NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23996, 20 June 1941, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS

MENTAL DEBILITY Weariness can set in long before j men's energies are exhausted, writes Professor Cordon Allport. of Harvard University. Chronic tiredness is a mental state, not corresponding as closely as most people think to physiological exhaustion. Such tiredness is almost alwavs a symptom of conflict it) , the mind, ol a lack ol wholeheartedness. Such conflict often brings on a condition of physical lethargy wherein a person, deprived of energy, gives in. Continued physical strain, of course, ultimately creates in ifs own right a desire for submission, for beyond a point no mortal can stand hunger, thirst, noise, lack of sleep, torture, or separation from his fellows. Hitler uses all these terrors when lie needs to break morale. Vet morale may deteriorate long before | such physical extremity is reached It I did so in France; it may do so in ! America. Years of unemployment, we j are finding out, have created in the i I nited States a perilous "what's the use" frame of mind wherein resistance to the blandishments of totalitarianism is greatly weakened. MILDER MARRIAGE j By a British Ministry of Food order it is forbidden, "except under licence" (which floes not, one imagines, include a marriage licence), to use rice for any of her purpose than as human food, J notes Lucio in the Manchester Guardian. I Hie practice ol pelting the uowly--1 married with that grain must therefore j lapse. It will bo no loss; it was always i a foul and unfortunate practice, as i anyone who has ever been caught full i in l lie face by a powerfully-flung handful of rice will readily testify. And with flie growing paper shortage the use of confetti, so troublesome to rectors and the custodians of churchyards, will also be under a cloud. It almost looks as though people who get married will soon be able to do so without suffering any of the minor forms of assault that have been so long associated with the ceremony. Even leather will bo too valuable for anyone to hurl an old shoo with the pious hope of catching the bridegroom a really knock-out blow under the chin. Marriage is becoming almost safe —it may he a lottery in its later developments, but the barrage habit on the day of ils celebration is evidently in decline. War, ruthless in itself, yet puts an end to somo of the brutal sports of peace, STATE EXPENDITURE One of tho first leading articles I wrote when, a very young man, 1 became editor of the Eastern Morning News, at Hull, writes Mr. J. A. Spender, in tho Yorkshire Observer, was about tho sudden resignation of tho Prime Minister's father, Lord Randolph Churchill, then Chancellor of tho Exchequer, in December, 188(3. Why did he take the step which so disastrously ended his career? It was to protest against tho rise of the national expenditure to just over ii 90.000.000 a year. What would he have said if he had known that his son would be Prime Minister of a Governwliich bad to budget for an expenditure ol £3,8*14,000,000, and proposed to raise £'250,000,000 by increased taxation in

one year? Between the two figures we get the measure of the combined effects of war and social policy upon the finances of the country, and at the same time of its extraordinary and. in those days, altogether unexpected ability to meet the new demands. In ISS6 a ninety-million Budget was the legitimate target of economists in all camps, and not least of Liberals preaching retrenchment and reform. If 1 remember rightly, 1 joined with those in praising Lord Randolph and endorsing bis gloomy prediction that if this -went 011 the hundred millions would be reached by the end of the century. In these years the hundred-million Budget and the shilling income tax were marked together in the public mind as the final stages on the road to ruin. The point which concerns us now is that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is as confident of the capacity of the country to meet the present expenditure of 88-1,000.000 as his predecessor in ISS6 was doubtful of its capacity to meet an expenditure of £90,000,000.

INDIA'S MYSTERIES

India has gifts for you. She offers her marvels and mysteries to all who seek, writes Miss Patricia Kendall in ! Iter hook, "Come With Me to India." [ In return she demands only intensity of purpose, for this ageless Titan is a vital land of vital creeds. To the casual eye or casual heart she inexorably locks her thoughts and bars her treasures. Life then streams by like a fabulous dream, a picture pageantry of shadow shapes. But to the ardent mind and eager quest she discloses profundities that stir one's depths. If you have the opportunity to make your own explorations in the distant realms of India, I urge you to go. But take with you a background of deep and wide research into the histories of the streams of races and currents of emotions that have interwoven for four thousand years to produce her peoples of to-day, take with you a knowledge of the cause and effect of the British wave of colonists that came to govern this land of many countries; above all. take with you tolerance for the conditions you will find, if you would fathom India's transcendent beauties and her deep truths.