PUBLIC OPINION.

Hokitika Guardian, 14 June 1928, Page 4

PUBLIC OPINION.

STALIN SPEAKS. “We are faced with two alternatives : Either we continue our revolutionary policy and organise around the D.S.S.R. all the proletari ans and the I oppressed nations of the * world—in which casc international capital will put obstables in our path. Or, we shall desist from our revolutionary policy and make concessions of principle to International capital, and then, perhaps, international capital would not, lie unwilling to ‘help’ us in the work of transforming our Socialist country into a ‘good’ bourgeois republic. There ai'c people who think that we cancai-iy , out a revolutionary policy and at the same time induce Western European bourgeois to embrace us. Such people have not, and cannot have, anythin? to do with our party.”—Extract quoted by the London “ Times ” from a speech by Stalin at Moscow. LAW AND" ORDER IN EGYPT. “ Egyptian Nationalists are certain!.! an .exasperating people. Negotiation? with them have just broken down mainly, if not wholly, on the point o! the location of Pettish troops in Egypt, and now they must needs introduce and pass through their Assembly a measure which powerfully reinloico? the argument that our troops must be just where they don’t want them to ho, i.e., in Cairo and within range ol their Government’and Assembly. We have told other Powers that we should regard intervention by them in Egvpi as an unfriendly act; we have assure!, them that we will guarantee the safety of foreigners in Egypt,” continues Mi Spender. “If wo did not give thn' guarantee or were not'able to make it good, the intervention of one or other of them would he certain ; and in that casc the Egyptians would he very unlikely to find their situation easier. . . under the reservations of the Proclamation of March, 1922, tin Egyptians have the opportunity o- ( governing themselves in all essentials, | hut if they try to annul these reservations, they must seriously damage their cause and throw their whole movement in jeopardy.”—Mr J. A. Spender, writill" as a sometime member of the Milner Commission.

POWER. OF Tttfc PRESS. “As long as newspapers are political it is lfnpotrant "that they should be in a position freely to express independent views, and the public should have a variety of views expressed. J do not, however, attach that importance to the influence of the Press that some people appear to do. There are very few people who buy a newspaper because 'of its political views. In support of that opinion, I may say that if it were the Newspaper Press which made and maintained political parties in this country, there would be no Labour Party.”—Mr. Philip Snowden, M.P. TRAM CAR VERSUS BUS. “ The majority of the public seems to prefer the bus to the tramear, yet it is difficult to see why,” writes Mr .1. McDonnell, assistant general manI ager, Birmingham Tramways, in “Modern Transport.” "The latest type of tramear can travel as fast as an omnibus ; it is much more comfortable to ride in; is much safer both from the passenger and the general public point of view; is better lighted and ventilated; is more readily adapted for quick loading and unloading; both conductors and drivers can perform their respective duties with greater ease and dispatch ; it can be relied upon to run under adverse weather conflitions such as fog, snow and ice, when other vehicles, including omnibuses, are parked out of danger at the roadside; and from the point of view of dealing with mass passenger traffic; is a long way ahead of even the latest type of clonblc-cteckcci omnibus. There is room for both vehicles in any largo city’s transport scheme. The bus should he used where the traffic demand does not warrant a service with a close headway, and the tramear where the revenue to he earned is compatible with the heavy capital outlay.” SLIPSHOD ENGLISH. “ If the million are reading and speaking slipshod English, while only the thinkers write purely, a gap is widening between ordinary men and those who, on the mountain tops of thought, can see a little more clearly through the mists that lie around man’s destiny, and would tell the rest if only the rest could hear. If the poets come lo appear pedantic and precious, the poets will be derided, and that they have always been, and know bow to bear it; but the people will bo cut off from their message, and will not bo the better for that. Or else .poets will write in the new jagron; but tlie trouble, then, is that it is incapable of carrying so much of their thought as was the English of Milton.

Those who so champion modernism that they would support the prevalent trend of our language to-day, will surely hold that our day is a great day, and has something to tell to others. We can read without difficulty, what the Elizabethans had to tell us. Will the people of three or four hundred years lienee, if our language continues upon its downward slope, be able to make head or tail of what we thought or cared about?”—Lord Dunsany, in “Essays and Studies by members of the English Association.”

THE ACCIDENTS OF CHANCE. “Just as there are parts of these seemingly over-congested islands where life has hardly changed for centuries, so, even in this age of endless publicity and curiosity, it is possible for an artist of the highest order to live and work and die with next to no recognition .at all. A trick oi chance, the accident of circumstances, perhaps a nature too modest and sensitive loi this pushful world—and fame, foi whatever fame may bo worth, is missed. But the work—the work remains.” —“Daily Express.” A.-> ,>■