In Town And Out

Southland Times, Issue 23310, 21 September 1937, Page 8

In Town And Out

Breaking Into Pavilion “They not only break into the pavilion, but they break our crockery as well,” said Dr J. G. Macdonald, president of the Invercargill Tennis Club, at the annual meeting of members last evening. He referred to vandals, who, he said, apparently used the club’s property periodically for “parties” and smashed the club’s crockery. Goodwill of Men

“Peace is not founded on facts, palaces, or treaties but on the goodwill of men,” said Mr F. G. Hall-Jones, district governor of Rotary in New Zealand, in an address to the New Plymouth Rotary Club. He told the Rotarians that this realization was brought home strongly to'him when he visited the Palace of Peace at The Hague. The palace was begun in 1905 following a gift by Carnegie and finished in 1913, just in time for the Great War. New Court House.

Every effort is being made to expedite work on the plans for the new court house at Invercargill, according to advice received yesterday by The Southland Times from Mr W. M. C. Denham, M.P., for Invercargill. Mr Denham, in a telegraph message, said that he had interviewed the Undersecretary of the Department of Justice (Mr B. L. Dallard) and discussed the proposed new building with him. He was told that an acute shortage of draftsmen was responsible ,for the delay in the work.

“Tribal Psychology” “In the present state of tribal psychology in the world today the only thing that remains is the arbitrament of force,” said Mr Frank Milner in an address to the Canterbury Commercial Travellers’ and Warehousemen’s Association. “Collective security has broken down, and there is likely to be an electric spark in Europe anywhere today. There have been 210 pacts signed in Europe in the last 16 years, and every one of them was broken before the ink was dry. As for international morality, it is a seething ocean of hypocrisy. We must look at deeds, not words, in . these days. You have only to look at British rearmament, the house to house canvass for scrap iron, the supplying of gas masks. Britain has had to.be realistic and to face the challenge of Fascism to democracy.”

Hawaiian Hospitality Going to Honolulu as emissary of the committee of the New Zealand Centennial Exhibition, Mr R. H. Nimmo told the Wellington Optimists’ Club that, provided one or two difficulties could be overcome, the Hawaiian Islands would be represented at the 1940 celebrations. Two difficulties were that the dates of a New York exhibition and the Golden Gate exposition at San Francisco in 1939 and New Zealand’s effort the following year clashed. He was given a most cordial reception in Honolulu. “The term ‘foreign’ now has a very much lessea; significance in the Pacific than 'it did- a few years ago,” he said. Rapid transport had improved national relations, “and the people of Honolulu look upon New Zealand as their next-door neighbour.” With the operation of the Pan-American Airways service relationships would undoubtedly become even firmer.

Tennis Club Subscriptions Comment on the financial position of tennis clubs in Invercargill was ma fie at the annual meeting of the Invercargill Tennis Club last evening by Mr D. McDonald, a member of the Southland Lawn Tennis Association, who supported the association’s proposal . to increase the levy on members. He suggested an increase in subscriptions to cover the levy. “There is not a tennis club in Invercargill getting enough revenue to keep its courts in order,” he declared. “Indeed, there is not a financial tennis club in Invercargill.” Mr W. Hamilton, a member of the club, supported Mr McDonald and referred to the low subscriptions charged by the clubs. “I think a club should stand on its own feet and fix a subscription which would enable it to do so, instead of relying on competitions, carnivals and dances to help it out. If all clubs put their subscriptions on-a proper footing there would be no need to appeal to the public for assistance.”

Communist and Fascist Rule “It is common to lump Russia, Germany, and Italy together as countries under dictatorships where democratic and civil liberties as we understand them are not supposed to exist. Nobody in Russia would deny that a dictatorship of the working class exists, but there is an essential difference between the Russian and Fascist forms of dictatorships,” said Mr I. F. G. Milner, a New Zealand Rhodes Scholar, who has returned to the Dominion, in Christchurch. He said that the difference was twofold. In the first place, the Russian system had an entirely different economic basis, being founded on common ownership of the means of production for the advancement of social welfare and not for the defence of the capitalist system. Second, the Russian dictatorship was purely -provisional, pending the transformation of the anti-working class elements to bring them into line with the new Socialist community. He said that the new constitution for Russia, which was to take effect this year, had done much to swing liberal thought in England towards a favourable view of Russia.