TOPICS OF THE TIMES

Southland Times, Issue 22051, 26 June 1933, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE TIMES

England’s Beauty Doomed. “At the present rate of development there will in 50 years be no beauty left in England,” writes Mr C. E. M. Joad in the Bookman. “There will be only a diffused and dispersed suburb, studded with ‘beauty spots.’ Once, when I went walking in the country I was pained by its palpable destruction — pained that I had been born so late; now, as the destruction proceeds apace, I am for ever congratulating myself that I was not born too late. My generation is a survivor from a world rapidly becoming obsolete, a generation which, having known the beauty that was England’s, cries out to see it pass. But our children growing up in a world of garages and bungaloids, nourished on concrete and surrounded by the monuments of the men of tin and brass, not knowing what they have lost, will not miss what they have never known.”

Soviet Despotism. At a demonstration in the Albert Hall, organized by the Westminster Catholic Federation, the Archbishop of Liverpool said that London and not Moscow was the birthplace of Communism, and England, not Russia, was ils Galilee, for it was in the reading room of the British Museum that Karl Marx made his first studies of economic conditions. Nowadays one came across many young people who were attracted to Communism in the belief that a social experiment in economics was being carried out in Russia, and they said it ought to be given a sporting chance. They had the romantic idea that Russia was engaged on the gallant task of making a workers’ Utopia, where every one would be more or less poor but perfectly happy. Nothing could be further from the truth. The nearest approach to Soviet Russia the world had ever known was ancient Sparta, with its despotism, its secret police, and ils cold-blooded, calculating cruelly.

Turn cf the Tide. In a recent address Sir Francis Goodenough said lie did not wish io be too optimistic, but he believed the turn of the tide had taken place. We should get slow movement in the first instance, but when the tide began to flow we should reach ultimately, not only in Britain, but throughout the world, a degree of prosperity never before enjoyed by the human race. Capacity for production on economic lines was far greater than it had ever been before, and it was only because the economic and monetary systems were out of joint that we were prevented from enjoying that production. He believed that before we were very much older wo should see production flowing and prosperity coming all over the world. It would not come, however, unless people were prepared to take advantage of it. To be prepared for success in business they had to see that their principles were right. The old saying that business is business had acted as an anaesthetic to conscience in many businesses. What they had to remember was that business was service, and that they must so act as to ensure the permanent satisfaction of the customers. They must study the taste, habits, and requirements of their customers, and see everything through the eyes of their customers rather than through their own eyes. They wanted better education for commerce and better recruiting for employment in order that they could secure the best material. He hoped the recently formed association for commercial education would do a great deal to improve the standard of efficiency in business. He believed that was essential, and to help it forward would be one of the best things they could do. Much time and money had been spent upon perfecting machinery, but far too little had been spent upon those using it or employed in marketing it.