"CHANGE"

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 87, 7 January 1919, Page 8

"CHANGE"

Sir,—Am article, headed "Change" in your Saturday issue sets one moralising. This year of'grace 1919 is big with change as no year has been 6ince the ■ first. Tennyson in one of his brighter moods bids "the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.' Moliere did not hail change so enthusiastically in his curt phrase, "nous avons change tout cela." Barbonino, a Latin poet, is neutral, "Tempore mutantur et nos rautamur in illis." How may we, on this threshold of-a new age, regard change? With the Roman stoical detachment, with the Frenchman's cynicism and implied antagonism, or. with the Englishman's welcoming challenge? I venture to indicate an answer,- as under i No doubt the Frenchman's apothegm . was drastic, ' , ' ■ His language cynical, his mood sarcastic; ~ ', ■ Perhaps 'the dear old gentleman was , nettled ~ , ' At finding. everything 'so much unsettled ~ When be, and many others with him, ; would , ' ~, ' ! Have much preferred to keep things as they stood. . ~ ; The Roman phrased it philosophically, And held that changes just come. 1 naturally. • .•,,', . Changes in Prance quite took mens breath away; In Rome they were tho marks of slow decay. , , . .. Athwart old Europe changes, this New Open a vista long and dark and drear, Dread turns of Nemesis's kaleidoscope, Unliglited by the rays of faith or hope, But by the lurid bursts of. mine and Made luminous as arc the realms of But there's a land, a far-off Mother Isle, ' ' . Whose people .'greet her changes with a , smile. '-• " . ;-■'' ■'•' ' '- In Britain change is neither cruel nor Nor does it signify decrepitude; It does not presage woe or cause alarm j It-is the harbinger of good, not.harm; It is the measure of the onward march ■ Of a free people through Time s awful ", arch. , ,'•■ .. Old Kngland! (Since the days of.Juluis Caesar ... ' - ~ Nothing but well-won liberty would ■ lilease her!) ,-,,., It" is for this thy children, hold thee dear/ ' . ~ ■■ . ._ Thy changes bring thcin blessing, tar and near, >■ "At honie and'in thy lands across the sea— '■ ■ ■" \ The sure prerogatives of men born trc». I am, etc.. H. M. B. MARSHALL. New Year, 1919. •>: