NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 229, 22 June 1921, Page 6

NOTES OF THE DAY

Of forty resolutions passed yesterday by Hie executive council of the Public Service Association n.t least, twenty-four involved an increased expenditure of public’money. This is scarcely in keeping with the need# of the times. It is true that economy was not wholly absent from the minds of the delegates. They admitted the existence of an "economy campaign,” and assisted it with the following contribution:— That in view of tho economy ’ campaign,! the Government be asked to do away with the pre-

sent tender scheme for removing

officers’ furniture on transfer, and substitute in lieu thereof a packing department, etc., insurance to be effected by tho Government.

The country desires to see a well-paid and satisfied Publi* Service, but it is quite evident that some of the millions that have gone on to Consolidated Fund expenditure during the boom years will have to come (iff, and the problem confronting the Treasury will not bo solved by the dubious economy proposed in furniture removal. Nobody expects the Public Service to offer itself as a lamb for the slaughter, but its members would be well advised indeed to concentrate some attention on discovering what ways there may bo in which substantial savings can be effected without hardship.

President Harding’s plan for an Association of Nations, if correctly outlined in the American Press, bears a strong resemblance to our own Imperial Conference. It is to have only advisory powers, and there is to be no written constitution. This last proviso will enable the American Government to participate without reference to tho Senate. A written constitution embodied in an international treaty would have to be approved by the Senate before the United States could be a party to it. It was on this rock that tho League Covenant was shipwrecked, and Senators- are so jealous of their privileges, and so determined to resist European entanglements, that American participation in world affairs would probably bo much fuller and freer if unshackled by terras of. such a treaty as would meet with Senatorial approval. The position will be clarified when the United States has arrived at some decision ns to the terms and the manner in which it proposes to conclude a peace with Germany, and defines its attitude to the Treaty of Versailles, plan for an international law court, without any compulsory powers either in the arraignment of parties or the enforcement of decisions, takes us back to the Hague Pence Conferences, whose pious work in bygone years ushered in no noticeable era of peace and good will. The main thing at the moment, jhowever, is to bring America into co-operation with' Europe in world policy. When that Is done tho course of events and the cor'dinllly of tho relationships established will determine how far it is wise or necessary to go in erecting a constitutional framework.

v ie » » About a year ago the London "Times,’ in on editorial article, advised its readers to take no risk of anthrax in shaving brushes and to boll any new shaving brush for half an hour before using

it. An indignant reader wrote in a day or so later to say that while the process might kill the microbes it was even more efficacious as a means of completely destroying the brush. A Queensland message this morning indicates that not even nine hours’ toiling will got rid of the germs. Fortunately the importation to New Zealand of Japanese shaving brushes —tho source of infection in many cases of anthrax—has been prohibited by the Government. Australia is understood to have a similar prohibition in force, but apparently some brushes still come in. In the discussions on the subject in the English Press it has been stated that shaving brushes made of badger’s hair and pig’s bristles are free from anthrax infection, but those which must be regarded as suspect ere tho Japanese, Chinese, or Siberian brushes made of horse or pony hair. The Japanese also manufacture throat and medical brushes from pony hair, and it is stated that all of these ore liable to be infected with tho deadliest germs. Many lives have been lost through the use of such brushes, and any articles containing horse or pony hair from Eastern Asia may be regarded as excellent things to avoid.

To lover s of organ music in-* Wellington the statements made by the city organist, published in to-day’s issue of The Dominion, will to of great interest. It is generally known, that the attendances at £he weekly organ recitals have not been large; but this is only to be expected, for the organ is an instrument that appeals to comparatively few, and one that the mass of the publio ever associate with churches and hymns, never realising that some of the world’s greatest works have been written specially for it. Mr. Page makes no complaint about the sparseness of audiences, for ho knows that even in larger centres organ recitals attract only a few. Lemaro played at St. Margaret’s, Westminster, to a handful, considering the population of London; Truman plays in Sydney to the same few. But Mr. Page's programmes have not all been well selected; some of them have not found public favour with, a fickle community that always harks back to the piece it has heard over and over again, and he concedes little to the taste for tuneful popular works. On the other hand, Mr. Page has introduced many charming works of more classic cast not hitherto played hero. In music, as in other things, people have to learn to walk before they can run, and it is necessary to remember that the Town Hall organ is the public property. The public like to hoar popular music sometimes. If Mr. Page were to unbend a little more and give something for everybody in his programmes it is possible that the organ recitals would draw larger audiences whoso musical taste he would then have the opportunity of educating.

Big concessions to Turkey are foreshadowed as tho outcome of a conference between the French Prime Minister (M. Briand) and tho British Foreign Minister (Lord Curzon). The Allies, it is stated, will ask Greece to desist from her projected offensive against tho Kemalists in Asia Minor, and will endeavour to promote a settlement under which Smyrna will be returned to Turkey, and Eastern Thrace will probably be granted autonomy. This means, if the news is accurate, that Greece is to be deprived of her gains of mainland territory under the Treaty of bevies, and will retain only the Aegean islands ceded to her under that instrument. Eren if provision is made, as it presumably must to, for the protection of Greek and other racial minorities in Asia Minor, such a readjustment can only be regarded as making the best of a bad case. The Allies apparently are of opinion that Greece is incapable of making head against the Kemalists even to the extent of establishing a firm hold over her acquisitions in Asia Minor. There is i\o doubt that up to the present the Greeks have failed miserably to uphold their pretensions in that region. Months ago, the then Greek Premier (M. C-alogeropouloe) toasted that tho Greeks could at any time overwhelm the forces of Mustapha Kemal and take his capital, Angora. At the time General Gourad and other-!■ renoh. military exports declared that this was all nonsense, and emphasised the difficulty that would be experienced by even a strong military Power in prevailing in an almost roadless country against native forces based on difficult mountain fastnesses. In the event the Greeks wore heavily defeated two months ago, while they were still opeiating on road am? railway routes, and had yet to approach tho more difficult problem of dealing with the Kemalists in the trackless territory further east. The Alites are no doubt justified in believing that any support given to Greece in Asia Minor would be thrown away, but the alternative of making concessions io Turkey—in other words, to tho kemalists, who are hand-ami -glove with the Russian Soviet—is anything hut satisfactory.

Tn the past, the question of conceding fiscal autonomy to Ireland has often been discussed from tho standpoint of trade policy. Apparently, however, objections based upon an assumption that Ireland, if she had the power, might erect a tariff barrier against lhe United Kingdom arg weakening. 15 hatever the outcome of tho present discussion of Irish finance by the British Cabinet may be, it seems not unlikely that the British Government may before long bo brought to tho point of declaring that it is prepared to concede fiscal autonomy to Ireland, provided satisfactory arrangements are made for an equitable contribution by that country to Imperial expenditure, particularly on defence. Except in regard to this contribution, tho British Government, under (he Government of Ireland Act, is proposing merely to act as agent for Ireland in tho collection of taxation. According to one of yesterday’s cablegrams it is estimated that under (his legislation only one-tenth of the Irish revenue of nearly 47 millions sterling' would be controlled by the Irish Parliaments. Tho total sum meantime ear-marked ns a contribution to Imperial expenditure, however, is only eighteen millions per annum, so that nearly two-thirds of the Irish revenue would ba spent under the supervision of the Irish Parliaments if both were in*working operation. The concession of full fiscal autonomy is impossible in any ease until a Parliament representing the whole of Ireland

lias been created. Possibly, however, an announcement by the British Government that it is prepared to concede fiscal autonomy when this indispensable preliminary condition has been satisfied might improve tho prospects of settlement.

"What has the world war dono to yon—are you belter for it or worse?” asked tho New York "Outlook” of its readers. In reply it received 544 letters, and. among them some remarkable human documents. All kinds of people came to confession, from rearadmirals io latourers. M«inj were gloomy and cynical, but the predominant note was a cheerful one, and hundreds of letters told of spiritual exaltation. Altogether the collection, from which only excerpts are published, seems to have been an amazing record of changed lives. “I played poker in the box-car which carried me to the front, and I read the New Testament in the hospital train whioh took me to the rear,” is how a Denver man epitomises his experience. A man in British Columbia wrote-.—“Wo are a small people, living small lives, in a small corner of the world. But for once we lived. „We can never be quite so small again.” "For the first time in my life I learned that the greatest test of character is what we do when we know we will not be found out,” concluded a Presbyterian minister. What could to finer than this passage from the letter of a woman war worker in France to which first place was given?—“l went to France a snob. 1 got over it. The uniform was a great leveller. For once we humans looked into each other’s eyes, not at each other’s zags or Rolls-Royces. It was a liberal education. The fineness that existed in rough, uneducated men, the guts tint developed in pampered pets, was unbeliable. - ■ ■ Life, trouble, even death, seem less momentous than they did. The only real calamity is not to meet life gallantly.