TOPICS OF THE TIMES

Southland Times, Issue 21576, 14 December 1931, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE TIMES

“Economic law cannot be flouted or defied. No nation can maintain indefinitely a higher average standard of living than its wealth production justifies,” The Tunes Trade Supplement observed recently. “Men’s minds have lecome obfuscated by contemplating the complexities of a financial system that they do not understand, forgetting that the system was created to facilitate the exchange of goods and services. It was not the banking system that broke down, but the exchanges of goods and services that became so one-sided that the system could not perform its proper functions. The exchange of cotton for machinery’ and of railway engines for wool was facilitated by the international banking and credit system, but because the exporter of machinery received payment in money which became available because some other person had bought cotton, it was overlooked that the purchase of cotton was essential to the sale of machinery and that the sale of machinery was essential to the purchase of cotton. In essence trade is only barter and money or credit the medium which facilitates it. . . . Credit instruments are worth exactly what they represent in real wealth, no more and no less.”

"What the worker needs is not more competition in industry, but more co-opera-tion in order to stabilize the system and keep him employed,” Professor Philip Cahot, of Harvard University, declares in the Yale Review. “The workers’ position might be summarized as follows: We must have stability in our economic structure — without it we live in fear. It has been demonstrated that to rely wholly on the law of supply and demand under modern competitive conditions is folly We must have a more effective method of control. Such control means restraint of trade either by the trader or by the State. Control by the State, carried to its logical conclusion, is Communism. Control by the trader means the creation of some units of production and distribution in the major fields with management intelligent enough to plan with foresight and strong enough to carry out the plans. To accomplish this wc must either allow the small unite to integrate into big units or allow’ them to make agreements among 'hemselves which can be enforced .... But would such a system of combination and co-opcration in industry be practical and would it oc safe? Of course, it would not be safe. Nothing in this world is safe, but it would be safer than the system of free competition which wc now have. Few things could be more dangerous than that. If, by encouraging the formation of big industrial units and agreements for limiting competition, we move cautiously toward integration and cooperation, our ultimate fate will be determined by our capacity for intelligent self-restraint; that is, for self-government.”

“A feature of the present time is that it is the younger generation which is making order its watchword, while the older generation is still addicted to philosophies of liberty,” said Professor Alfred Zimmern in a lecture at Manchester College. The question to bo answered was:—What kind of order? Two things seemed to him clear. The first was that the new post-war system of order, if it was to bo effective, must be world-wide. Order, like charity, began at home; but in ordering our own affairs we must bear in mind at every point our innumerable connections with the outer world. Secondly, the period of transition from chaos to order —if order was to be achieved—would not continue over centuries and generations, but was a matter of years or even months. It was useless to look for analogies in history to the present situation. We could not slow down the movement of forces to the pace of our own minds. The only alternative was to speed up our own thinking to the precipitate rhythm of the age. We were living in a catastrophic period. Professor Zimmern analysed the intellectual obstacles in the way of a new world order, which he attributed to the predominance in <-«e world’s thinking of what ho termed a “revolutionary tradition.” He traced this philo. sophy of revolution, with its claim of absolve rights, in the Protestantism of the sixteenth century, in Capitalism, in the movement for democracj’ and nationality, and in Socialism with its claim for social justice and the emancipation of the proletariat. In each case an initial protest against authority and privilege had tended to stiffen, in the hour of victory, into a new form of absolutism, leading to irreconcilable conflicts between rights and rights, It was this philosophy of absolute rights, which was the greatest intellectual obstacle to a new’ world order.

The Dominion Meteorologist last evening issued the following weather report and forecast: Pressure is high over and to the east of the Dominion and low to the west, an anti-cyclone being centred over Chatham Islands and a series of depressions which have intensified, covering the northern and western Tasman Sea. Winds moderate to stronger, freshening north to east generally. Seas moderate but rising on the East Coast. In the eastern Tasman Sea strong north-cast winds and rather rough seas. Weather still fine over the South Island and cloudy over the north, but becoming dull and unsettled generally ■with misty rain probable and later some heavy falls. Wann temperatures.

The secretary of the Invercargill R.S.A. reports that a donation of £2 towards the unemployed soldiers’ Christmas fund has been received from the Reginald MacKinnon Trust.

“If you have an accident and it is proved that you were doing more than 25 miles an hour in a town area, it is practically impossible to escape convictions,” said Mr W. H. Woodward, S.M., in the Upper Hutt Magistrate's Court last week, when convicting two defendants on charges of driving at ‘a speed and in a manner which might have been dangerous to the public.

It was expected that during the weekend a decision would have been arrived at by the Bluff Harbour Board in the matter of the final selection of a tender for its new tug. The secretary (Mr H. C. Gimblett) now advises that arrangements have not yet been finalized and that the board’s ultimate choice from the 29 tenders received will probably be made on December 23.

Two young local men appeared on Saturday morning at the Bluff Police Court before Messrs A. E. Lea and James Hamilton, Justices of the Peace, charged with stealing a quantity of fruit from a Chinese fruiterer’s shop in Gore street. Accused were convicted and fined £1 with 10/— costs each, and ordered to pay two shillings apiece, the cost of the stolen fruit. In addition they were severely admonished from the Bench.

The report on the Waikawa-Curio Bay road which was presented to the Southland County Council on Friday was quite correct as far as the period from May 12 was concerned, a member of the Invercargill R.SA. executive said on Saturday, but, in fairness to the Returned Soldiers’ Association, it should be made clear that the grant for the road would not have been lifted if the association had not found the £2OO necessary.

On Saturday morning at the Bluff Courthouse, before Mr E. A. Nichol, Justice of the Peace, acting-Corner, and a jury composed of Messrs L. P. Denton (foreman), H. W. Campbell, J. Martin and T. W. Parry, an inquest was held regarding the death of George Calder, which occurred at Bluff on Friday morning last. After hearing evidence given by relatives and others, the jury returned a verdict that deceased died from a gunshot wound self-inflicted while in a depressed state of mind.

A wireless message received on Friday by the Wellington Harbour Board from the tugs towing the floating dock intimated that the dock was then 150 miles east of Brisbane. It is still a matter of conjecture which day its arrival here may be expected, much depending upon the weather experienced. The floating dock, however, should be here in time to form a very acceptable Christmas present to the Harbour Board and to Wellington in general, remarks the Post.

They were discussing thrift at a meeting of the Board of Governors of the Stratford Technical High School. One member told of a farm lad who had saved £2O out of his wages. This was capped by the member who knew a man who worked for wages on a farm until he was 28. He was single, lived in a whare on 8/- a week, and saved £lBOO. Another member told of a South Taranaki fanner who got the surprise of his life when he learned that the loan of £2ooo* his solicitor was arranging came from his own share-milker.

In the Christchurch Police Court on Saturday morning Isabella Dunwoodie, aged 46, married and a domestic, was fined £lO and costs and prohibited from obtaining a driver’s license till May, 1932, on charges of driving a motor car while intoxicated and having no license, states a Press Association telegram. The [>olice said that the car struck a post in Papanui road while the accused was returning from Belfast with another woman and a man. It was her own car. The man had cleared out before the police arrived.

The arrival of many tons of fruit and vegetables from overseas and the liberal supplies from neighbouring districts and local growers made last week a busy one in the Dunedin mart. The Waikouaiti from Sydney, the Wainui from Melbourne, the Golden Coast from America, and the Maui Pomare from the Islands landed big consignments of bananas, oranges, lemons, cucumbers, pineapples, onions, and marrows, while abundant consignments of cherries and strawberries have come to hand from local sources. Buyers for the Christmas demands are assured of plenty of the kinds that will keep. Oranges are at present rather in over-supply.

When Mr A. Harris, who was returned as Coalition member for Waitemata at the polls last week, held his first election meetring at Northcote on November 18, a woman stepped up to the platform and handed him a sealed envelope. The flap was inked over with the woman’s initials, and on the front were written the words: “Mr Harris’s majority. Not to be opened until the official declaration.” The candidate put the envelope into his pocket and forgot all about it. Wednesday’s announcement revealed Mr Harris’s official majority as 2362, and when the envelope was opened the figure 2378 was seen to be written on a plain piece of notepaper. What really’ makes the episode remarkable is the fact that it took place before the electioneering gave even an indication of the final results, states the Star.

The fine weather conditions yesterday and the prospect of an enjoyable afternoon's entertainment drew a fairly large crowd of people to No. 2 Gardens where the Battalion Band gave its final concert for the year. In its various selections the band under the conductorship of Mr H. Berriman dislayed a high playing standard which came in for much favourable comment on tlic part of listeners. The numbers on the programme included selections of Harry Lauder’s songs and old English songs, and three stirring marches. “The Vedette,” “Integrity” and “The Contest.” The gem of the programme was a triple tongue polka, “The Cornet King” played by Corporal Victor Aldridge, which was well received. A collection subsequently taken up convinced the band officials of the truth of a recent cable stating that more than half the year’s output of £250,000 worth of threepences went from the British Mint to New Zealand.

Memories of an old-time torpedo boat which was in Auckland Harbour in the late 'eighties are recalled by’ Mr W. F. Rankin, of Massey road, Manurewa, a retired marine engineer, who for many’ years was connected with the Defence Force in Auckland. In 1886 the New Zealand Government decided to get four torpedo boats out from England, with the object of stationing one at each of the main ports in the Dominion. They were long, lean, grey craft, with two funnels set amidships at a rakish angle, and at their best they’ could make 18 knots. For a number of years following 1886 the Auckland unit of the quartet was occasionally seen about the Waitemata, and on regatta days used to create a mild sensation with bursts of speed when used as a tender. When the torpedo boats were eventually’ scrapped, the Thorneycroft engine of the Auckland one was installed in the Naumai, a small river steamer on the Kaipara Harbour. It proved a sore trial to engineers not used to that type, and eventually it was put ashore at Helensville and replaced with an ordinary compound engine.

The Auckland Automobile Association receives some queer acknowledgments of services rendered, for it renders them in such strange places, but surely it has had few more strange, and few more spontaneous, than those contained in a letter from a schoolgirl in a little King Country school. The letter was read at the meeting of the council last week. Part of the "safety first” campaign of the A.A.A. has been talks to school children, and the letter was on that subject, states the Star. Written in carefully sloped pothooks, the letter is in a phraseology compounded of adult dignity and childish artlessness. “On behalf of the children of the school, I wish to thank your association for making it possible for us to receive such a good lesson upon safety first on the King’s highway. Your representative, Mr Ringer, in a very effective and genial manner explained the dangers which arise from carelessly using the road. . . . Everyone knows the rules by heart, and we will try and remember to obey them always. ... I am sure that the A.A.A. is doing a service to the rising generation. ... I remain, your thankfully,