NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume 78, Issue 24106, 27 October 1941, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS

THE APOSTLES' CREED The Creed of the Church, the Apostles' Creed, was not composed by the Apostles, writes the Bishop of Norwich. It enshrines their faith; but it was not drawn up at one place and time. It grew, and was accepted, as Christians found help from reciting its words and from keeping the truths it proclaims constantly before them for their worship and their "love in action." "A man's life is the picture book of his creed," says Emerson. Creed moulds character. The longer Creed is really implicit in the Apostles' Creed; but when errors sprang up around or within the Christian community, new definitions were added to exclude misguided thought. '1 o have such a Creed, such formulated dogma, is a bond of world-wide fellowship between all who accept its terms. It unites us to 60 generations of those who have been inspired by this particular expression of Christian doctrine. LIVELY MOSCOW WIRELESS There is certainly nothing the matter wit h t lie Moscow wireless in the matter of enterprise; its resources, both technical and psychological, seem equal to anything, asserts "Ijiicio" in the Manchester Guardian. Besides interrupting the Berlin wireless with announcements of their own. the Moscow propaganda experts are ready with all manner of brisk and profitable items, from extracts front captured letters to new details about the present condition of Nazi chiefs. Recent information on that, subject from Moscow made a good list; Hitler was suffering from "severe fits of rage," Rihbontrop had been removed from office by the generals, (Joering was either in a concentration camp or under observation in Berlin. Schacht had been arrested for disapproval of the Russian campaign, and Goebbel.s was in disgrace and suffering from a nervous breakdown. '1 lie condition of Ley and Himmler will, no doubt, be described in a later bulletin; it seems most improbable that they can be in anything approaching their previous form while so many aspects of disaster have overtaken their colleagues in infamv. And it seems about time that Mussolini was certified to be suffering from hearty degeneration ot the fat. TRADE UNION AUTOCRAT Apparently the obstruction to war effort of trade union autocrats is still felt in Britain as well as in other democrat in countries. The Times says: There is one man, in an important ship-repairiug area, a trade union district delegate, who is held responsible for delaying the repair of ships. Ikbus fined members of the union who work overtime without his permission, and has required exorbitantly high rates of pay from the employers when ho has given his consent. The same district. delegate has been primarily responsible for resisting the introduction of pneumatic riveting which would expedite repairs; and, when pneumatic riveting has been permitted, there has been insistence on the retention of an unnecessary man in the aquad—waat-

ing a class of labour ill very short supply. These facts are brought to light by the Select Committee on National Expenditure. On the first point the committee says that "many efforts have been made to remedy what is an intolerable position in war-time"; and all have failed. It is indeed intolerable. How does it come about that such a state of affairs has been tolerated at all, and who is this trade union official who has power to hold up the repair of the ships that are our life-line oversea.' asks the Times. He exercises a right to penalise men who, ready to do imperatively important work, disregard his orders. He imposes fines as a judge for infringements of his self-directed authority, and in fact over-rides alike the sentiments of his own and of other trade unions and the national interest. Again the Select Committee rightlv describes as intolerable the same official's obstruction of the use of pneumatic riveters, and no milder language would tit the case which it states. Now who will see that what is intolerable is made impossible? EXPLOITING THE AIR WEAPON "In aviation nothing is impossible; that seems to me to be the outstanding lesson which every big action of this war has had to teach," said Major Oliver Stewart in a recent broadcast talk. "From Poland to Crete every official and unofficial explanation of German successes has had some reference to the German use of aviation. Dive-bombing, parachutists, supply carrving hv air, reconnaissance, tioopearrying gliders, low-flying attacks and so on. You can be piratically certain that aeroplanes are always going to play a big part and occasionally a decisive part in" every German offensive. The enemy's successes have been achieved partly because he has taken for his theme that statement: in aviation nothing is impossible. And it is partly because we have been too eager to see the limitations of aviation and too slow to see its potentialities that our men have so often had to rely upon their own personal courage to stand up against »| 11 kinds of aerial attack. So it is a useful tonic to look fairly frequently at the aeronautical possibilities m war and to try and see as far ahead a.s possible. After all, the history of new developments in machinery nearly always shows that things are started by "some purely imaginative idea and that that sinks in and gradually leads to the practical realisation. Crete, there is no doubt about it, does show for the first time what can be done by air-carrving on an immense scale. It does show how the Germans squeeze all the possibilities out of aviation and by so doing steal a march on us. Henceforth we must refuse to accept any limitations to flying. We must push flying ahead until wo are using it more boldly and more extensively than the enemy. We must make it carry not only military supplies of all kinds, but also food and men and fuel. If tln> Germans can short-circuit the sea and carry a division by air to Crete, we can use the air to supplement our shipping and to play a part in military transport."