TOPICS OF THE TIMES

Southland Times, Issue 21997, 22 April 1933, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE TIMES

Changing Tenor of Law. Addressing the City of London Solicitors’ Company Lord Macmillan said that what struck them more than anything else in these days was the almost unconscious change which was coming over the whole nature of their legal work. The whole tenor of legislation was changing. Formerly the. law devoted itself more or less to principles sufficiently well defined in case law, but now the Legislature was using the Statute Book for an entirely different purpose. It was now not so much concerned with the principles and codification of the law, but was using it as a vehicle of social and economic reforms. The business of the lawyer was becoming more and more the interpretation of that great mass of legislation. In 12 years from 1919 to 1930 no fewer than 732 Acts of Parliament were passed. That vast output of statute law was truly a menace. Many Acts did not meet with the approbation of the people, and so long as they had legislation on the Statute Book which they did not intend to enforce they were doing grave injury to the body politic. The Heat that Glows. “We have to rescue the complicated implements of human progress from sabotage by finding a new formula for their usefulness. In fact, we cannot have our economic revolution until we have had a moral one,” says Mr R. H. Mottram, the novelist, in an article in the Inquirer. “This is not the time for erecting new ad hoc beliefs. Far more significant seems what is going on, a general gradual drawing together and moving forward, within those bodies that have never ceased to testify, in season and out of season, that our business here on earth is something more than the getting and keeping of the greatest amount of personal comfort. The idea that such was the aim of progress has been the principal stumbling block and backsliding of the years during which the war was inevitably preparing. . . . Forward we must go, movement is the condition of all life, backward we cannot, for shame s sake, for ou - fathers brought, us thus far on the road. And we will not stay to warm ourselves at the dying fire of material comfort, for its warmth is artificial. The only heat that really glows is that of action.” The Illusion of Inflation. Many proposals for inflation of the currency or devaluation of the dollar as a means of raising prices have been advanced in the United States. Discussing the depreciation theory, the monthly bulletin of the National City Bank of New York says it may be assumed that the policy would not stop short of forcing the country off the gold basis, for there is little reason to think that anything less would produce any effect upon prices or business. “Human nature responds to like conditions in very much the same way at different times and this has been true in experiences with paper money,” says the writer. “If the country should be forced off the gold basis and the policy was carried far enough depreciation doubtless would become manifest in rising prices, but not, there is reason to believe, in uniform effects or orderly, enduring prosperity. The kind of rising prices that results from a fluctuating and depreciating currency does not make for general and sound, prosperity. It affords no sure basis for business. It promotes speculation and eventually a stage of depreciation is reached which prompts the people to change their money for anything rather than keep it. Inflation does not create uniform or calculable results. It is a speculative, reckless, irresponsible policy, a policy of desperation.” The writer quotes the following from the Kansas City Star: “Primarily inflation is like a balky and unruly horse. It simply refuse, to be guided by the rider. At first it balks. The rider applies whip and spur and still it will not budge. Then of a sudden it bolts and there is no controlling it. When it finally stons, it throws its rider and he is left flat on the ground.”