of the Japanese Government. The new Religions Law, passed by tho last session of tho Diet, is to be enforced by a new group to bo known as the Religious Inquiry Commission. While Christianity has a new definito legal status under the recent legislation, many Christians look upon current developments with distinct uneasiness and wonder just how they are to bo expected to collaborate in the trend, announced by the Minister of Education during the recent Diet hearings, making religion increasingly a servant of the Japanese State. The Minister said that although religions have hitherto had little place in regulating international relations, "in view of tho prevailing situation we shall make use of them in future." Full supervision over the internal affairs of Japanese religious organisations in the Japaneseoccupied areas of China has been promised for the future, and of late, now plans for the co-ordination of all religions have emerged. An American missionary in China has told of the appearance of a Japanese at Nanking who calmly announced, "I am in charge of all religions"—a sweeping claim not thus far given full effectiveness, but perhaps indicative of what may be expected in the way of enforced collaboration in the near future»