NEWS FROM ALL QUARTERS

Hokitika Guardian, 27 December 1929, Page 8

NEWS FROM ALL QUARTERS

GERMAN MEANS “BUSINESS.” “I have motored nearly two thousand miles in different parts of Germany without seeing a single army officer or more than half a dozen soldiers of any rank in uniform. That is the most striking external change in Republican Germany. Business success, not military glamour, is now the nation’s fetish. The ‘Excellencies’ have disappeared ; the glory of the generals has departed. One title only confers prestige in Germany to-day. It is the commercial oilo of ‘Germany-Direktor.’ Out of her home population of 41,000,000, France keeps 413,000 young men constantly under arms. She also maintains in Northern Africa a white army of (50,(XX) men, in addition to 110,000 coloured troops. In their new frame of mind the Germans look on these forces with complacency. They involve the French Government in huge annual expense, and they entail the withdrawal of a large proportion of the man-power of the nation from productive work. Sixty-five million Germans with an army limited to 100,000 men are clearly in a much more advantageous position that the French for the development of their country’s trade and manulfactures. They would not have conscription again even if the Peace Treaty permitted it. After ten years of freedom from the burden of military service the - whole nation would revolt against the hare idea.”—Lord Rothermere.

TH E TRAPPJ NGS OF DEATH. “I read with much pleasure an address of the Bishop of London in which he told his hearers that he regarded death as one of the greatest blessings we have, and asked them to think of tlie state of the world to-day if no one ever died. In his view such a state of things would be absolutely intolerable. I have long been of the Bishop’s opinion about the mercy of death. ‘Death is a (friend,’ as Lord Bacon says, ‘and he that is not ready to entertain him is not at home.’ Slowly, like the grain of mustard seed, the Bishop’s idea will prevail. We have already done away with some of the twadry trappings of our funerals, if we really accept the truth that death is a blessing, we cannot, with any reason, continue to show 0111 - sense of our friends’ blessedness, through the medium of black feathers, black horses and hearses, and the undistinguished art of the obelisks and memorial sculptures that linger and decay in our churches and graveyards. For if death is a blessing, why these dismal graveyards with gratings and vaults, stone lids and headstones, tumbling this way and that amid tussocks of rank weeds? All this old-world affection for knells and shrouds and mat tocks and mould and worms was utterly unwholesome and evil.”—Air Justice Parry. THE DIPLOMATIC BRIDGE TO MOSCOW. “If we are ever to reach agreement in regard to such matters as the draft commercial treaty, the various interGovernmental and private debt claims, fisheries, the application of previous treaties and conventions, and so forth it must be through the instrumentality of regular diplomatic machinery,” says the “Birmingham Post.” “If the exchange of Ambassadors were held up pending satisfactory adjustment of all the complicated problems arising out of these issue, Ambassadors would never be exchanged at all. On the other hand, it seems hardly worth while to invite an Ambassador to this country for the purpose of re-opening discussions unless there be at least some prospect of their ultimate success. We have seen enough of international conferences failing through inadequate preparation, which is to say . by reason of failure first to ascetain the existtence of a common purpose, and the possibility of discussion upon common ground.”

A HINT TO TOWN-PLANNERS “There will he few people to dispute the statement that the clay is not far distant when civil and commercial flying in private and public aircraft will become an established national habit if only as a means of escapng from the congestion of the roads,” says the ‘‘Yorkshire Evening News.” One of the pressing needs of our time is the provision of land suitable if or the erection of aerodromes in the immediate vicinity of our towns. And,’ unfortunately, it is a need that is in danger of being overlooked by the town-planner. The development of civil aviation is bound up with the provision of suitable flying grounds near centres of population. Yet it is ignored in most town-planning schemes. Stretches of open country are being developed at a remarkable rate. Suitable open spaces are now being scheduled as sites for mainroads and by-ways. Soon every piece of vacant land of any size near our towns will be in use. As the supply of suitable land becomes smaller, tin* cost of securing it for the benefit of the public shalT become greater. Some day we shall have to pay for our present neglect, as we are paying already for the lack of foresight in our predecessors in the matter of town-plann-ing.”