TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Waikato Times, Volume 118, Issue 19659, 20 August 1935, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

“ Peace and Pacificism / Under the above heading, The Times recently addressed some plain words to the breed of pacifists who objected to the organisation of Officers’ Training Corps, Boy Scouts and Church Lads’ Brigades, because they “ inculcated the military spirit.” Tho Times said: The conception of discipline presented by an annual camp or jamboree or a public schools’ field day is as remote as it could well he from that worship of force which ‘anti-militarists’ have imported from abroad for their own purposes and seek to fasten upon a perfectly healthy activity witli a normal and necessary place in education.

“ The whole campaign of the small, but pertinacious, cohort which has chosen to inscribe ‘ holier than thou ’ upon its banner rests upon a fiction of its own inventing. It is the more mischievous because, while it bickers about things which liaVc no importance and no relcgance to the organisation of peace, it impedes or distracts a steady or united vision of the real goal. It is an offshoot' of the belief that self-righteous gesticulation in one country will somehow mesmerise the unheeding Continent or the still less impressionable East.

' “ The belief is notably held by persons in whom the emotions have usurped the seat of the intelligence. They compensate their impatience with the difficulties and delays of true peace-making by contriving and chastising figments of militarism at home. Thus they provide a comfortable outlet for hearts which, whatever their capacity for sound or foam, are certainly too full for sense.”

Currency Stability The Midland Bank is against currency stabilisation. It; maintains, in its current Review, that for the time being stability of the pound in terms of gold is impracticable, and supports the view that the ultimate relationship of sterling to gold be “ left entirely open.” It considers the “time and manner of establishing a figure” as “ matters for determination with full regard to the conditions and needs of our industry and trade.”

Stability, states the Bank, has, since the early post-war years, acquired a new meaning Then, it meant only a fixed relation of currency to gold, and, consequently, to oilier countries on the gold standard. Now, distinction is drawn between that and stability in terms of goods; it is the difference, slates the Bank, between exchange stability and internal stability. The Bank maintains (hat if we try lo stabilise the pound against gold and gold currencies, wo shall lose the internal stability which recovery has brought us. The Bank regards this idea, which, it maintains is now the Government's policy, as nothing short of a revolutionary change. A revolution it certainty is. No heed is laken of the urgent demands of those leaders of trade and commerce for currency stabilisation, through lack of which they are handicapped in the revival of export trade, on which this country depends for its existence. The stability of exchange for which our traders abroad are asking will not he achieved without effort. That effort should he made; we must not be content to wait and see. —London paper.