NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 280, 20 August 1921, Page 6

NOTES OF THE DAY

Mr. Hunt, in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday, gave three sellers of banned literature food for reflection. One he sent to gaol for two months, another he fined £25, and the third, a woman graduate of Victoria College and a student at the Teachers’ Training College, he fined £lO. The literature on which the charges were founded openly advocated violence and illegal action for the solution of political problems, and the three defendants circulated it with a full knowledge off what they wore doing. The case of Miss Weitzel is significant in the clear light it throws on tho background behind some of those who are most active in advocating revolution in British communities. This voting woman was stated to be the daughter of unnaturalised German parents whose leanings through the war were reported by the police to bo decidedly anti-British, and; whose house was the resort of anti-militarists and revolutionaries of a pronounced character. Miss Weitzel’s action was in keeping with the atmosphere that had pervaded her home, and it is difficult to believe that it was dictated by a desire, however mistaken, to benefit the community in which she lives. There is not the least doubt that the enemies of tho British Empire wish nothing better than to create within it; chaos and disorder by the spread of revolutionary doctrines. Tho tragedy of it is that they can find so many addle-pated people to ewallow their poisonous propaganda.

A subdued tone, a cable message told us yesterday, pervades the annual conference of the Miners’ Federation in Britain. The president, Air. Herbert Smith, in his speech bluntly told the men that they had been earned away by an exaggerated opinion of their power. It must have been an unusual kind of presidential address to which\the delegates listened. If they heed it, it will be an augury of better days for Britain. The miners in the strike attempted to bluff the nation by threatening to call out the safety men and so allow the pits to become flooded. Their bluff was called, and it is they themselves who are now paying tho penalty for it. As long as the spirit in existence at the beginning of the strike prevailed there was no hope of peace in the mining industry. The aim of those who controlled the Federation was then to ruin the owners by the combined effect of irritation strikes, deliberate under-production, and ever-increasing wage demands, in the hope that the owners would at last abandon their properties in despair, which would then be taken over by the miners themselves, and . managed for their own benefit. All sense of social service and responsibility to the nation afl a whole was foreign to the movement, and the wage-earning population itself had lees to gain by the success of the miners than it had by the success of the owners. The moral is that if you want to purpue an anti-social policy you must not expect society to back you.

United States census figures have revealed a notable decline in tho rate of increase of the negro population. Between 1900 and 1910 the negroes increased by one million, from 8,800,000 to 9,800,000. In the last ten years, despite the fact that the negroes have enjoyed a greater prosperity than over before, their numbers have increased by only 600,000. It thus looks as if the old fear that the problem of the coloured population would be intensified as time went on because of the high rate of increase is no longer justified. The small increase shown at the last census is attributed mainly to tho higher standard of living causing parents with limited means to consider the circumference of the family circle as a factor of new concern in their scheme of things. The figures show a marked movement in tho distribution of the pegroes through the States. The bulk of them are, of course, in the South, but whereas their rale of increase there has been only 1.9 per cent, during t he docade, tho increase in th# North wes 43

per cent, and in the West over 55 per cent. This movement reflects the dissatisfaction with the conditions that have existed in the South, and shows a determination to break away from them. Viewed in conjunction with the fall in tho ratio of natural increase, it indicates a marked change in the mental outlook of the American negro during the last ten years, the full effects of which are not yet appreciated.

Franco has long had her Foreign Legion, in the ranks of which the reckless and luckless of all nations are to be found, but British people will learn with tho greatest repugnance of the recruiting of unemployed in Britain for service in the Spanish Army in Morocco. The cable message gives no indication of tho numbers of men enlisted, and it can only be hoped that it is insignificant. Labour extremists, who would like to enforce an absolute prohibition of immigration into New Zeeland, would do well to remember that there are countrymen of theirs in Britain to-day who can see nothing ahead at home and nothing better abroad than to sell themselves as mercenaries in a Spanish war of conquest, It is ft bad business, but good will come of it if it arouses public opinion in Britain to compel a more adequate provision for the workless who are down and out.

Some interesting comments upon the flotation of the New Zealand five-million loan which was raised in London at the beginning of last month are made in English papers just received by mail. It was generally anticipated that investors would apply freely for the stock, and the fact that 58 per cent, of the issue was left in the hands of the under? writers occasioned surprise. The commercial editor of the "Manchester Guardian” observed on this point that the belief had gained ground that the heavy applications towards the closing of the list were likely to have been sufficient, or nearly sufficient,, to relieve the underwriters altogether, land the actual result had been anticipated only by the confirmed pessimists. At the issue price of .£9B, the interest yiem on ths stock works out at six and a quarter per cent., or .£6 65., if allowance is made for the bonus payable on redemption. This compares favourably with the Government guaranteed Auckland city loan which was raised in April last at 6) per cent. It was pointed out on the eve of the flotation of the five-million loan that New Zealand four per cent. 1943-63 stocks was then quoted in the London market at .£75, while New South Wales four per cent. 194>62 stocks were quoted at £69. However, the New Zealand loan is no.w quoted at a premium on the rate of issue.

Specialised knowledge, in the • opinion of Sir Arbuthnot Lane, the distinguished surgeon, can often become a curse. Just as our bodies are influenced by our surroundings and our occupations bo are our brains, in his opinion. A coalheaver’s backbone loses its normal curves and becomes converted into a long, straight rod on which the load rests. This effect is useful to the coal-heaver, but it limits his breathing, according to Sir Arbuthnot Lane, and handicaps him in event-of lung trouble. The brain, he affirms, undergoes similar changes. A classical scholar, for instance, can rarely succeed in science. Clergymen and doctors as they become efficient in one direction lose efficiency in others. The conclusion which Sir Arbuthnot Lane reaches is that parents very early in their children’s lives should find out the direction in which they can be trained with greatest advantage. In this connection heredity must bo considered. The father, he says, hands down to the daughter and the mother to the son. The mother is thus more important in this generation, tho father in the next. In training a boy the tendencies of his mother and her father should be studied carefully, ’as they will probably throw valuable, light on the general bent of his character. In specialised education, Sir Arbuthnot Lans thinks that the development of a special sense often results in the loss of common sense, by which term he understands “the capacity to arrive at a conclusion the truth of which would appeal to a number of people engaged in a variety of occupations.** As to the value of the conclusions reached by this eminent London surgeon we can only leave our readers to form their own opinion,