THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 15, 13 October 1943, Page 4

THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY

Comments —Reflections

“Today nine out o£ 10 unmarried women between the ages of 19 and 45 are in the uniformed forces, munitions factories, or essential war work.”—British information Service.

“British boys are clamouring by the thousands to go to sea despite the Üboat menace. The merchant navy’s training school has a waiting list of 1000 boys under 16, and thousands have already passed through the school. Many come from seafaring families and have lost their fathers or brothers at sea.” —London correspondent of -Wall Street Journal.”

“The U.S. Navy is convinced it has found, the answer to the U-boat menace in the so-called escort vessel. The escort vessel is beginning to conic into mass production in the many shipyards concentrated around Boston. In the course of the next year scores of them, will be turned out. In some yards the construction of destroyers is being suspended entirely in order to accelerate the production of the escort vessels, which in appearance resemble greatly the latest type of 2100-ton destroyers. but cost less than half as much to build —3,000,000 dollars against 7,000,000. These escort vessels are able to turn like a top in their tracks, thus making it exceedingly difficult for the submarine to avoid their deadly depth charges.—New York “Herald Tribune.”

“In all the exchange that goes on now between Sweden and Germany, the Swedes refuse to accept gold. The Germans have been trying to make the Swedes take gold, but the latter have absolutely refused. They have invented a form of exchange based on man hours. The man-hours exchange is quite new and it works in the most extraordinary way. More man-hours are needed to raise iron ore than to raise coal. The result is that the Swedes are now working their exchanges upon a basis of equivalent man-hours rather than upon gold, and it is a much more equitable arrangement. It means that the Germans have to work longer to get the excahnge, and that they cannot get what they want by giving Sweden stolen gold. That is important.”—Sir R. Glyn, M.P., in the House of Commons.

“Tolerance, discrimination, and minding one’s own business are essentials in leading the spiritual life, as indeed they are in leading tlie good life on any level of experience. An appreciation of the bearing of timeliness is extremely valuable in attaining those qualities. It affects not only the things of tlie spirit and the mind and the heart, but also the ordering of our worldly actions in everyday life on the physical plane, enabling us to do our work more quietly. If we lea'rn to bide our time, we enjoy better health. Most of us are too busy, too impatient to fill up every hour with something accomplished, something done: too greedy that our cuip should be full. We take pains to fill up any empty corner or moment, often with praiseworthy motives, but seldom witili good results. We defeat our own ends by this restlessness, and wo lose the treasure of empty spaces, which have healing in them.—'Mrs. L. Le Mesurier, in .her book, “God's Carpet.” * # *

At a Press conference Lord Gort, Governor of Malta, had nothing but praise for Malta’s heroism. But he paid tributes to some who have not always been singled out: to Miss Mabel Strickland, whose “Times of Malta” and the vernacular “11. Berka” have not yet missed a single issue, and to the British infantrymen stationed in Malta. Some of these men have not seen their families for eight years. Their deeds have been overshadowed by those of the anti-aircraft gunners, the air force and the navy, but they have watched the coastline, guarded aerodromes and in-stallations,-filled in bomb craters, built pens and’ aerodromes, and cleared roads, serviced aircraft, carried and set up 100,000 tons of masonry, and with Maltese help unloaded 29,000 tons of cargo in live and a half days in docks battered by bombing and without cranes. “They are tlie finest infantry in the world,” said Lord Gort, himself an infantryman, “a model of what the British soldier should bo.” Lord Gort, again like others from Malta, said that the deepest hate in tlie island was for tlie Italians. He told a story of one enemy airman baling out and holding up his hands as he landed, calling out agitatedly that he was a German. The Maltese are delighted that there is so little love between Germans and Italians that prisoners of the two nationalities cannot be put into the same room. —“Manchester Guardian.”

“Whenever men become merely copies and echoes of each other, when they act and think according to fixed and. sealed pattern, is not all growth arrested, all bettering of the world made difficult, if not impossible? What hope of real progress when difference has almost ceased to exist, when men think in the same fashion as a regiment marches, ami no min'd feels the life-giving, stimulating impulse which the varying compeling thoughts of others bring with it? Throughout the whole nation we must let. every man and woman, instead of looking to their parties and parliaments and governments, feel the full strength of the inspiring inducement to do something in their own individual capacities and to join with others in doing .something —the smallest or the greatest thingbetter, than it lias been done, and so make their own contribution to the great fund of general good. Only so can the far-reaching powers which lie in human nature, but which, like the talent, are so often wrapped, in the napkin, hidden and unused, find their full scope and development; only so can our aims and ambitions be ennobled and purified; only -so can the true respect for the individuality of others soften the strife ot’ opinions, an'd the intolerant spirit in which we so often look upon all that is opposed to and different from ourselves.” — From “Auberou Herbert, Crusader for Liberty,” by >S. Hutchinson Harris.

The Divine Wind. The need of the world is a living Breath

That cries compelling, “Repent, repent 1’ And where are the prophets, foreseeing death, Will trumpet God’s only argument? O wind of tlie Spirit, blow hard again! O lire out of Heaven, descend on men! ■—From “Wind and Fire,” by Lyman Whitney Allen, in Hie “Congi'gaHomilist.”