OVERSEAS OPINIONS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19523, 24 June 1933, Page 9

OVERSEAS OPINIONS

SOME INTERESTING VIEWPOINTS. Nature in Art. “Do we in the study of the past find some ages or places where life has been more coherent, richer and fuller? Do we draw more enjoyment from wireless, television and aeroplanes than Cowper did from the contemplation of a budding tree? Read his letters and you will doubt it. We have forgotten the realities of work and building for pretentious words like architecture, design, and volume. Style is only a museum name for something that arises by the way. To-day great scientists like Eddington and Jeans are writing of nature and science in terms almost of poetry while so many modern artists are seeking some philosopher’s stone of dynamic ratio, or dynamic symmetry or some elixir of life devised from negro sculpture or Paleolithic man’s art. Creative imagination to-day seems to be the mark not of the artist, but of the scientist.” Mr. Alec Miller, the sculptor, speaking to the National Union of Students’ Conference at Cambridge.

The Other Side. “I notice,” said Lord Eustance Percy, in a recent speech, “that a day or two ago someone commented on what he said was the tendency in some teachers to instil into their pupils the idea that a social and economic revolution was bound to take place. Apart from the question of the desirability of introducing such topics into the school, the conviction that a social and economic revolution is bound to take place, by the operation of economic forces, during the next generation, is no longer confined to any one school of political thought. We know —everyone who has foresight ought to know—that the conditions of the past are never going to return, and it will be well if all of us can fulfil the formula for the reformer dictated by Mr. Rudyard Kipling, that he should be able to see. “ 'The old life shrivel as a scroll, And to unheralded dismays, submit his body and his soul.’ ”

The Barter of Goods. “The world as a whole,” says the “Times,” London, “has moved nearer to barter, and our own commercial system is being brought into relation with ttiat fact. It is not a very desirable development, even though in connection with some countries, and notably with Russia, experience has shown that it is inevitable. But with most countries it may be hoped that a system of closer regard to the balance of trade will not prove inconsistent with an expansion oi the volume of trade nor with a restoration of an extensive use of the credit system. The obstacles in the way are the interlocked problems of international debts, excessive tariffs, exchange restrictions, prohibitions, and all the armoury of weapons which countries have been driven to use or have chosen to use in an effort to make themselves self-supporting and to dam themselves off from the rest of a j troubled world*’ German Nationalism. "What is this new spirit of German nationalism? The worst of the AllPrussian Imperialism, with an added savagery, a racial pride, an exclusiveness which cannot allow to any fellowsubject not of ‘pure Nordic birth’ equality of rights and citizenship within the nation to which he belongs. Are you going to discuss revision with a Government like that? Are you going to discuss with such a Government the Polish Corridor? The Polish Corridor is inhabited by Poles; does the Government dare to put another Pole under the heel of such a Government? Europe is menaced, and Germany is afflicted by this narrow, exclusive, aggressive spirit, where it is a crime to be in favour of peace and a crime to be a Jew.” —Sir Austin Chamberlain, M.P. Breakfast Tables Grumbles. Lord Marshall, presiding at the 94th annual meeting of the Newsvendors’ Benevolent and Provident Institution in London, said he supposed that the "newspaper has always been a sort of Aunt Sally with the public. The man who does not dare to grumble at the breakfast bacon has to take it out of something.” he said, “so he grumbles at the newspaper. Let him find a single error or a single opinion that displeases him and he condemns not only the newspaper containing it, but the whole Press of the country. “But" he added, “he does not give up his newspaper, for the sufficient reason that he cannot get along without it. If the average man will analyse his newspaper, blue pencil its errors, its unwelcome opinions, and any features that offend, and leave unmarked those items that may reasonably be passed very much blue pencil will be reas instructive and entertaining, not <|uired.”