WOMAN AS SAVIOUR.

Hokitika Guardian, 4 November 1922, Page 4

WOMAN AS SAVIOUR.

— —’ (Sydney Morning Herald.) The so-e tiled middle classes have often been described as the back hone of the nation. Although the term bourgeois is now often used in a disparaging sense, especially by stalwart Communists and self-styled intellectuals, it is more properly associated with the possession of certain very desirable qualities. The middle classes are sometimes accused of smugness, dulness, and narrow-mindedness. Nevertheless in the mass they are endowed with virtues with which no nation can afford to dispense. They are as a rule welt educated and. “well born,” by which is meant that their circumstances are usually favourable to the production of a healthy stock. They a’." thrifty, solid and industrious. Individually they may not ho brilliant, hut they ‘do a gre.it deal of tiie world’s most essential work and in particular provide most of its brain-workers. Genius, of course, is not the monopoly of any class or social order, it can emerge from the stateliest castle and from tho humblest cot. But the middle class has a right to laproud of its contribution to the progress of mankind. It is surprising how many of tiie greatest figures in literature, the arts, science, and statecraft have come from middle-class homos. But. although its value may lie admitted. the middle class is peculiarly exposed to attack. It is not organis’d; it is easy “to get at”, and in consequence liable to he ground down between the upper and nether millstones of capitalism and communism. Whether its members rise or fall in the social hierarchy, the loss is the same. Tho family upon whom fortune smiles may graduate into tho ranks of the plutocracy, hut in the process it imbibes now ideas, accepts different standards, and, in short loses those distinctive qualities which make the midlie class wlmt it is: Or again, ~n father liarrassed by heavy taxation and hy the reduced purchasing power of iris income is unable to give his children the advantages which he himself enjoyed. They must face the struggle of life with a poorer equipment, and the vitality of the middle class as such proportionately is weakened. Danger has threatened the middle •lass in many countries and in many ages. In Bolshevik Russia, for exunple, this class along, with the aristocracy. was eliminated with results vlticli need no elaboration. And nc■ording to an article in a recent number of “Scribner’s Magazine.” by Mr Tolin Corbin, tiie well-being, even the >xistenoo of the middle class in West•rn society is now in jeopardy. Mr .'orb in points out that history re proents a continuous ebb and flow. Naions become great and decay in un•nding sequence. Their decline may

be attributed to various causes, the blunders of democracy or the tyranny of the rich, warfare or extravagant luxury. But, he insists, in eveiy case this degeneration can bo traced to the destruction of the ably-euergetio and aspiring middle classes; for they, “and they alone are aide to govern the nation with justice to all orders, to unite the people against senseless war. and j to cultivate the arts of peace without , its corruptions.” The approaching end j of a cycle in human development can j he recognised by this sign, and. deI dares Air Corbin, the phenomenon is with us to-day. During the past gene- ( ration, he says, social and economic i problems have been discussed almost exclusively as problems of two factors ; the rich and the poor, labour and j capital. The only solutions proposed \ have centred in capitalist individualism ; or in proletarian communism. Yet , throughout history there has been a . third factor, once recognised as pri- j ill a rv—the middle class of brain xvurker—the technical, managerial, and professional class. Air Corbin’s contention is that Communist and Capi- I tnlism alike are failing in the task of , win Id reconstruction for essentially the , same reason. They have failed to j evoke the full power of this middle class. Indeed, whether consciously or unconsciously, they have prevented it from attaining its normal scope and performing its indispensable service The problem of the piesent and future he assorts, is to restore the middle , class to itc historic function. . , How is this to ho done? Mr Corbin’s -.specific is a little vague, but appar- • | eiitly be looks to the biologist for sal--1 j ration. “In biology, surely, there is no leason wliv any stick well cared for should decline. . . AVo of to-day stand ill a new place of power. Where Plato could conceive of human biology only in the crudely physical teims of the breeder of game birds and sporting ‘dogs, Darwin, Mendel, and do Vries have given tfs keys to tile mystery of lour heredity- - mental and spiritual as j well as physical. Biologically we are, or shorn! be, masters of the future.” This, of course, smacks cf eugenics, a : science or a nostrum, which the nver- ■ age man rega.ds with profound suspicion and, indeed the doctiines of some i.f its cx-onciits seem to- connect with tlm elemental instincts of human nnt; re. B t Air Corbin’s insistence on the spiritual aspect of the question should he noted, and, in any cue. we do already practice eugenics, alt’ ough - in a very tentative and limited and empirical w: v. It may be that with fie advance of knowledge biology will provide principles hy the application of which it will he possible not only to perpetuate the middle-class stock, butte improve the quality of the human race in general. Meanwhile Air Corbin looks to woman to lead us upward | and in particular to the woman of the 1 middle classes. In her hands lies the destiny of mankind. Hitherto. he says, she has been oppressed, pitifully stunted and thwarted. The world was made for men and was run hy men in their own interests, and a lamentable job they made of it. Woman was net consulted. But now women is coming into her own. Fields of activity mi- : known to her mother are open to her: year by year she plays a more influential part in the practical affairs of life, nor has she become less feminine in the process. The fears that the “now woman” would he “unsexed" have long since been dissipated. '‘The purity and strength of a nation are peculiarly women’s vesponsih'lity, for through them all life is 1 1 nnsmitted. the polluted as well the rure. the noble in spirit r.s well as all thrf is base.” Vestel da v w -man was a dr ttol; to-dav she is ncknrwVdged as an equal ; to-morrow “if we are fortemte sd’e will he prophet and priestess cf the future.”