INDIVIDUALISM.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 80, 21 April 1937, Page 4

INDIVIDUALISM.

Jt is the fashion in certain quarters to say that the Bystem of capitalism — or, as I prefer to term it, individualism — has failed. The system is one of progressive evolution, and as one writer put it recently: "The historic record is a continuous story of sooial advancement; new arts, new services, new produots, new employments, new enjoyments and always new possibilities giving zest to life. Within the range of memory electricity, the telephone, the automobile, the moving picture, the radio, the aeroplane have been developed into cotnmon use, and every industry rendering services to the public continuously made over by improvements. Steel and its alloys, the oil industry, modern printing, .modern paper-making, the modern newspaper, modern engineering, modern plumbing, modern heating and refrigeration, and so on without end, are of the same period, Moreover, life has been lengthened, health protected, hygiene, medicine and surgery advancecf, education extended, culture broadened, and the common standard of comfort and usefulness has been , raised. And all of this has resulted from freedom of individual initiative, with specialisation on research, learning and industry — vital principles of social progress." In the past it has adapted itself to changes in economic conditions and social coneepts, and there is no reason to think that such' adaptatioiis will not continue to be made. In fact, they must be ' made if the system is to survive. With Communism, Fascism and Nazism in Competition, individualism will Survive only if the benefits which it provides to the community continue to be greater than those conferred upon people living under other organisations of society, If we would set afl example to the world We must manifest that unusual degree of self-control whieh restfaitis booms and thus avoids subsequent depressions. Without that minimum degree of voluntary economic control necessary for Such self-restraint, we will not avoid the mistakes of the past. • No people can be expected to remain passive indefinitely Under the excessive hardships of a great depression. At all costs, economic democracies must avoid another depression such as we have just passed through. — Mr m. w. Wilson, president . of the E^yjtl Bank qf Canada, Q