UNDERCURRENTS.

Waikato Times, Volume 102, Issue 17222, 4 October 1927, Page 6

UNDERCURRENTS.

IN THE DRIFT OF LIFE. (By “Seeker ”T DOLES AND HEROES. Mr “R. E. Corder” writes some very clever notes on “The Seamy Side” for the London Mail. However, I often feel inclined to murder him severely for his facetiousness at the expense of the unfortunate, and when he “R. E. Cords” a bit of moralising, he is too awful to murder. The other day he bad a story of a sailor “on the dole” appearing in court, and “R. E. Corded” an allegedly witty remark on the part of the magistrate, who (we are told) “knows how the dole makes criminals in the East End of London.”

Unemployment makes criminals at times —agreed. The dole is an inadequate and degrading method of dealing with the evil. What are the alternatives? “Adjust the social system so that everyone may have work,” says the humanitarian. But “R. E. Corder’s” plan seems to be, “Let them starve! Better a crowd of corpses than an occasional criminal.”

Pertinent to the question is the following news item, also from the Daily Mail (August 27) :

“UNEMPLOYED MAN’S BRAVERY.— The thrilling rescue of a seaman from being crushed to death against the side of the ship was watched at Newport, Monmouthshire. A sailor who jumped from the quay to hoard the steamship Cambrian Baroness, lying about 10ft off, missed the ladder and fell into the dock. Mr Frank Hopkins, an unemployed man, of Frederick Street, jumped into the water, found the man by the light of an electric torch.shone from the deck, and held him, intending to take him up the ladder. He also slipped and both disappeared. The ship was moving towards the quay wall and both men were in great peril of being crushed when Mr Hopkins levered himself up by the quay w r all and landed the sailor and himself safely,, amid cheers, and 20 seconds before the gap closed.”

About six years ago a member of the unemployed of Sydney, an ex-New Zealander named Chalmers, carried out a most heroic rescue of a swimmer from a pursuing shark.

Yet righteous people turn up their \ eyes and thank Heaven that they are not as other men, nor even as these unemployed.

IVIR NASH’S LECTURE.

Mr Walter Nash gave a splendid lecture at Hamilton last week on the recent Honolulu conference of the Institute of Pacific Relations, to which ‘he was a delegate. He made one wish that the spirit of mutual understanding which prevailed at Honolulu could bo spread more rapidly among the various peoples around the Pacific. It was a great pity that Mr Nash's time was limited by his having to catch the train to Wellington. Discussion often brings out the very best from a lecturer. He had spoken in praise of our treatment of the Maoris and other Polynesians, although with a note of warning against the abuses of exploitation. Mr Nash and I have talked together on the lesson that New Zealand has to offer to the world in the establishment of good inter-racial relations. But an eminent anthropologist, Professor Eugene Pittard of Geneva, holds a very different view. What the white race has done to the Polynesians (he says in his book “Race and History”) is one of the worst outrages in history. It has left only “the shadow of a race,” and that race formerly a specially fine one. He compares the outrage to the invasions of the Huns and Tartars into Europe. Such expressions came as a shock even to one who had read of the harm the white man had done in introducing disease among the Maoris and islanders. It would have been comforting to hear from Mr Nash that the Professor bad not told the whole, story—though perhaps we should look for the truth, however uncomfortable.

/ A Chinese Joke. On one point Mr Nash and his colleagues at the Conference seem to have got off the track —or else the “Seeker” is on the wrong scent. He was speaking of the Chinese Customs duties, which up to the present have been both fixed and collected by foreigners, Britain taking the lead as the principal trader. He expressed the opinion that the Chinese would he content to leave the work of collecting in foreign hands as long as the Chinese Government could fix the rates. No one at the conference seems to have seen through the little Chinese joke. The thinking Chinese know well that the taxcollector is the most unpopular person in the world. The foreign collectors of Customs duties in China have been tolerated by the people largely because they have kept the duties absurdly low- —down to less than 5 per cent, until quite recently. But let the Chinese politicians raise the rate to 50 per cent. —or to 100 per cent, on socalled luxuries and 355 per cent, on tobacco, as Japan has done —and see how the poor collectors will fare! Smuggling will become a major industry and the traders will raise aeonslant outcry against the iniquitous extortion. The Chinese duty-fixer will smile and rest at his ease until the harassed foreign duty-collector finds I lie position quite too hot. Meantime foreigners concerned with China like to ltatter themselves with the idea that they can continue to collect the duties on behalf of China's creditors, even while yielding to the Chinese the right to control the Customs rates. So why not flatter them? The Chinese have a great sense of humour.

WHAT TO DO WITH UNBELIEVERS? In Paris (the cables report) a man has killed a young woman who confessed she did not believe in God. He said he had divine orders to purify the world. lie is called “ a maniac.” .Yet a few hundred years ago most good people thought that to torture ami kill those who refused to profess a belief in orliTodoxy was not only perfectly sane but kind in the truest sense. It was kind to torture the infidel with rack and screw, pit and pendulum, in the hope of extracting a profession of belief and so saving his or her soul from eternal torment. If no such profession could he obtained, it was kind and necessary to kill in order to save other souls from contamination. The torturers and burners would have been astounded if anyone had suggested they were maniacs. Despite appearances to the contrary, it may be that humanity is making progress. Wc arc coming to see (in the words' of a recent book “The Modern State”) lhat “When the law bids men believe, it makes them hypocrites or rebels.’ Religious people are dropping the idea that they arc at war with Science’s search for truth, and reasonable scientists do not deny that there may be things of the Spirit beyond the ken of the finite mind, and some of them are themselves among the spiritual seekers.