THOUGHTS OF LEADERS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3972, 29 April 1930, Page 23

THOUGHTS OF LEADERS.

MRS PANKHURST’S NICHE.

CO-OPERATIONS IN INDUSTRY. (From Our Own Correspondent.)

LONDON. March 13. The Duke of York, to the British Engineering Standards Association: — The spirit of co-operation is to 5e found everywhere in industry to-day, and this is doing much to help a general reorganisation along the most modern, scientific, and economic lines, without ■which no enterprise can flourish. Any public movement which assists in maintaining British quality, combined with economy in production, must demand the attention of all thoughtful people and deserves the support of every branch of industry. Particularly is this the case at the present time, when the country's attention is being turned towards the imperative necessity of improving our trade position as the vital factor in bringing about more employment. Ibis association has gained the confidence of industry. Manufacturers find themselves constrained to make use of the British standard specifications, and the purchasers, although free to order what they like, in the great majority or eases accept your recommendations. British standards are known and valued all over the world. The adoption of these specifications by the spending departments of the Government, and by all the local authorities; must go far to increase the confidence of manufacturers during slack times. I understand that in our export trades British standard specifications are becoming of enhanced value, and I am glad to think that with the enlarged financial support recently granted by the Treasury you will again be in a position to translate These specifications into foreign languages, and so place what British manufacturers have to offer before pros- — pcctive purchasers in their own language. MRS PANKHURST’S PLACE IN HISTORY. Mr Stanley Baldwin, unveiling the statue to Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst, in Victoria Tower Gardens.: — There is something peculiarly consonant with English character and English tradition in a ceremony of this nature, a ceremony taking place in the presence of men and women of all parties to commemorate a woman much of whose life was spent in very bitter political controversy. We are united to-day in the very shadow itself of our Houses of Parliament, and it has fallen to my lot as one who for many years was opposed to the work that Mrs Pankhurst was doing—to put the copingstone upon her labours. We are too near to that campaign, in which so many Ot jou took part, to see either its conduct or its leaders in true perspective. Posterity will do that for us. But I sa >'. nt> ear of contradiction, that whatever view posterity may take, Mrs x ankhurst has won for herself a nich° in the Temple of Fame which will last for all tune. • -Dje great forces of human thought in thmr birth and in their action, re potdependent on you or me, or on any individual. No individual is omnipotent and no individual is indispensable. Ihere would have been a Reformation without Luther and a Renaissance without Erasmus; there would have been a rtench Revolution without Rousseau, at S i ? n khurst did not make, nor did she claim to make or to have been the creator of the women’s movement ' i Bllt rs Pankhurst did not make the movement it was she who set the heather on fire; and, as is the way ot all conflagrations, good and evil were consumed in it. That is part of the eternal human tragedy. The wheat and the tares grow together until the harvest. Revolutionaries are made out ot the clash of ideals. Ideals vary in quality as everything human does. It was a’ clash of ideals that gave her birth; and her childhood, her married life, her widowhood, seemed to have prepared her in a peculiar degree for the work she had to do . . . Mrs Pankhurst lived to see her work crowned with ultimate success. She had done more in those later days, perhaps, than any individual to secure for women an established right of way, and it now rests with women to tread worthily in that way open to them. Their rights have ~a en. vindicated. The harder path of life is before them; and that is to iorm and discharge their duties; and in the attempt-to discharge those duties no woman in the years to come, as she passes by this place, will fail to draw inspiration from the example and the courage of the heroic woman whose memory we are here to honour.

CHAMPION OF THE COOK. Miss Margaret Bondfield. M.P., at a meeting of a successful building society: I know very little about cooking We should go down on our knees to the women who prepare food in varying and appetising ways. The manner in which we have treated our cooks in the past, whether they be mothers, sweethearts, or anyone else, has been perfectly scandalous. Now we are in the position to provide them with the right kind of workshop and machinery, sp that cookery will not be a drudgery but a pleasure. When it becomes a really pleasurable occupation, we shall find the man saying: “Oh, yes, my dear, I will cook the dinner to-day; you just go out and weed the garden.” The building society movement will enable women to have a greater sav in the construction of the home. My blood boils when I go into a house where it is obvious that the architect never gave a thought to the manner in which a woman would have to conduct the work.

TRADERS MUST GO ABROAD. Mr A. M. Samuel, M.P., in the House 6f Commons, on the Economic Mission to South America: “The report is succinct, brave, and definite. It implies what I have always Said, and what merchants and manufacturers will not realise—that goods will hot sell themselves. They must get up on their feet and put their shoulders to the

wheel. They should not even depend on exhibitions; they must do, as I had to do in my own day, get face to face with their customers. Rationalisation means not only rationalisation of production, but rationalisation of sales. This report shows how unwise we are not to group our firms at the selling end in one agency and capture the trade to which we are entitled. The personal factor is also a paramount factor.

“ I was in trade myself with a great export firm, and I was for some rears secretary of the overseas trade department. I know what exhibitions mean. We often go abroad to exhibit to please friendly nations who wish us to help them to make a good show. From my personal experience as a private trader and as a Minister I do not very much believe in exhibitions abroad. I think manufacturers and merchants could do better with their time and money if they went themselves on their own feet with their samples and visited their customers. It is the man himself who is going to do the job.- The best training is not at the university or from text books. There is nothing more futile than the text book expert oir economics. We have seen that at Geneva,. where the president of the Board of Trade has done infinite damage by his text book knowledge. The man for the job here is the man who knows his job and starts his job early. Give me the boy who comes into trade at IS—not the man who comes into trade at 22. The best university you can send him to is to send him abroad at 17 to learn his job.” “ EMPIRE BUILT ON BONES.” Sir Andrew Balfour, director London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, at the British Medical Association: — “Look where we will, we find evidence that the British Empire has been built upon the bones of dead men and of dead women, the majority beyond all doubt, victims, not of war, but of pestilence. Happily, there is another side to the shield, but it behoves us to consider how a great change has been brought, how we have passed from darkness to light, though it is essential to remember that the fight against the forces of disease is far from being wholly won. It must also be remembered that if. in the olden days, the Empire paid scant heed to the health of its white populations, it paid even less to that of the native races which passed under its sway, except here and there in the case of slaves, which possessed monetary value. Now, however, it has shouldered the white man’s burden, and throughout its length and breadth the care of the health of native communities was a feature of modern administration. To do this country justice, she usuallycleaned up places on which she laid her claws, at least after she had learnt to keep herself clean, or, in view of present conditions, should we say. fairly clean. ” “ DUMPING ” PRACTICE.

Sir Andrew condemned the practice of “ dumping ” people in ill-health in - the colonies. He referred to the old idea of sending convicts to Australia and the victims of pulmonary tuberculosis on the South African Karroo and in Kenya. “ Doubtless, this was done with a view to curing them, but the principle is bad. The dominions and the colonies want our best from the standpoint of health, and should get them. Damage is too often irretrievable, and a damaged stock cannot serve the Empire to the best advantage. The path of the early pioneer in founding the Empire far afield was indeed a path of loss and misery, as well as of glory and of great deeds. And yet, perhaps, there is another side to the picture, for if, in that great struggle for domination, too much account had been taken of sickness and pestilence, it is conceivable that the goal would never have been reached.” “AN INEXTRICABLE TANGLE.” Sir Hugh Bell, presiding at an Individualist Book Shop luncheon:— Unless a man helps himself no one will help him to any good purpose. When I was a young man—l am now 86—the last direction in which people dreamed of appealing was the Government; but nowadays everyone runs to the Government, whenever the slightest trouble threatens. I am an anarchist on this subject. I dislike government; I don’t want it. The less we have to do with it the better. The best you can say for it is that it is a necessary evil. When a Government begins to think it is its function to interfere with the domestic life of the people, it is embarking on a sea of troubles. The position of this country to-day, as a result of Government interference in so many phases of life, is an inextricable tangle.” “STOP FOOLING.” Sir Ernest Benn, on the same occasion: “ When shall we as a nation stop fooling with the democratic principle? The present position is that the nation is playing with govenment as with a new toy, and trying to see how much it can get out of it. The result is that about 90 per cent, of the legislation with which we are confronted is as harmful to the body politic as are the attentions of a small boy to the works of a watch. Not so mrjuy years ago we were miles ahead of all other nations in the matter of the standard of living; to-day, judged by the same standard, we occupy the second or third _ position. But for our politicians we might have maintained our position as the most prosperous country in the world. ”

“Talkie” houses at Wellington and Christchurch have installed audiphonvi for patrons afflicted with deafness. The audiphone is a telephone receiver which is capable of delivering the sound at fullspeaker strength. To suit varying degrees of deafness, the earpiece is equipped with a device which permits of the regulation of the volume by the turning of a knob. By means of this volume control the sound may be amplified from small measure to proportions that the person or normal hearing could not possibly bear. The audiphones are connected direct to the main speaker pick-up, per medium of a step-down transformer. Their use ensures that all but those who are totally deaf will be able to hear the “ talkies ” as well as see them. Two types are provided—one the ordinary head phone familiar to users of wireless, and the other a single carpiece, which may be held to the car.

The charge for kerbside bowsers in the Taieri County was reduced by the council on Thursday at its monthly meeting from £5 to £2.