THOUGHTS OF LEADERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21640, 10 May 1932, Page 8

THOUGHTS OF LEADERS

ADVERTISING ON THE INCREASE MEANING OF MARRIED LIFE. (From Ouk Own Correspondent.) LONDON, March 23. During the course of an address at a London wedding at St. George’s, Hanover Square, Dr Pollock, Norwich, spoke oi false views of marriage, remarking that there were some who expected of marriage a kind of continuance of the happy, eager days of engagement, as if they could last for ever:— “ Married life is something different in character from single life,” he said. It does not mean that two popple have come together to live parallel lives; it moans that two people are joined together to cuter into a new kind of life which they have the happiness of working out together. People have spoken as if to turn to marriage _ was to turn to selfindulgence, or again as if an unmarried life was a nobler life than a married life. Such a false view degvulcs- the whole conception of marriage. Unworthy novels and plays do not represent the real mind of the English people. The quiet, contented, happy joy of married life is too dear and too sacred and too personal to piake a startling film, but such a joy is, thank God, widespread among the homes of England, great and small.” Sir Charles Higham, at the annual dinner of the Islington Chamber of Commerce ; “Britain is to-day on the top of the world. In banking, shipping, insurance, and manufacturing we are Ahead of every country. To-day, after struggling against every possible difficulty, we have won the peace. Character and character alone is the basis of our success and of our supremacy. Britain has found her feet and her soul. Our turn and our time has come. Let us make the most of it. If the traders help, as I believe they will, the National Government will pave the way for international trade. .1 take off my hat to those who now control our political destiny—they have made an overwhelming success. Twelve months ago we wondered if our money was safe in the bank —to-day the world knows our banks are the safest places in which to put their money. Advertising is on the increase. We are awake to better selling. The press is still the mightiest foice in advertising, and it has never paid better to use the newspapers to tell the world than it does to-day.” WISE SPENDING.

The Prime Minister, opening the new headquarters of the Abbey Road Building Society—Mr Macdonald’s first public engagement since his operation: — . “ Money on houses is well spent. I wish T could impress upon everybody that economy does not merely mean cutting down expenditure. It means cutting clown useless expenditure, expenditure vou cannot afford; cutting down expenditure when your income has been reduced and you cannot meet it except by debt and borrowing. “ Those of us who can spend ought to spend; spend wisely but courageously, unless by pursuing a policy of irrational economy we may, while believing we are doing our duty, be doing the whole community more evil by adopting stocking methods of protecting capital, rather than the businesslike method of putting it freely at the disposal of labour so that it may fructify. “Let us put our heads together to use wealth wisely and in such a way that it will not become latent and laid up m a napkin. Let us employ our wealth so that the whole of the community may enjoy the benefits of the labour and business ability - not only of their contemporaries, but of the generations which have cone before.”

THINGS THAT ARE REALLY GOOD. The Archbishop of York, at the an-; nual conference of the Workers Educational Association, at York; — “Part of the tragedy of modern life is that we spend more and more time thinking about and working for those things which are only means to something else. The things that are really good, apart from personal relationships, are the enjoyment of knowledge and the appreciation of beauty and the like. the making of life more and more elaborate —the enabling of people to travel on earth or water or in the air 1C miles an hour faster than anybody ever did before—may be turned to good, but in iteelt it has no good in it. These are all means to ends, and the whole of the great apparatus*, of industrial production is nothing but a means to an end. ihe end is in the consumption. . . “The W.E.A. was primarily a missionary flame, which went forth to consume ignorance wherever it might find it, nno particularly to consume the prejudice which had its roots in ignorance and was ignorance’s chief protection. a man does with his leisure is really the most important thing about him. 1 believe the absence of equality of educational opportunity to be far the greatest and deepest of the injustices of modern life. It can only be cured in so tar as the whole community comes to believe and takes steps accordingly. “The association, which is approaching its thirtieth birthday, has grown from a tiny band of pioneers to a national movement with 507 branches and sonic 53,000 students.” EMPIRE PREFERENCES. Mr Neville Chamberlain, at Birmingham: — , “We shall send to Ottawa a strong delegation from the Governnient, of whom I hope and expect to be lone, to meet the representatives of the dominions and of India in one of the most important conferences that has ever been held. That will be the commencement of the last part of the policy of Joseph Chamberlain, the part which first attracted his attention to this subject, the part which always lay closest to his heart And when we go there to meet representatives of the dominions we shall go armed tor the first time with power to offer to them preferences for their goods t in our markets in return for preferences which they will be able to offer us for our goods m « It is not possible in a conference of that kind to weigh too exactly the value of each individual concession, and, indeed, if you go in the right spirit it is not necessary, because if we all agree that we will try to buy from one another anything wo cannot or do not desire to make for ourselves, then the prosperity of each unit in the Empire will mean the prosperity of every one of the other members. That is the spirit m which we shall go to Canada, and if we find, as I know we shall, the corresponding spirit of good will on the part of our kinsmen, then I do not doubt that when we return we shall have opened a new chapter in our Imperial history which will offer a greater interest, a greater possibility of fruitfulness, than anything that has over been written hitherto upon its books.” PLEA FOR MUSIC. Lady Snowden, at Trinity College of Music prize distribution: — “The widespread neglect and disregard for music shown by all those in high places in this country is deplorable. This is the only great civilised country which has no Ministry of Fine Arts. The Government in this country has not, until the last year or two, done anything to subsidise this great art, though it has purchased an infinite number of fine pictures for our benefit. Music is still regarded as a luxury and not as a necessity. In my judgment it is not a luxury, but.a necessity of our being. The introduction ot mechanical music has had something to do with the distress of musicians. The kinemas are dispensing with their music and giving us the artificial thing. “ Another reason for the distress is that music is overtaxed in this country. Among other things, I am interested in opera, and I would like to tell you that in the last two years the State has taken from the Covent Garden Opera Company £23,000 and £25,000 respectively in the form of taxation. That falls very heavily upon musical enterprise of all kinds.” A VITAL EMPIRE PROBLEM. The Prince of Wales, opening Mansion House, the new headquarters of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, to perpetuate the memory of Sir Patrick Manson, the father of tropical medicine: One of the great obstacles to the development of tropical countries is not so much the climatic conditions, but the diseases which are prevalent in them. As so many of our possessions, and many of the countries which provide an outlet for our people, are in the tropical regions, this has. therefore, become a vital problem in this country, and throughout the British Empire, and it is not surprising that, although these diseases are still prevalent in those tropical countries, yet a very great deal of progress and improvement has been

made in the last 30 years. This hnprovement is due to the discoveries made by our pioneer investigators who devoted' their lives to the study of tropical diseases and medicine on the spot, revealing the cause of many unknown diseases, and, what is still more important, the way in which they are spread, and the remedies for their successful treatment. It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of these discoveries which have saved the lives of thousands of those whose lot it has been to live in tropical lands, not only Europeans, but also the native population. Patrick Manson was not only a brilliant scientific investigator, but it was he who, with the help of Mr Joseph Chamberlain, that far-sighted statesman, founded the School of Tropical Medicine in London. Conditions in the tropical countries are changing, and one of the most striking changes during the last 10 years has been tpe improvement in communications. Improved communications, unless precautions are taken, will tend to increase the spread of disease in the tropics, but those same communications, on the other hand, will increase the facilities for the control of disease. How can that be done? First of all, I think, by making possible the rapid collection of pathological material for investigation, and, secondly, by allowing a centralised research and despatch to help other centres in the investigation and control of epidemics. In this house those who have made discoveries and those who have gained great experience in tropical lands will be able to pool their opinions for the help of those who will have to face those problems in the future.

Sir Austen Chamberlain recalled the horror with which his father in his early days at the Colonial Office learned how heavy was the toll of life taken by tropical diseases among the young men whom it was his duty to appoint to the colonial service. In 1896 the average death rate was 100 per 1000 a year in British tropical possessions. To-day it was only between eight and nine per 1000.