The Dominion MONDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1934. EXIT AND ENTRANCE

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 82, 31 December 1934, Page 6

The Dominion MONDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1934. EXIT AND ENTRANCE

He licth still; he doth not move; He will not see the dawn of day. - —Tennyson. Taints, the ancient divinity from whom we derive “January,” was the presiding genius of exits and entrances fhe round oftheye,, has brought us to another exit. Tennyson’s pic tore of e dyn year is a somewhat sombre conception. Most --of us aie so see the end of the rear that we make merry with feasting and junU ing. No single year is like another. Some are better than ohe s a m there are in the lives of all of us one or two, perhaps more, that stano out from the past as golden years of achievement and happiness B must have been of one of these that Tennyson wrote in the dn r ,t above-quoted: Old Year, you must-not go; ’ So long as you have been with us, » -Such joy as you have seen with us, Old Year, you shall not go. To every year is its measure of light and shade, of sunshine and rain.' Of 1934, the reckoning has left us with a balance of hope and confidence much larger than was our portion when we added up profit and loss of 1933. The Mother Country is well ou of the depression and going steadily forward in the direction of a new era of prosperity. She is comparatively the most prosperous counhj in a world which to-day has still much leeway to make up, and sue is her strength and influence among the nations that they in time wi come to benefit from the far reaching effect of her recovei y. Ihe first to share this benefit will be the British Dominions and co onie., already rallying their fortunes through the upward swing. \ lewccl as a year of recoveryzl934 has been a friendly and helpful period for the British people. For the European nations it has been less satis factory.. Their efforts, at recovery are still impeded by the deadweight of economic nationalism, and this in turn has loaded ie scales against the return of those conditions of confidence, security ano peace that are the essential requirements of prosperity and human happiness. The world has been nearer war in 1934 than in any ytu. since 1918, and there is. not a doubt that the underlying cause of this dangerous drift has been the pinch of poverty and adversity in .lie European danger zone. . . •It has been a bad year for the League of Nations, but there is hope for better things in the .coming year. There is already evidence in certain European countries-of a growing inclination to settle down seriously to the study of the provocative jssues that are keeping them in a'constant state of international suspicion and internal unrest. Nothing so promising has happened in that-regard as the willingness 'of France and Germany ‘to allow the Saar plebiscite to be supe:vised and controlled by an international force. By many cornjoeten, observers of the trend of world events, however, 1935 will be regarded as a year of test., The armaments race will be definitely off or on according as the Naval Conference succeeds or fails. The unknown factor is Japan. Here again the problem is fundamentally economic. It will be a year of test, also, for the democracies. _ Government ot the people by the people for the people has been seriously threatened by the pretensions and aggrandisement of dictatorships. 1 here is urgently needed a revaluation of democracy, its. responsibilities, and its leadership, in order that the principle of government under whipli, nations enjoy the greatest measure’ of freedom and the liberties and rights of their individual citizens are permanently assured, may survive and acquire greater strength and efficiency in action. And tne process of revaluation must be measured by moral standards. 1 eople are becoming increasingly impatient with compromises and expediencies, with the clamours of sectional interests, and the soul-destroying worship of Mammon which taints human aspirations and activities in every walk of life. . Here in New Zealand, though we are remote from the conflict of new ideas and old in politics and economics, the repercussions from the turmoil are eventually and inevitably felt. Some of the shocks may be very sharp and severe, as our farmers can testify. Otheis, though fainter, and of no apparent local import, are nevertheless pertinent to our destiny. It did not seem to matter greatly to New Zealanders that an obscure assassin had murdered an Austrian Archduke and his wife, but it came to matter a.great deal eventually. We can. help in our small way in advancing the prosperity of the world and the peace of nations by adopting a policy of sympathetic understanding with the Mother Country of which the surest result will be a strengthening of the Commonwealth, as a - whole against any future perils that may beset it. Team work is our only hope of salvation both in domestic and in Imperial affairs. Carlyle had a habit, of referring to the people as “you”; Ruskin referred to. them as “they”; Morris preferred to say “we.” As a method of thinking in these times, and especially for the coming year of grace 1935, the Morris way is the soundest for a modern democracy.