POINTS of INTERES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 106, 8 May 1933, Page 10

POINTS of INTERES

AIR ARMAMENTS. In the House of Commons, Mr. Winston. Churchill ridiculed Britain’s Geneva proposals for a reduction in air armaments. He said he gathered that the proposal was that the air forces of the world were all to be reduced to the British level, and then they were all to take another step down to the extent of 53 1-3 per cent. Was there any reality in a proposal of that kind! They must not allow insular pride to blind them to the fact that some of these foreigners were quite intelligent (laughter); they had an extraordinary knack on occasions of rising fully up to the level of British, comprehension. (Laughter.) If all the air forces of the world were to be reduced to the British level, as Britain was only the fifth in the list, that would be a very great enhancement of her ratio of military strength. Those foreigners, were bound to noticF that. (Laughter.) He said he hoped that the French would look after their own ■afety and that the British should be allowed to lead their own lives without being drawn again into* the perils of the Continent of Europe. If they wished to be detacned and to lead a life of independence, they had got to be strong enough to preserve their neutrality and they could not preserve their neutrality if they had no technical equipment. They required to strengthen their armaments by air and on the sea in order to make sure that they were the sole judges of their awn fortune, of their own destiny, and of their own actions. Not to have an adequate air force in the present state of the world was to compromise the foundations of national freedom and independence.

SHORTER HOURS. * ‘Many of us have witnessed the change in working hours, first from sun-up to sun-down, in the earliest days of this generation, to a 12-hour day—now we are likely approaching a six-hour day, and the degree of change is much greater than the preceding ones and, consequently, more difficult to adjust, writes Mr. S. M. Kintner in the Review of Reviews of America. “No doubt the tendency of the age toward shorter and shorter working time will continue. Furthermore, it is highly probable that as we work more into this new order of things, workers will enter active work at a later period than now, and, similarly, retire at an earlier period in their lives. That production per man-pow ;r has been so materially increased is to my mind not the prime cause for alarm, lhe real menace is in the fact rbat so lit'-le progress has been mad-: in balancing the earning power of all producers so that they in turn could buy continuously the products of ethers. Under -distribution, not over-nroducturi, is our real problem. Virtually e verbid’' wants r.iore of the products of our machines than he now has—this was true even Ln the days of prosperity. The wants •f man are never satisfied. AN uo would advocate retracing our steps and throwing away all our labour-saving nachines, in order that we might have more jobs! Surely no one wno gives the question serious thought. What is needed is a modified plan of operation that will give due consideration to onnew order of things, and permit us to enjoy the millennium of freedom from drudgery and leisure for thought and pleasure —the end toward wh’ch we have all striven ao long and the real purpose for which the machine was devised. Such a plan to be successful must still hold out rewards for the ones •who do the best in still further improving conditions. Human nature has not changed and the incentive to do better Bust still be preserved. ’’ DANGER AND CONQUEST. Mr. L. S. Amery, speaking at the dinner of the Midland Association of Mountaineers at Birmingham, said he had no use for those who thought the world should be turned into a place where no one could ever face death except from old age. There was a great deal too much of the undue fear of discomfort, or pain, or death in the world to-day. At any rate those who climbed on the high hills, while they did not seek danger unnecessarily, while they took very prudent precaution to avoid it, were yet among those who were not afraid either of danger or discomfort. Mountaineering was the finest and the most inspiring of all sports. It was so because it taught us to mca•ure ourselves against the elements and against nature. It was so also, not because it was more hazardous than other sports, but because there was always in it a combination both of the sense of conquest and of the tense of danger. ECONOMIC REMEDIES. Speaking at the Glasgow Philosophical Society on the subject ‘ ‘ Where are we Going!—The Economist on Trial.*’ Sir Josiah Stamp said that the breakdown of democratic government everywhere was due to the impossibility of passing economic material through the old-fashioned political and administrative machine. This machine might be tuitable for dealing with problems of religious and political freedom, social reform, foreign policy, colonial expansion, and all the old problems with which history was littered, but it was quite unfitted for the quick and decisive action required in the economic field. Owen Young had said recently that we were all in the same boat with Christopher Columbus. He had not touch idea where he was going when he set out, did not know where he really was when he got there, and did mot know where he had been when he got back! The only parts of economics that remained constant and oldfashioned were certain physical conditions and the elementary necessities of life. All the other parts, i.e., the psychological reaction, the contributions a>f science, and the machinery of govfcrnme2X, had been changed rapidly. On the whole, despite everything that had been said, economic diagnosis had dealt Wvith the situation with reasonable skill and much less divergence of view on the part of competent workers than was generally supposed. When it came to prescription of remedies the economist had very few of the necessarv cards in his hand. What Governments would do, what people would stand and understand, what political consequences were to be preferred to others, were not strictly economic questions, but they all formed part of the solutions.

BRITISH SHIPPING.

“During the year several attempts have been made to rationalise shipping by the introduction of break-up and lay-up schemes, but unfortunately they were foredoomed to failure owing to the utter impossibility of obtaining cohesion among shipowners generally,” states the annual report of the United Kingdom Mutual Steamship Assurance Association. “The vast international interests of which shipping is comprised make it impossible to devise any scheme which is acceptable to all. Moreover, the British shipowner is undoubtedly in a worse position than his foreign competitor owing to the lack of Government assistance, and though such assistance is seriously to be deprecated, subsidies may eventually have to be provided if foreign countries cannot be persuaded to discontinue their practice. Perhaps the British shipowner is himself in some degree to blame in that the practice of selling old tonnage to foreigners still continues, thereby permitting them to trade upon a low capital value under conditions unrestricted by wage agreements. ”

“THE NEW PRUSSIANISM.” Mr. G. K. Chesterton makes the following contribution to a discussion on “Germany To-day’* that has been proceeding in the Times: “In certain Liberal papers, with which on many points I agree, I notice that Here is a vivid description of the violent destruction of all liberal ideas by the new school of Prussianism jh Germany; accompanied by the curious comment that this oniv proves how unkind we have been to Prussia and to Germany. I had imagined that our policy had been persistently pro-Gcrman and Prussian ever since the war; but anyhow, that is the moral they draw. We have been so unkind to the Prussians that we have maddened them into dreaming (for the first time) of militarism. We have upheld France and Poland with such passionate enthusiasm upon every point that at last even Potsdam and Berlin have begun to dream of such a dreadful thing as drilling soldiers. Goaded beyond endurance, even the age-long pacifism of the Junkers has given way. And the discovery that even Junkers are no longer Quakers may well shake us with remorse for the depth of our crime. If this theory be true, it does seem to show how curiously history is taught. I was brought up to believe that Bismarck avowed his policy of Blood and Iron before the Great War; that Prussia was a proverb for militarism quite a long time before 1914; that a German Emperor (still alive, as some say) definitely advised his soldiers to imitate the Huns who wasted Europe in the Dark Ages; that therd were jokes in the English press, even at that time, about the Prussian proclivity for using the mailed fist; that the Prussian annexation of Alsace was too stupid and brutal even for Bismarck; that the Prussian destruction of Poland (which the Prussians would now repeat) was one of the acknowledged crimes of Christendom. In short, I had somehow learnt, long before the Great War, that the Prussians were dangerous because, given their present philosophy, they neither feared God nor regarded man; or (to translate it into modern language) because they did not pretend to have either the international ideal of Christendom or the humanitarianism of modern democracy. In short, because they were prone to behave at any time exactly as they are behaving now. The mere fact that we all said this steadily for six years does not in itself prove it to be untrue The facts of the moment do prove it to be true.” “SAFETY LAST.” “ There is no safety except in right, no life worth living except it be based on a true conception of justice, no good that forgets liberty, no prize that is given and not won,” writes Sir Ernest Benn in the English Review on “Safety Last.’’ “Good is the conquest, over evil, not the absence of evil. There would be no virtue in solvency were bankruptcy made impossible. Loss and suffering are the foundations of gain and enjoyment, and if the individual could be provided with the latter and be kept in ignorance of the former he would quickly trace his steps back and range himself below the animal or even the plant. Safety increases as the form of life gets lower. In the realms of politics and economics the safety bubble is about to burst. Many wellmeaning people still look with pleasure upon what appears to be an improvement in the standard of general living. People are safer, that is to say, they have better houses, more money, cleaner streets, more newspapers, and they work and worry less. Acts of Parliament have made two blades appear to grow where only one grew before. When, however, the truth comes out — and that time is arriving—and we know that we have not only spent the savings of our grandfathers, but also mortgaged the earnings of our grandchildren, there will be a new revolution in thought and a rebirth of heart and soul. Our false, shallow altruism will give place to distressing repentance. The safety which we have stolen from cur grandchildren will be recognised as the immoral thing that it is; we shall spend our days in strenuous endeavour to pay at least as much of our debts as we can. We shall think less about our safety and more about the safety of the future, and when that happens the world will begin again to go forward.**