SEQUEL TO NEW YORK SMASH.

Hokitika Guardian, 9 January 1930, Page 2

SEQUEL TO NEW YORK SMASH.

“Stimulated by the return of funds from New York, a considerable proportion of which seems to be finding its way into our own first-class securities, the sterling exchange has rapidly improved, and we may reasonably visualise the possibility of gold shipments from New York to Loudon at no very distant date. One sequel to such a development might very well be a reduction in our own bank rate, and though such a movement may not occur until the New A car, the British trader may hopefully' anticipate some, measure of relief if the financial horizon continues to become clearer. Of one thing he may be quite sure, namely, that the Bank of England will not maintain the present high level lyoney rates a moment longer that is absolutely necessary.” “Yorkshire Post.”

EMPIRE AND DISARMAMENT. * '“if wo want to see a real beginning to disarmament at sea. with all that it means of hope for mankind, we must abandon the dream that our Empire is to bo really an empiie at all in the accented sense. We must choose fellowship and repudiate force. There is one area only in which the British Empire has the power to acquire economic and military unity. That area is the Indian- Ocean and its surrounding lands. It happens that this ocean is almost entirely surrounded by countries under British dominion. Here, if we wish, we car. found an empire in the accepted sense for these lands lie about that Ocean as the Athenian Empiie lay about the Aogan Sea. or the Roman Empire about tlie Alediterrancan. It is an important f.-et that with the exception of the Union of South Africa in the extreme south, these lands are not self-governing, but are the home of populations subject to British rule without reference to their own desires, and in many cases against the will of .large sections of their members. It is with regard to this subsidiary maritime empire of subject peoples that we should most sedulously examine our own intentions. Is the Empire about the Indian Ocean to be an Empire of fellowship* or of force?”

FOLLOW THE GLEAM. “The very large majority of marriages are faithful and happy. A happy marriage is the best thing, in human life, and it will be within the reach of almost all of you. God is love; and the love of husband and wife brings us nearer to the heart of reality, the knowledge of God, than any other experience. The profanation of a sacrament is a very ugly thing, and I cannot understand why anyone should find the subject attractive. Faith is a way of walking, not a way of talking, or as Benjamin Whichcote put it, Christianity is a divine life, not a . divine science. If we only talk, we shall very likely come to the conclusion that Christianity is played out. It is a- principle* of life, and it can therefore change, as only the permament can change. But Jo us, as to past ages, it can be and will be the guiding light which we may follow over the uncharted country through which our path lies. It has not failed us who are old; it will not fail you who are young. But unless you follow the gleam you will soon see it no. longer. Dean Inge.

PRINCE OF AVALES AND THE " V. C’S. “To-night I speak (if I may call it so) of the Most Enviable Order of the Victoria Cross, the • most democratic and at the same time most exclusive of all orders of chivalry. Democratic because it takes not the least heed of a man’s rank or social status; exclusive, because its simple insignia of all the honours which a grateful countiy can. bestow gives right of entry to what is generally considered the most select corps in the world. It is recruited from that very limited circle of men who see what is needed to be, done and do it at once at their own peril, and, having done it, shut uplike the oyster. This is a wise piovision of nature, for if the men who did things talked half as much as the men who know how things ought to be done life would not be worth living. Gentlemen, you are the holders of an honour which, it is true, can only be won in time of war, and there is no wise man to-day who, having learnt what war means, does not pray that it may never corne again in his lifetime.”—The Prince of AA ales, at the Victoria Cross Banquet.

TO EINSTEIN. “Dr. Einstein has the kind of fame that makes men forget to which of the families of the human race be belongs. AA e do not think first of Newton as an Englishman, any more than wo think first of Dante as an Italian, or of A Toy. art as a German. AVc all know of Dr. Einstein, hut he, like them has served not one race or another. bit mankind. This gives a special power to the letter we print from him pleading the cause of the people from whom, like so many thinkers and artists who have put the world in their debt, .he takes his descent. It will road with sympathy and deep feeling by all who have a natural inclination to understand the emotions he seeks to interpret.”—“Alanchester Guardian.”