NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume 78, Issue 24102, 22 October 1941, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS

LIMING THE SOIL The man who first discovered liming found something like magic, writes Mr. Michael Graham in the Spectator. Nothing is more fascinating than to watch life increasing after the liming of a pasture that needed it; clover where there was none; the loud hum of bees where there wss silence; sleek coats 011 the animals where there had been dullness before. But, as in all ordering of live things—land, animals, or human beings—if power is abused someone will pay for it, sooner or later, for "lime feeds the father, starves the son." WARTIME ECONOMICS The British Government has published a penny pamphlet on "Price Stabilisation and Industrial Policy," which is a short statement on the evils of inflation. The argument in the pamphlet is simple and straightforward and the facts are Icy own to all economists, says the Times Trade and Engineering Supplement. Briefly, the supply of goods is restricted, and consumption must be reduced in proportion. Clearly, increases in wages or other incomes will not make more goods available. If the stock of goods remains the same, an increase in spending power would have the result of making them dearer with no advantage to the consuming public, though those with less money would suffer in competition with others. The nation did not seek war, which was forced upon it, but there is 110 escape from its consequences, and the only mitigation of the deprivations that are its inevitable concomitant is to see that they are shared as equally as possible. It is incumbent on all to prevent an advance in the costs of production, to eliminate waste, and to make the most effective use of labour resources. The Government can play its part, but it is necessary for all sections of the community to do theirs. . Any attempt to escape a fair share of the burden means that some others must bear more than their proper load END OF AN AGE 'What we are witnessing in Europe to-day is not merely a war between nations, but the end of an age," said Mr. W. J. Brown in a recent address. "There never was a time when the forces of evil were not active in the world never a time when men and nations did not do vile and evil things; never a time when there existed a super-national force strong enough to prevent national and individual wrong doing. But granted this, in Europe, until a few centuries ago, there did at least exist a common standard of values, to which men paid allegiance or at least apologised for violating; and there did exist a super-national organisation —the Christian Church —which acted as a brake on, if it could not prevent, the evil-doing of states and men. To-dav the old common and accepted standards of value, that good was better than evil, kindness better than cruelty, love better than hate, fair play better than fraud and deception, have ceased to operate over a large part of the globe; and the flood of evil still spreads. The result is the vile and horrible world which now confronts us. The beginning is the weakening of old

standards, the end is the terror that walketh by night, and the shadow that wasteth at noonday. With the right values informing us, there is no social problem in Britain that is not capable of an agreed solution, and without those values there is no order of society, no political or economic programme, no party or class which will have us; for the message carried by every bomb, every shell, every ship and fc'verv aeroplane in this war is the old message, which you can put into whatever vocabulary you like, but whose essential content remains the same; and it is that 'except the Lord build the house they labour in vain that build it.' "