TOPICS OE THE TIMES.

Southland Times, Issue 19346, 11 September 1924, Page 6

TOPICS OE THE TIMES.

In another column there appears this morning two references to the suggestion made in the Southland Times that the development of the Library Van system for rural communities is a practical method of keeping the country in touch with the literature of the day. This scheme, so successful in America, seems more hopeful than the establishment of little libraries in country centres, but nothing good will be done if bodies like the Southland League do not go further than endorsement. Southland should be put under an investigation to see what support would be forthcoming, and efforts should be made to secure Government help for an experimental organisation based on the Invercargill Public Library, which is the best headquarters for such a service. The League is undoubtedly the body to undertake the preliminary work, without which it is impossible to expect any progress at all.

A little while ago prominent members of the Liberal Party were talking of the terrible things that would happen if the Moratorium were lifted, but now' some of them profess to be pleased at the prospect of finality being reached by next July. The end of this restriction—New Zealand is about the last to remove it—will be in the interests of both producer and consumer, because it will mean a return to normal working. One cheering thing about the debate was the effort of Mr P. Fraser to secure for the Labour Party the credit for the provision of additional money in the Advances to Settlers Department. This is an old political dodge, but in* this case its use is due to the Labourites—who aim at Nationalisation, and who are led by a Marxian—wishing to make the fanner believe that they alone have his interests at heart. Mr Fraser’s effort was “laughed out,” but it will doubtless be renewed at a more profitable moment.

Great men in these days seem to have one characteristic in common—they all read, in their moments of leisure, detective novels, says the Morning Post. The more sublime their literary tastes, the greater seems to be their devotion to this fonn of dope. In the old days, great men undoubtedly did read novels of this ingenuous character, but the secret was guarded by their intimates like a family skeleton. To-day, to read them is evidence of a superior and delightfully careless intelligence. Even people who are not distinguished statesmen or eminent scientists, publicly flaunt their preference. In the dear old days a novel was a charm, a source of beguilement; to-day it is too often launched as a challenge, as a preparation for the serious life. Too many of our modern masters and mistresses of fiction are hard task-masters. Now, the average Englishman insists on a violent distinction being made between work and play. And he is beginning to find that some novels bring back to him those days of torture when he was first learning algebra. The result is that he is determined to remove the slightest suspicion of being called a “highbrow.” Accordingly, whereas his forebears hid their detective stories, he flaunts them and reads about “complexes” when he has locked his bedroom door.