THE NEWSPAPER.

Hokitika Guardian, 3 July 1930, Page 3

THE NEWSPAPER.

“What strikes me more and more

about readers is their ingratitude. People grumble at the newspapers, but what would those grumblers do if they could not get their newspapers? I cannot help thinking a- lot of nonsense is said about the so-called defects of. the Press. I prefer to think of its wonderful achievements, its immense variety, and the wealth of ability bestowed upon it.”—Lord He wart.

THE ECONOMIC ETHIC. “There has come about, partly in the disturbances of war, enormous and extraordinary changes in the wjorld, far-reaching in the demands they make upon economic knowledge. Man’s control over science' and the physical world lias advanced at such a- rapid rate that it has disturbed his advance in moral power. The Christian ethic ought to -be giving to the economist new problems to- the Christian ethic. Only thus, by getting to-e-ether, can we do things. The real thing the Christian ethic has to do is to give a new standard of conduct in economics, to watch critically present- conditions, press to get them altered, to insist continually that, from the purely 'economic point of view, far 100 much is spent on alcoholic liquor. Thus can w© make a tremendo :s contribution towards their whole economic life in society. It is co-operation between these two, the Christian ethic and the economist, that alone can bring them out of the troubles whcli beset them on all sides.”—Sir Josiah Stamp.

I AN UNTENABLE CLAIM “Though the Egyptian Government has received the fullest guarantees from tin's country as to security of the water supply of Egypt, an important section of the Waitlist Party, on the strength of the fact- that the Nile passes through the Sudan, has urged the delegates to support the claim to Egyptian sovereignty, and to demand ft division—equal for the present, less equal perhaps in the future—of all ftidmiinistuftitive posts: among British and Egyptian officials. It was all very logical granting certain promises—sue! as the principle (not yet recognised hy jurists) that economic dependence upon a river justifies- a, claim to political ownership of its entire basin. But from the standpoint of international law the argument is untenable. Pressed to its natural conclusion it would justify a claim to Abyssinia, the source of the most important branch of the Nile. Applied to its relations between Great Britain and Egypt it is quite unacceptable, since it is based upon a misreading or a forgetfulness of recent history, and entirely neglects the Sundanese as a possible factor in the future of their own country."— “The Times” (London). PRICE-FINING FALLACIES. “The Emperor Diocletian fixed the price of everything from a pint of len-

tils up through lengths of rope to black negro slaves, putting an exact and what lie thought an honest price on all of theiil. This did not succeed, though documents show the exact price of everything. ( But the system could not w-oi’Jj every long. Robespierre and the Jacobins made the attempt with the celebrated law about

lood prices which led to the closing of the bakers’ siiops and Pans riots Justing for weeks. Modern Russia may '■■’e regarded as an example of whatcomes from trying, with the best of in! eiiljo.ns, to fix prices for the ‘proletariat,’ The unfortunate people who do not belong to the ‘proletariat,’ of \ ) ~e, have nothing, at. all. But these are merely warnings in general; they show that die present- Government, again with the best of' intentions, is going over the old path that thousands ot republics and monarchies, either well-intentioned or wishing to well-intentioned, have gone before them, all ending in absolute,failure.” —Sir Charles Oman, M.P.

A BARRIE REMINISCENCE

“I seal died out the first lodgings I had ever had in London—in Blooms- . bury, at. this corner, No 6. I even found my old table there and-the-hole > my feet had made in the-, matting. There once, more I settled down in tile old blissful way to fight ; it out , with the stars. I think the days and nights that followed were the happiest of,.my life, except, perhaps, the other days and nights I had spent in the same place. You know (he feeling—so- many of you dears know it. The shabby room, as the night advances, ' becoming, smaller and hazier and kindlier, the inkpot hoping to goodness it won’t give out, the candle stealing closed to help your poor eves, all of them on your side, all peeping at your pages and whispering, ‘You are doing this ‘time—listen to the nightingale,’ and all ready to drop a. lodg-ing-house tear when it turns out. to he a sparrow in the morning.”—Sir James Barrie, in an address at the annual dinner of the Royal Library Fund.