Thoughts For The Times

Hokitika Guardian, 19 June 1920, Page 2

Thoughts For The Times

Re-stating the Obvious.

Tlie world is in a state of unstable equilibrium, and even those national institutions which are most' solidly based upon ancient traditions, racial character, and approved principles of safety and utility, are liable to be shattered by the sudden shock of the forces that are agitating humanity. “ Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.” All men are Avaking to a new perception'of things; they are greedily taking up the deductions of the modern sciences, and with minds keenly conscious that practically everything has been done amiss in the past; but unskilled to discriminate between methods of rebuilding the world, they are the easy victims of a hundred false prophets, and they follow with pitifully eager hops Ml the millenium, any guide who plausibly points tlie way. This spirit of unrest and feverish searching for an unknown satisfaction, had its modern beginnings long before the war: the .war has intensified it and its tendencies ; for the war showed up in a grimly vivid light all the evils against which it is in revolt. Now the course of action, which under such eireuinstances, it is easiest to urge, qnd easiest to follow, is one of destruction and abolition : but when a process of destruction begins, it does not stop with what wholly or partly deserves destruction.