NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 24026, 25 July 1941, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS

FREEDOM VERSUS SECURITY "Stability and order look very urgent when chaos threatens; many people sincerely prefer them to freedom," said Professor Julian Huxley in a recent address. "Security looks very urgent to those with the threat of unemployment hanging over them, to those others who have seen all their savings swallowed up by inflation, or their livelihood going down the drain in the great depression. This longing for security will weigh heavily against freedom if keeping freedom means also keeping economic insecurity." OBSTACLES TO EUROPEAN UNION It is illogical to proclaim on the one hand our passionate faith in individual freedom, and at the same time to hint that we hope to see that freedom restricted by some supranational organisation to which European nations are to be compelled to belong and which will therefore t deprive men of political freedom at its highest potential. We have, thank goodness, done nothing so foolish and we shall not do so, asserts Mr. Douglas .lerrold in his new book, "Britain and Europe, 1900-1940." We have vet, however, to make clear to our potential allies in the struggle against Germany that we repudiate such ideas emphatically and finally as part of our war aims. If it took half a century of controversy, and a bitter civil war, of which the scars still remain 70 years after, to maintain the American Union, where the conditions were the most favourable ever known in history for a federal experiment, and if even our own British Commonwealth contains dissident minorities in two Dominions, what chance is there of creating a European Federation in our day and generation? In Europe there is no common tradition, there is no common language, the economic interests of the different regions are entirely different and there arc cleavages of race, religion and culture which have deepened steadily for centuries. The history of Europe during the last, five centuries is the history of the birth, growth and consolidation of nation states. The era of nationality may be an interim stage in the long process of historical evolution, but it is certainly not a stage which has yet been passed in Europe. LORD MERSEY'S RETROSPECT Since I can first remember consecutively—since about 1880 —there has been a remarkable . increase and diffusion of health, education and comfort among the English people, writes Lord Mersey in his book of reminiscences, "A Picture of Life." Sixty years ago drunkenness in the streets, both of men and women, was an ordinary sight, children were often barefooted and in actual rags, consumption was a common form of death, numbers were unable to read or write. Sobriety has made immense advances, nearly everyone is decently dressed, education has spread to all, public libraries are frequented. Hygiene, the treatment of disease, the expectation of life and the social services have all improved; everyone has a rote, and national saving is general. I believe

that we are now as prosperous ami contented as any nation in the world. There is not much luxury, as I imagine it, nowadays, nor has there been lor the last 20 years. A few women on the fringe of good society may indulge in it, mainly for publicity nurposes, but as a rule excess in food, drink or dress has vastly diminished. of wearing an average of 3oyds. of material on their bodies, limit themselves to about Byds. Some of this is no doubt due to'falling incomes, but more to a change in outlook. Few people have no profession. MYTH OF THE MIND There is no more an entity called the mind, from which what we describe as mental phenomena proceed, than there is an entity called digestion presiding over tli« digestive . processes, or an entity called respiration governing the respiratory processes, writes Mr. Frank Keiivon in "The Myth ot the Mind." tli.' latest volume in the Thinkers' Library series. When we turn over'the pages of history, concludes Mr. Kenvon. we smile at the superstitions and follies of a bygone age. In future years our descendants, engaged in a similar pursuit, will regard the belief in an immaterial entity called the mind as the greatest and least excusable superstition of them all. THE PSYCHOLOGISTS' BIT During the past twenty years in Britain an increasing number of trained psychologists have been improving tlfc methods of vocational guidance and selection to help those choosing a career to find the one best fitted to them and employers to choose the best applicant for a vacant post, writes Dr. Charles S. Myers, the eminent'psychologist, in the Manchester Guardian. All three of the fighting services are now availing themselves of the knowledge and experience thus gained. The War Office lias recently appointed a small advisory committee of psychological experts, and the Admiralty has asked a distinguished vocational psychologist to report on its present methods of selection and to suggest ways in which it could bo improved. Both at headquarters and locally, with most promising results, civilian psychologists in various parts of the country have for some time been employed in applying tests of intelligence'and tests of special abilities to various units, in order to remove those who are of such low intelligence that they can never make useful soldiers and to select those —at the opposite extreme—who are best fitted for rapid promotion to non-commissioned rank or for special work like that of rangefinding, driving or instruction.