THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 23, 22 October 1942, Page 4

THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY

Comments—Reflections

Freedom suppressed and again regained bites with keener fangs than freedom never endangered.—Cicero.

The “Minneapolis Morning Tribune,’ 1 printed -under the heading of a recent editorial, in prominent type, across two col urn us:—

Lest we forget: the year that Britain fought alone.

The phrase “crooked as a basket of fish hooks,” which the United States Secretary of State, Mr. Cordell Hull is reported in a magazine to have applied in private conversation shortly before Pearl Harbour to • Yoshuke Matsuoka, former Japanese Foreign Minister, is not now strong enough to describe his view of Japanese statesmen. Asked at a press conference if he had been correctly quoted by the magazine, Mr. Hull said he would prefer stronger language, but would restrain himself. —“New York Times.”

“Unless we can say to those who have suffered terrible wrongs at the hands of the Nazis that the men who committed the crimes will be properly tried, condemned, and punished when victory comes, there will be wholesale massacres, We must say, and say it now, that we intend to see that these criminals are brought to trial at properly constituted courts, and are punished according to the findings of these courts.” — Viscount Cecil, speaking at a League of Nations Union meeting in London.

“We cannot possibly base any educational system on a sectarian system that would satisfy all sects, but I think we could concentrate, or the Board could concentrate, on a system which would suit the majority of people,” said Mr. Morgan, M.P. in the House of Commons. “You may ask me, ‘What is the central Christian doctrine?’ I confess it is a very difficult thing to answer, but if I were to be pressed, I would 1 say it is one which is based on the Ten Commandments and the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount. Few people would object to that.”

“There are few better things that a man can do at the present time than to be of cheerful.heart and to make his friends glad to see him,” said Sir Hector Hetherington, Principal of Glasgow University, in a recent speech to the students. When I look backover the years before the war the thing I chiefly regret is the mistake of insufficiently realizing the tragedy that occurs when a man, having no real work to do, is denied the experience and the discipline of feeling that lie counts. I know all about the difficulties and the risks and the costs which would have attended a bolder policy. They were and they are neither imaginary nor small. But I think we were wrong not to face them more bravely than we did.”

“No man can lay bricks, drive a car, cast accounts, design electrical apparatus, perform a surgical operation, examine and give an opinion upon a heart, do chemical research, or indeed be of the slightest use as. a craftsman in a skilled job, without full and adequate training. Politics provide the most intricate problem of all. Why should this subject be the happy hunting ground of the untrained, and why should rhe government of the country provide opportunities for the greedy partisan, the briefless lawyer, or the social climber? Politicians, national and international, must learn their job before they make their mess, not by the process of hoping to learn by surviving innumerable past messes,” —Mr. Geoffrey Bourne, in “Return to Reason.”

“Hate i>ropaganda is simply a form of sentimentalism. It is attempting to feed the national morale on emotion, and the experience of the last war proved how very unsettling is such a regiment. People who were then most excitably Germanophobe, easily passed later to Russophobia, and then to proFascist appeasement of Hitler. Our hate merchants should realize three facts as to the value of their propaganda in the time of war—that nobody can for long hate to order, and that the British are particularly bad at it; that hate may generate- momentary fury but it never, or only very exceptionally generates cold, 'persevering determination such as this war asks; and, that if we are fighting this war for a really human purpose we must control it as an instrument of that purpose.”—Dr. Blunt, Bishop of Bradford, in a recent Diocesan letter.

“In Britain the problem of agriculture is complicated by the immense variety of soils, of climate and of other geophysical factors, apart from the difference in size of farms and differing types of farmers. That is one of the reasons why, for example, this country went in for so many different types of ploughs, which are numbered not by tens of scores, but by hundreds. This is one of the main difficulties that face us in trying to reduce the different types- of ploughs to more manageable proportions. I believe that the different types number no fetfer than 850. In most other countries by contrast there is a comparatively small number of farming types and more uniformity of soil, of farm and of agricultural knowledge and resources on the part of the farmer. In the United Kingdom there are two further complications. It is very usual in my experience to find that if you discuss any one problem with fanners from different parts of the country they talk in almost completely different languages, so that an explanation of a process which is applicable to one part of the country may seem;complete nonsense to farmers in another part. Endless confusion has been caused in the past and great disservice has been done to the cause of science by people advocating new methods as though they were of universal application.”—The British Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Hudson. The Couponless Things. “We don't need coupons for kindness; It’s a joy that witli all we can share. We don’t need coupons for sympathy, Though it helps everyone everywhere. Let us face our troubles with cheerfulness And courage for all of our needs; Develop our love with prayerfulness And turn it to practical deeds. —From a poem, “Life’s Couponless Things.”