NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23661, 21 May 1940, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS

LITTLE KNOWN COMMANDERS One of the strange aspects of this very strange war is that the politicians continue to hold the limelight while the soldiers, sailors and airmen operate under conditions of virtual anonymity, notes Atticus in the Sunday Times. A reasonably well-informed citizen could give the names of nearly all the British Cabinet Ministers, could recall Daladier, Reynaud, Bonnet and Flandin in France, and recite without any hesitation the entire jiolitical hierarchy of the Nazis. On the other hand, he knows only two British generals—Gort and Ironside; he is rather vague about an admiral named Sir Dudley Pound and, as likely ns not, he cannot tell you who is in command of the Royal Air Force or second in command. He knows one French general. Gamelin, and could not namo any German general, although lie would recognise one or two if they appeared in print.

SELF-CENTRED AMERICANS A small minority* of Americans are increasingly concerned by their fellowcitizens' complacent indifference toward European affairs, notes a New York correspondent. For example, Mr. David Lawrence, writing in the United States News on the threat to self-gov-ernment in the United States, says: "A flabby, lazy-minded nation, is likely to drift into economic chaos, on which, of course, 'Stateisin' thrives. Our basic defect in America is that we do not really care about our brethren in democracy abroad, or about our neighbours in this hemisphere, or, in truth, our neighbours in the same block or in the next apartment. We have grown self-centred and indifferent. Wo have lost the spirit of love that goes with religion and the spirit of virility that goes with patriotism. The answer to the question, 'Do we really care?' can unhappily at the moment bo only an unfortunate negative. It will remain so until some influence or leadership arouses America from the defeatism and provincialism of the hour, and makes us aware that with the downfall of European democracies and the substitution there of dictatorships the United States will not be immune from the epidemic." CASE FOR FREER TRADE Americans who prefer to earn money doing the things tlioy can do best and to buy from their neighbours the things those neighbours make best can without much difficulty understand the ideas behind the Cordell Hull trade programme, says the Christian Science Monitor, which gives the following simple illustration: —Mr. Jones knows how to make good shoes at the lowest possible price. Mr. Brown knows how to produce overcoats on the same basis. Each raises his standard of living by exchanging his wares for those of the other. Each would lower it if he insisted on using part of his time in a less efficient attempt to produce for himself the things his neighbour can produce more cheaply for him. It would take an office worker weeks or months to make a piece of furniture that he can buy with half a week's pay, and then he would not have the expert workmanship that he can buy. This is why trade is essential to a rising standard of living. It is one of the best arguments for extending international trade by the gradual and wise process of the Hull reciprocal trade agreements. For countries, like individuals, are not equally endowed with skills or materials.

; GERMAti IDEA OF HONpUR . "Some years ago, about the end of j 3933, a German officer was talking to a j senior member of the British Embassy in Berlin," related. Mr. W. A. Sinclair in a recent broadcast talk. "He made ' the rather odd remark that the British are gentlemen, but the French are not. When he ivas asked to explain what lie meant, he related this illuminating incident. Ho said this: 'After the war, in 1920, I was in charge of a barracks. One day some of the Military Control Commission, under a French officer and a British officer, came to my barracks. They said they had reason to believe that I had a store of rifles concealed behind a brick wall, contrary to the terms of the Peace Treaty. I denied this. I said, "I give you my word of honour as a German officer that I have no rifles concealed in the barracks." Well, your British officer was a gentleman. He accepted my word of honour and he went away. But that French officer was not a gentleman. He would not accept my word of honour. And he pulled down the brick wall. And jhe took away my rifles.' Now, that j German officer would never have dreamt jof lying, and deliberately acting dis- ! honourably in this way, to another German. The old German Army was extremely punctilious about questions of personal honour. But lib obviously did not feel obliged to tell the truth, or behave honestly, to persons who were not Germans, where anything to the advantage of Germany was concerned." WORKING HARDER FOR VICTORY "In France, just as in Britain, the chief objective in the economic war is not simply to cut down the spending and consumption of the people, not simply to reduce their slice of the national cake. Steps have been taken to increase again the size of the cake itself, measures to restore the smooth working of industries upset by mobilisation, measures to ensure supplies of essential raw materials, measures to set farming once more on its feet by cheapening seed, corn and fertilisers and by pressing more women into,service," said Mr. Donald Tyerman in a recent address. "It is a drastic plan that they have worked out in France. Long overtime is a commonplace—men work 50 hours a week and more—and State control has been imposed upon wages and working conditions. Generally speaking, wages must stay at their pre-war level, and workers cannot move from job to job without permission. Many mobilised workers have been sent back from the Army to essential war work, but 15 per cent of their wages must go back to the State—the French soldier Himself gets only 15 sous—less than a shilling—a day. All the wages paid for working over 40 hours a week and under 45 hours a week are taken away. A third of the overtime paid for working more than 45 hours a week passes to the Government. You can seo from this how hard it would be to find a plainer example of the meaning of economic war, for ordinary people like you and me, than the way in which it is being carried on by ordinary Frenchmen."