VOICE of the NATIONS

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 42, 13 November 1926, Page 17

VOICE of the NATIONS

■ SAYINGS AND WRITINGS ■ [:: :: OF THE TIMES :: ::

The Fear of Death. “It ought .to be possible to ensure that dying shall generally be easier than it is. The subject is not discussed in textbooks or lectures. It is hard to say whether spreading abroad more accurate knowledge bf death would lessen or increase the general fear of physical distress, but medical men—Sir Henry Halford, Sir William Osler, Profesor Hermann Nothnagel, and many others—who have written on the subject have usually said that so much dread is by no means justified.”-r-"The Lancet.’”

War Wealthy Americans. "When / .the funu.ng arrangements which Ainerica has made with her European? debtors full? mature she will be receiving approximately £120,000.000 a year on, account of these debts. The most sanguine expectation of the yield o c German' reparations • not more than £5'),000,000 a year, though the Dawes scheme provides for an eventual payment of £125,000,000 a year. But no authority believes that Germany will ever be able to pay a sum approaching the latter figure. Therefore, what all this amounts ' to is that America is going to take the whole of the German reparations and probably an equal sum in addition. This is not a bad arrangement for a country i‘ ; entered the war with ‘No indemnities, and no material gain’ emblazoned upon its banners.”—Mr. Philip Snowden.

Our Attitude to China. “Anything like an attitude of hostility to China or the Chinese would be ' fatal to opr interests, and would deepen, enlarge and stereotype the present feeling of antagonism towards us as a race. That feeling is temporary and localised. It will go, if we are wise, with the conditions that, have created it. China is passing' through the agony of a new birth, but she will emerge in time and the spirit in which she emerges will have vast repercussions on us and on the world. It is not ■to be supposed that after the convulsions that have swept Europe and China alike, the position of the foreigner, and of ourselves with the rest, wilj remain unchanged in the Far East. ‘We have destroyed the hegemony of colour,’ said Okuma after the Russo-Japanese War, and the events ‘ of the Great War have ratified that verdict in the Asiatic mind.’—Mr. A. G. Gardiner in the “Sunday Express.” Fascismo’s Achievement

.. “There is nothing negative or purely static in the new Italian State; the. national forces have been firmly gripped and are boldly led, and, if the end to which thev are being directed is still obscure, there can be no question of the remarkable increase in their cohesion and efficiency. . With this increase has come a change in the Italian national temper. How deep, how permanent this change lias been or fe destined to be no foreign and few, if any,. Italian observers can yet decide. But all the available evidence indicates a growth of self-confidence, of discipline, and of initiative which may have a profound and durable effect on the importance of Italy as a factor in' European, and more especially in Mediterranean, politics. That the political triumph of Fascismo was attended by certain excesses is undeniable; there are features, perhaps temporary features, in its political practice and philosophy which are repugnant to British political tradition; and it has suffered from the follies of nonItalian parodists. 'But Italian Fascismo is a fact and Fascist Italy a force of unexhausted potentialities, represented by the compelling and original personality on whose escape not Italy alone is to be congratulated to-day.’’— “Times” (London). The Public Library.

"The function of the rate-supported public library was to make provision, not merely for the things that make life possible, but for the health of the mind and for the things which tend to elevate, beautify, and ennoble the life of the people without which cur prosperity and happiness as a nation would perish. ■ A good deal of nonsensical criticism had been levelled against the public library because of the preponderance of fiction which was said to figure amongst the records of circulation. The critics, however, overlooked the fact that the public library was intended to minister to our recreation, -our aesthetic and spiritual needs, as well as to serious study.”—Dr. Guppy, president of the British Libraries Association. - Downing Street aTid South Africa. “South Africa in her past history has probably had more reason to complain' of the ignorant mishandling of some of her vital problems by. Downing Street than any other part of the Empire, and indeed the political divisions and much of the traditional bitterness of feeling are attributable tothese blunders. But the _ extraordinary generosity of the policy of the Mother Country' in later rears might have been expected to nroduce happier results than it has.” —W. E. C. Clarke, in the “Edinburgh Review.” Where arc the “Big” Men?

“I know there have been brave men after as well as before Agamemnon; that you must stand far off if you want to see the height and shape of the mountain, and all that. How are great men to be created by an age which pours millions into the pockets of facecontortionistsxand prize-fighters; which thinks a Rugby back a greater man than a Cabinet Minister or a judge; which crams the street from Charing Cross to the Ritz to catch a glimpse of Chaplin or Fairbanks; and which turns its back with cold contempt upon the rest, the artistic and intellectual remn-mt?”— “A.A.8.,” in the “Evening Standard.”

From Dark to the Light. “When the future historian surveys the treatment of mental disorder be will probably divide its devclopmen into three age-periods. lhe first w H be that in which the mentally afflicted person was regarded as a criminal and the second that in which he was regarded as a wild animal. the first quarter of the twentieth century has marked the transition from tlle s * c< ?™ to.the third stage, in which being regarded more and more as a sick man.”—"Lancet.”

Viscount Grey. “He is a statesman to whom the most uncompromising of political opponents wish many years of happy freedom from the burdens of active public life, and we are rejoiced to learn that his impaired eyesight—lnis as much a war casualty as any exservice man in hospital blue—does not prevent him from., taking a keen delight in literature and the study of the great book of Nature with its living illustrations. ‘Morning Post. ” Too Much Talk. “We provide our orators with a large choice of platforms. Are we as bold in action as we are prolific of talk? If the number of meetings of societies, reported or announced in the columns of this paper alone, is considered, taking account of the organising ability and the patience represented by all these gatherings, the sum total amount of energy expended is immense. The results ought to be in proportion. Unfortunately they are not. Propaganda is necessary, but we have reached the point of saturation in platform appeals Now is the time for action. If the man could be found to show the wav, he' would not lack followers.”—The “Church Times.” The “Good Old Days.”

“The world still lacks complete equality of opportunity, is indeed very far from it. Nevertheless, to lay the blame for that on modern civilisation is to betray ig] .norance of the sources of modern civilisation and of the direction in which it moves. Here and there an .opportunity may have been lost. Here and there may be found a slip backward. This trade or that one tnav be said, with reason, to be a worse trade now than it was ten, or fifty, or a hundred years ago. But to assert that workers as a whole are worse O' now, or have less chance to better themselves than they were in the past, or than thev had in the past, is to argue against the plain facts. sA far back as written history goes, men were talking about the good old days, the Golden Age that is gone for ever Probablv before ( thev learned ,tc write they were talking the same way.” From “The Evolution of Labour,” by Messrs W R. Hayward and G. W Johnston. The Human Mixture.

“Some individuals seem to have everything that can make life a daily benediction, and a splendid opportunity foi-.utmost .development, bodily, men-' tally, spiritually. Whilst for others — who never asked to be born---all seems dark, and hard, and depressing, if not hopeless, from their birth onwards. Not a few around us wallow in luxury, whilst others have a cruel fight for bare existence. Some enter upon life with a physical vitality and an intellectual capacity, allied inexplicably with what we call ‘force of character, which appear to crown them as victors before any fight begins. Whilst others, through no fault of their own, so lack these capacities and powers, that all who know them fear for then future, and dismiss it from thought with a sigh.”—Rev. Dr. Frank Ballard, in the ■'“Wesleyan Methodist Magazine.”

reported in the "Worcestershire Echo.” To Live Greatly. , “Nothing is more trite, or’ more true, than to say that man cannot live by bread alone. We must work in order to live at all, but once that minimum is.ours we want to live as greatly as we can Our work will not suffer thereby. It will probably profit by our othersidedness. We can judge whether we are. a truly civilised nation, recognising fundamental values in life, and satisfying other needs than the purely material, when we are as eager as the British to know, not only how our distinguished men work, but how they plav; when our schools place training for hobbies at least on a par with training for vocations; and .when the achievement of the amateur becomes of moment to each of us, since we .all desire a standing in that unexacting but joy-inducing fellowship of free explorers in a world of wonders and delights.”—Miss Cornelia Cannon, in the “North American Review.” The New Germany.

‘‘The fact that Germany will now take her place on equal terms in the council of nations does not necessarily mean that outstanding difficulties will be solved or smoothed over in a spirit of Christian meekness, or that discord will give way magically to harmony. On the contrary, it is quite possible that Germany s new status will involve, sooner or later, the acrimonious discussion of many burning questions which are of deep concern to Central Europe, but on which up to the present, or up to the signing of the Locarno treaties, Central Europe has had no recognised standing except .in the role of a barely tolerated claimant at the judgment-scat of the Allied Governments. The important factor in the admission ot Germany is not that these questions may now be settled more easily, but that they could .lever have been settled at all while Germany remained in the legal sense an outlaw from the League and in the moral sense, according to the Allied viewpoint, an ‘untouchable.’ ” —“Daily News.” The Truth About the Miner.

“Many folk talk ‘off their hat’ about the hazard and unpleasantness of the miner’s job. Is it so vastly more dangerous than that of the ■ nginedriver or the motorist, the sailor or the deep-sea fisherman, the whaler, the sealer, the airman, or the stoker on land or sea? Unpleasant! Then how is it that the genuine miner will freely tell vou that he would not wish for or like any other job? Mining is in their very blood, and they speak with pardonable pride about their fathers and grandfathers being miners The ‘call’ or desire is as much bred and born in the pitman’s son as is the instinct in a sheepdog. Another advantage the pitman has over the builders, the quarryman, the navvy, or any other outside workers, is that wet weather does not interfere with his earnings In addition, he gets a longer week-end off than any other manual worker. There is over-much maudlin sentimentality evinced, ' presumable owing to the war having got on our' nerves, which tends to obscure the real bedrock issue.”—The Rev. Theodore P. Brocklehurst, in the “Yorkshire Post.”