NEWS AND OPINIONS

Evening Star, Issue 21742, 9 June 1934, Page 2

NEWS AND OPINIONS

AN APT QUOTATION. When serious topics are discussed the House of Commons delights in an occasional lighter touch to any debate, and the following is a typical example. Mr M'Kie, M.P., said:— “ May I with due respect call the attention of English and Welsh members to the fact that in Scotland we have always had a higher consumption of water per head of the population than any other parts of the country? That is a fact, again, to which it would perplex most hon. members to assign an exact reason.” Sir John Withers: “In regard to the theory which the hon. member is now putting forward, may I remind him of the classical instance which is referred to in the Scottish historical poem, ‘ ’Phairson Swore a Feud ’:

“ ’Phairson had a sou, Who married Noah’s daughter, And nearly spoiled the Flood, . By drinking up the water. • Which he would have done, ' I, at least, believe it, Had the mixture been Only half Glenlivet.” Mr M'Kie: “I hope that the hon. member for Cambridge University (Sir J. AVitbers) will not expect me on the spur ot the moment to reply to that reference.” ' THE LATE DR HORTON. » The comment that Dr 11. F, Horton narrowed his experience and perhaps to some extent his sympathies by moving from Oxford to ■ Hampstead over fifty years ago and never moving any further is, I think, just. He was a man of one church. He made Lyndhurst Road, became its minister in 1880, and remained in active charge of it till four years ago. It is a remarkable record. But for some years Horton has been little in the public eye, contrasting therein strikingly with his veteran Free Church colleague, Dr' iScott Lidgett, who in his eightieth year (Horton was a year younger) is_ abating nothing of his incredible activity. Dr •Horton was one of the best embodiments of scholarship and culture among Free Church and he could, if he had chosen, have had a notable career at Oxford. I have not observed in any of his obituary notices the story of how when, as a young minister to whom ministerial garb was distasteful, he announced; “I will wear no clothes to distinguish me from ordinary men,” _an undergraduate alive to opportunities put a comma after the word “ clothes,” and flooded Oxford with a drawing illustrating the vow.— “ Janus,” in tne ‘ Spectator.’. JAPAN AND MORAL DISARMAMENT. Before the recent adventure in Manchuria earnest efforts had been made in Japan to introduce a considerable measure of intellectual co-operation in education. Chapters on, international booperation were introduced into all history text books, and an effort was made to eliminate all unfriendly references to other countries and to include an account of the- great men of all nations. A text book on morals used in the majority of the secondary schools of Japan includes chapters on the preservation of world peace, internationalism. the League of Nations, and international morality. A Japanese Association for International Education was organised “to promote mutual understanding and justice between nations, to advance the cause of world culture, and to work for the realisation of enduring peace.” It has joined the National; Peace Council of Japan, which includes some ten national organisations, and is closely associated with the Imperial Education Association. The two organisations reach 200,000 teachers.

drifting away. Whilst the report of the Scottish] Churches Council wisely avoids the extravagant declarations of those who regard uon-attenders as “ pagan,” an investigation, into the church-going habits of the people leads them to depressing conclusions.. The population of Sootland is every year becoming less Scottish in blood, tradition, and religious attachments, It is a striking fact that 1,100,000 adults have no religious affiliation, and about 150,000 children are not connected with church or Sunday schooL The report speaks* of the importance or preserving the predominance of the Scottish race, and of bringing about a more healthy distribution of the population by establishing fresh roots in the rural areas. How the church can counteract modern 1 tendencies is one of the greatest problems it has had to face at any time, ".for a large section of the people ho longer even hears the voice of reproof or exhortation.— ‘ Weekly ..Scotsman.’ A PRINTER’S ERROR. The responsible compositor of the ‘ Essener Volkszeitung,’ formerly the organ of the Roman Catholic Centre Party, has been taken into protective custody for a printing error (writes the Frankfort correspondent of ‘The Times ’). At the close of the printed text of the German President’s congratulatory, telegram to Herr Hitler on his fortyfifth birthday—in which he thanked the Chancellor for his work of reconstruction and expressed the wish that he may enjoy many more years 'of blessed work and ’ personal welfare—the compositor had set an interrogation mark instead of tb© exclamation mark with which it had been concluded. CAPITALISM AND THE MASSES. By whatever injustices and oppressions the rise of Capitalism was accompanied, it did undoubtedly lead not only to a large positive increase in total wealth, out also to a wider diffusion of consuming power. It would he sheer nonsense to contend that the poor became in the mass poorer under Capitalism than they were under the system which it displaced. This was not even true of the period which was chiefly in Marx’s mind as he wrote; for even in the earlier decades of the nineteenth century, when the abuses of the Industrial Revolution v'ere at their worst, it is scarcely possible to argue that there was more material poverty in England than there had been in the eighteenth century, o> ; , to go back farther, when the medieval economic system was in its most flourishing phase. . . . It is practically certain that at any time after the first decade* of the Industrial Revolution the average real income of the poorer classe* was higher than it had ever been before; and it is utterly beyond question that the further _ development of Capitalism in the . nineteenth century was accompanied in. every capitalist country by a real and rapid advance in working-class, standards.—G. 13. H. Cole (Socialist economist), in ‘ What Marx Really Meant.’