OVERSEAS OPINIONS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 20077, 6 April 1935, Page 9

OVERSEAS OPINIONS

SOME INTERESTING VIEWPOINTS A Bank's Chief Note “The most important function cf the banks is the giving of credit, and this is the chief source of the adaptability and elasticity of industry,” said Sir John Simon in a speech at Bolton. “It this function is performed well, there is a rapid adjustment to technical and market charges, and the full use of the community’s resources. Competition among banks makes them eager to grant credits in ail proper cases, but under nationalisation of credit, and of the misuse or denial of opportunities. Any political authority, especially in a democratic State, nas peculiar difficulties in maintaining a system of sound banking.” A Flying Record “In the year just passed the Royal Air Force has flown about 47,000,000 miles. Half-way to the sun! A hundred times to the moon and back!” writes Major C. C. Turner in the “Daily Telegraph.” “Yet there have been fewer serious accidents in the Service than in any year since the War. So far this year there have been 20 fatal accidents, resulting in 31 deaths of pilots and others engaged in duty-flying, including the Fleet Air arm. Parachutes have played an important part in saving life. Since they became standard equipment in 1926, they have saved at least 123 lives in the Air Force. The last two years are here compared: 1933 7 saved in 6 accidents; 1934—14 saved in 7 accidents.” The Face of Europe “The face of Europe lost much of its ugliness during 1934. The change became mainly evident during the last two months, and had the agreeable effect of creating in the minds of level-headed people a feeling almost of confidence about the immediate future. Memories are short. Those who do remember the diplomatic nightmares of only twelve months ago are able to measure the improvement that has taken place in so short a time, and to offer an unreceptive front to the habitual prophets of war. A year ago, in short, the League of Nations seemed to be dangerously near a collapse, its expectation of life had become a subject of common discussion. Today the League has recaptured a prestige as great as any it has enjoyed since it started functioning in January, 1920—Mr George Glasgow, writing in the “Contemporary Review.” An Inheritance of the War “Rightly or wrongly, nations whose role in world economic organisation in the nineteenth century and up to the outbreak of the Great War has been that of primary producers, supplying the great industrialised populations of Europe, and to a lesser extent that of the United States, with food and raw materials in exchange for manufactured products and for capital equipment, began to feel that role an undignified one. They became averse from continuing as hewers cf ‘Western’ nations, and they sought a way out of that position in stimulating the growth of their own manufacturing industries. Though this development is essentially a natural one, granted the three sources of its inspiration—desire for economic selfsufficiency, defence, and prestige—it was greatly fostered by conditions during the War.”—A writer in the “Westminster Bank Review." An Indian View In view of the poverty of the people India desires to build up her own industries including a mercantile marine of her own, and she therefore desires to have the same freedom that is now enjoyed by the British Dominions,” writes Dr. Sir P. S. Sivaswami Ayyar, K.C.5.1., in the “Indian Review." “If she desires full control of her commercial and fiscal policy and of her system of currency, it is not for the purpose of injuring British commerce or interests, but for the purpose of developing her own industrial and economic life. The restrictions on commercial discrimination form the most odious feature of the report. It would be absurd to require that if India desires to build up her own shipping or a heavy chemical industry by the grant of subsidies, she should be obliged to grant the same encouragement to the Srltish India Steam Navigation or to the Imperial Chemical Industries. It may be urged that she is liable to commit mistakes and should be protected against the consequences of such blunders. No country in the world can claim to have successfully avoided mistakes of policy in these matters.” Don’t Lose Your Head “Does the boxer gain or lose through anger? Replies by boxers are contradictory. I have had both negative and

positive replies very confidently returned. The true answer cannot be a simple yes or no. It can be given only in terms of the critical point just now defined. So long as the boxer ‘keeps his head,’ controls his anger, he can use it to give more force to his blow. But, as soon as the intensity of his anger passes the critical point at which his power of control breaks down, the boxer ‘loses his head,’ hits wildly, rushes and blunders with ill-co-ordinated thought violent movements, and is soon at the mercy of his opponent. Now consider the case of the oratorical duellist as representing high-level activity. Here control is yet more difficult and the critical point correspondingly lower. The debater who allows himself to show anger against his opponent is in danger of being baited by his opponents and of ‘giving away his case’ by blurting out ill-judged remarks. Yet who can doubt that a well-controlled anger or indignation may give point and edge and force to the oratorical attack and that genuine anger can here perform a function impossible to merely stimulated anger?”—Dr William McDougall.