NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23968, 19 May 1941, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS

BRITISH FARMING DRIVE A warning: was given to English farmers who are not prepared to pull their weight when a new food production drive was launched in Lincolnshire. Sir John Fox. chairman of tho County War Agricultural Committee, said that drastic steps would be taken il necessary. "In had cases," he stated, "farms will lie taken from their present occupiers and let to somebody else. This has already been done. It may seem hard, but the land is far too valuable to-day to be messed about either by enthusiastic amateurs or by fanners who will not pull their weight." Sir .John paid tribute to the loyalty with which most, farmers are co-operat-ing with the war agricultural committees, and said that it was tho united effort of the countryside which was going a long way toward beating Hitler. PERSONAGES AND PERSONS The late Lord Sydenham wrote the story of sixty years of "Working Life." He had been at the core of most that mattered in public affairs. His story, Dr. Archibald Fleming recalls, ends 011 a note of apprehension —almost of disillusionment. "Quo vadimus?" lie asks; toward what are we drifting? Incidentally, Lord Sydenham quotes from Disraeli's "Coningsby"—"the world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes." With this we may bo inclined to agree. A person is one thing; a personage may be quite another. A personage, in spite of all outward trappings, may have feet of clay. It is not, however, being a personage, but having personality, that matters. Personality is a spark of tho indestructible; a value, not a a advertise nient. SOLDIERS AND STRIKERS In many an American home just now, says the Christian Science Monitor, there is a question which will not down: "Why should these strikers he allowed to hold up defence work when our Johnny has been _ drafted? Most of them get as much in a week as he gets in a month. Thov will bo safe at home if he has to go to war. Right now slacking does more damage on the production line than on tho parado ground. Why shouldn't the Government at least make them stay' 011 the job?" Many answers havo beon given, but, they do not really answer the question. TJiey do not remove the simplo sense of something wrong when strikers are compared with soldiers. The basic inequality remains. The striker —whether worker or employer—appears to have more pay, and freedom now, less risk ultimately than the soldier. It may be impracticable to draft plants and workers. But certainly there should he moro vigorous measures to show civilians —whose work may be moro immediately vital te defence than the Roldier's —that unless there is more willingness to make equal sacrifices compulsion will ho demanded both for justice and safety. Indeed a law requiring producers te keep geing while settling their disputes would havo public support to-day.