OVERSEAS OPINIONS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 20105, 11 May 1935, Page 9

OVERSEAS OPINIONS

SOME INTERESTING VIEW* OINTS The Law’s Bark and Bite “Neither Ministers nor Parliament itself can reduce the death-roll," says the “Observer,” “unless the executants of the law do their part. The Bench sometimes gives the appearance of treating life as a bagatelle. Magistrates pontificate upon the crime of reckless and homicidal speed, and then dismiss the slayer with a fine and a disqualification—although the latter penalty is notoriously evaded up and down the country. As long as the law’s bark is so much worse than its bite, the casualties of peace will continue to rival those of conflict.” Good Films and Bad “The institute is concerned to promote a constructive and not restrictive influence in the cinema. It believes that censorship at its best is a negative force. It believes that the real problem is constituted by the steady stream of third-rate films passed for universal exhibition which present inadequate if not false standards of value applied to unreal people. It is, therefore, concerned to promote constructive national efforts directed toward the production of good films and the creation of public support for these films. The realisation of what is good in films is a necessary preliminary to the improvement of what is bad.”—The British Film Institute. Art and Utility “Already, at the moment of its opening,” writes Mr Frank Rutter in the "Sunday Times,” “this Industrial Art Exhibition may be said to have achieved several of its aims. It demonstrates that a perfection of form, in shape, balance, and symmetry, is not incompatible with mass production by machine; that domestic necessities and articles in common use need not be nasty because they are cheap; and, thirdly, that goods which are British made throughout can be artistic and attractive in appearance and not only well made of good materials. It should make clear to manufacturers and industrialists how much is to be gained by co-operation with artists; it reveals to artists what manufacturers require from them.” The Church and Social Prestige “Some deplore that church-going is not so popular as it used to be,” said the Rev. Howard Partington in an address, reported in the “Liverpool Post." “It is certainly not the conventional thing it used to be. Parents no longer bring, by force, their boys and girls to the house of God. Personally I am glad that the chain of social convention around churchgoing has been snapped. We used to hear a lot about what hypocrites many church-goers were. There is now no gain or social prestige in being seen at church. The reason people go to church is the real reason; nothing takes a man there save his hunger for the unseen, his longing for a lift on the road of life. They come hungry for the bread of life, not the biscuit of novelty and entertainment. There is more honesty in worship, more reality in prayer, more straightness in speaking, more desire for better living, every day.” Progress of the New Deal “The upward trend of trade which was in progress at the time cf last year’s American Presidential Message,” says the “Morning Post,” continued into the spring, but it was followed ov a setback during the summer and autumn. Since then a renewed improvement has carried forward the level of commercial and industrial activity approximately to the point where it was a year ago. The net progress of the year 1934 is thus practically nil. It would be unfair to deduce from this the complete failure of Mr Roosevelt's policies, since unforseen factors, such as the drought and labour unrest, have intervened to disturb expe rations. Nevertheless, whatever the cause, the unpleasant fact remains, and, aufboubt. accounts for the shifting of emphasis. The zeal of the President for ‘social justice,’ of which the impending leforms are presumably an example, no doubt accounts in part for his undiminished popularity, despHe the disappointing progress of recovery.” The Dependent Aged “The demand in this country for social provision for the dependant aged has at last reached the stage of agitation and public ferment witnessed in Great Britain more than twenty-six years ago. But there is a distinction. The masses in Great Britain, aware of their strength, followed a leadership that was both socially minded and realistic. In the United States utter desperation has driven the masses of the aged to grasp at phantom utopias dangled by a leadership composed largely of racketeers and demagogues, who, in exploiting the misery of these

aged, are piling up fortunes for themselves. While Herbert Asquith, British Prime Minister at the time, had a clear conception of the practical issues involved, and while no one had his ears attuned to the popular will and understood better what was politically wise than Lloyd George, his Chancellor of the Exchequer, the leadership of even our well intentioned politicians and statesmen has been characterised by confusion as well as by an inability to appreciate the greatly increased demand for immediate social protection in old age.”—Abraham Epstein in the “New Republic” (New York).