TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Waikato Times, Volume 119, Issue 19895, 26 May 1936, Page 8

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Democratic Method “Human life, human suffering and human freedom, constitute the price current in all the dictatorships. And we may note that it is a price exacted before delivery of goods. “’e must still wait: for Stalin‘s classless society, for Hitler’s reign of justice and peace, for Mussolini’s new Roman Empire; but we already know that in Russia, Germany and Italy human life has been squandered and the human spirit has been degraded. But after all, democracies have built big hydro-electric plants and steel mills without pouring out rivers of blood. They have preserved national unity without reviving jungle race theorieS. They have reclaimed marshes and cleaned railway ears without suppressing liberty. They have seen other methods tried out with firing squads, with rubber clubs, with veneentration camps, with race proseribtious, with peasant liquidations, with machine-guns, and the results. are certainly ugly and as yet uncon—- ‘ vineing."——Simeon Strunskyi iPrimitiue Thoughts

“Lo the poor Indian did not have to fill out an income tax blank. He at least did not have to attempt the impossibility of putting three quarts of information into a pint pot of a blank space. His eagle eye did not have to follow faint dotted lines across a white _desert to make certain that he did not enter figures in the Wrong column. None of Lo’s neighbours demanded that he make out a duplicate return. No instructions written in brnsque Departmentalese, an offshoot of English, swam and blurred before his eyes. He did not have to keep three sets of books to get through a year on fair terms with his conscience, his checking account and his govern. ment. He did not huve to look through a sheaf of cheque stubs. He did not wake with u start in the night in the fear that he had forgotten a credit or failed to include on item. Lo not only had time to see God in every cloud, but he probably felt in the mood for it as well."—New York Sun. Sir [Maurice Hankey

Sir Maurice Hankey, who gave evidence before the Arms Commission in London, is 58 years Ulti. Born on the Riviera of Australiun parents and married to :1 South African, he is Clerk to the Privy Council, Principal Secretary to the Secretariat of the Cabinet and‘h‘m‘retai‘y to the Committee of Imperial Defonue. After the (treat \\'ur he was :lward £25,000 by the Government antl‘ received the decoration G.C.B. for his part in instituting the convoy system and his sm'i't‘lal‘ial work at the Penvc Conference. He toured the British Empire in 1934. He probably knows more about. the inner \\'m'kings of the British Government and has been entrusted with ltlnl't‘, State set-rots than an\' other man living. All vital papers puss through his hands; all major 153L105 demand his attention.