THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 282, 27 August 1942, Page 4

THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY

Comments—Reflections

No well-informed person lias declared a change of opinion to be inconstancy .—Oireco.

"The last thing 1 want is a kind of State sausage machine from which youths arc turned out looking all alike. It is the purpose of the Government to see that whatever -is done by the State for youth should lie supplementary to and not destructive of voluntary effort. In all Fascist countries the miscreants who have achieved power made it their first business to corrupt and barbarize youth, and one of the problems of postwar reconstruction will be to decide what should bo done With the survivors of those generations who have been deliberately moulded- into young brutes.’’—Mr, Attlee, British DeputyPrime Minister, in a recent speech.

"World conditions have changed so greatly and so swifty that the best wen and methods are needed to cope with them. The pace of diplomacy has quickened as the range of its activities has widened; it has to be active as well as alert in order to keep abreast of the world movement. It Is, in-fact, no longer an. affair of routine, and prudence demands that its agents should be recruited from the widest field of choice, with no other qualification than fitness. It is not everyone whom the diplomatic career attracts; but those who are drawn to it strongly enough to qualify for it ought to have their chance in the interests of the service as well as of themselves. The able and often distinguished men by whom the existing system is operated were neither selected nor could be specially equipped to meet all the exacting requirements of modern conditions and it is no sort of disparagement of them to recognize tho fact. Wo cannot afford, whatever be the new order which emerges from this war, to have a foreign service less than fully efficient at all points for its onerous tasks and it is satisfactory to know that that essential is recognized and in the way of being satisfied.” "Daily Telegraph,” London.

"If a philosophy is to be judged by its fruits, Lord Halifax’s needs no apology, One of the best known episodes in his life is the scene when he came to consult his father after he had been invited to become Viceroy of India. The decision was very grave for both. His father was eighty-five. It was most improbable, if he accepted tiie offer, that they would ever see each other again. He would have to abandon the kind of life he liked, and tiie society of many he loved, to face enormous difficulties and some real dangers in a far distant country, He would have to leave his children behind in England. His father has described the I sequel in a passage which is a classic of its kind. There is nothing to add to it. ‘I said, “Never min'd the consequences. If you really try to discover what you ought to do and then do it, yon need never reproach yourself afterward. What we must do is to say our prayers." So we both straightway went to church, and when wc came out, I said.to Edward, “I think you really have to go,” and. he said, “I think so, t 00....” He did not neglect any tiling, but did all that seemed to him right and good, upheld the honour of an Englishman, and tiie test reputation of a Yorkshireman.’ ” —Mr. Stuart Hodgson, in his biography, “Lord Halifax.”

"It is true,” says, the "Glasgow Herald,” "that the British people will not readily agree to any widespread revival of degrading or crippling poverty and that we must seek for a form of society in which all men and women will be regarded- not merely as ‘hands’ in an industrial process but as individuals whose lives have an individual human value. But this does not mean that the years immediately after the war will provide universal plenty and leisure, and a higher standard of life for all if only we plan carefully enough —or if the -State takes sufficiently complete control of everything and everybody. If. may be that once the disruption and devastation of war have been set right, the productive power of modern machinery will provide mankind with greater natural comfort than the majority have ever known before. But it will take some time, for the nations to adjust themselves to peace and clear away the war wreckage. During- that time many jieople in Britain, as in most other countries, are likely to find themselves considerably less well off than they were in 1939, and if they have been taught: to believe that in conquering Hitler they will also conquer a future of inevitably expanding comfort for themselves, then disappointment may lead to the gravest social n a happiness."

"The eau.se bus been heard. The nation rejects submission, the nation does not acknowledge itself either decadent or guilty, the nation feels toward the enemy nothing but the bitter desire to tear him to pieces one day. The nation lias only one hope, victory, and only one thought, that of its sons who are lighting to win it—and who, rejecting 'the now order’ with all those catchwords of the disaster, want n New France. But, since there is no other expression of the will of France than the voice, action and arms of the Free French, since it is clear that - this voice, action and arms are the only arguments the mother country still has, we propose to use them to say and do what she wishes. Until the day when it shall lieconie possible for the whole of France to express herself, it is our duty to do It in her name. Temporary but resolute trustees of her moral and material patrimony, inspired only by the will to serve and defend her, we shall not only throw into 1 lie tight for her liberation nil of her forces at our command, we shall not only make her law and her justice reign in such of her territories as acknowledge our authority, wo shall not only guard for her her alliances and her friendships, but wo shall also serve as guide and help for her at. home and we shall enforce her rights abroad.” —General do Gaulle.

“Winter Wings." "No time is in flight: Earth ages apart. Day dwindles to night, But. not in your heart. “You are young When you fly As the cloud-whites of noon, As the wakening sky Hound the first new moon. "Yet your dim bookish brain Still questions and pores, Grows old with the strain And the folly of wars. . . .” —From "Thy Muse Hath Wings,” by Pilot Officer G. Endos.