THE YOUNG IDEA.

Hokitika Guardian, 4 April 1923, Page 4

THE YOUNG IDEA.

PARTY POLITICS. (By Philip (iuedalla in “Daily Mail") Nations, if we are to believe their political writers, aie perpetually at the cross-roads. Kxeitable gentlemen hail every point in their long career as a turning-point; and statesmen who bring to polities a temperament from the coneert-plat-j form are apt to discover it crisis once i a week. j It is an exasperating tendency. A \ ' commentary in falsetto is always weari- j i some; and one i- sometimes tempted by 1 this undue dramatisation rtf events to ; 1 relax the tension by insisting stolidly j that history just happens along. It is j a. sober view; and it is probably no i further from the truth. ! The course of things is broad and deep and deliberate; and it is nlfected j by the an ties of one generation or auj other about as much and as little as tlie How of a great river by the gesticulations of the .small people who live : along its hank-. Jlistorv. whatever little statesmen may say about malting it. has'a c.ilin way of making self: ; ami ii is as unnecessary to wmry about | its course Cs about the eoiirse of the j i Mississippi. j But at infrequent intervals there are j moments when the slow stream of hisj tory drops sharply over a weir. The | ea>v undulations of the Kigliteentli (YuI tory fell suddenly into the shoals and ! rapids of the French Revolution ; and j 1 the stream below that point became utterly unlike anything that it had been above it. A hundred years ago the world was watching the waters eddy slowly hack j into their course again for the long, j easy reach of the Nineteenth Century: ] and it is celebrating the iiiinfversary I in an almost exactly similar oieupate At the end of that century there were rapids again, and we are still staring at the broken water. The old certainties have dropped mil of the world. There are strange gaps in the smiling Helds of settled beliefs which took the sunshine in the years between the Croat Kxliihitimi and the I'Tent War, and those that survive are

threaten'! with awkward questions. ProI periy is under eross-cxaniinalion ; the . law is on its defence: even the rigid . lines of mathematics are beginning to ■ waver. Tint the gravest uncertainty ' of Jill, the most doubtful factor in the 1 • whole contemporary sum. is Die riddle ' j °f the young minds which are to gnv- , cm the world when its present masters are at home in their slippers. A nation, one may say. is directed by its men between forty-live and six(.,-. I hey make its laws, run its hiisine.-s. j and spend j ls money, while their juni--1 ! (M’s are growing slowly up to lake , | their places. In n docile genei at inn j D'e young would take the imprint i f -i t lour elders' training: and tints il hapI | pem'il that the Fighteenl It Ceniuiv 1 | grew mere like the Figliteoiith Century as it went on. and the Nineteenth ; 1 ntur.' heeame moie and more typical ' j of itself. . | But one can hardly say (> l the men •am! "omen who are still under furly I that they have accepted Irom their eldt els the ideals of )<:(ai, and that their - i World, when [hey e-.oie lo make it. ' j will he a magnified version of the world • ; of Kaiser Wilhelm, and Mr Rudynnl : Kipling and Lord Salisbury and Mi ! (ceil Rhodes. Tile mini l already lone . ; a -.1 range air oi ohsoiesrelli e, because the younger genera l ion "hicli was sup- ■ j I’oscl by a mere court 1\ proverb i» he • • knocking at I.he d -ior lias Le gun In ' 'ome in wßim,:, I king Cue !'••- 1.0 I id cl- . -me ,!... ••( "illi-t I e Di il i! vis , teat her In- d'd • gelid atioii. tic, eu',l almost m In-.ivi !-- In its amiiseiiieoi .. and mu iimloß par ! Denial- ah.. 01 ill sc. F'.liti s ie [|,i, ; ' lew. v.r.c lo I C Lit lo Ihe v. - e handhug 111 the I'll ini''.. \\ ill! line j: i ! Ilell - dot cl ing 11iv11,-1■ Ii ■lo a desp, rate endeavo ■ r to in riunmi..date | lie angui.ir h ' • f .• new v. m id. "it hjo ;! ■ nm-.. lit'-' i'loll s "l 111 e" a I I> ■; 111 ic.ll |or- ! mule '. | Bui anyone "ho Look pall in the (ielleral Fleet inn of lfll’l’ can lell a .er\ : tliir.'ivnt si ,ry. i'olit ic.i I meet mg', jV i i 'll cue had gv "II 1-, look ll] on l-.'u.c IHI 8 (is exelil'H elv laiddle-aued l allair-. we e lilied ujiii • • uug men : .m| young woiii.-n. The ime of old -lal | '.art ■ v. no Ia me tv I'herr w ere largely ivpl 'eed ’,\ rmv < oi •oiioger, more jciiiic.il people who eaine lo listen. The j h’st elect'.'ii "as i cnmrkaM • in alino-t i en pr .'. ill he . one try for il > eric,, dji d meet ings ; and it became ,Riim s ! that cure me .. tlie younger geaerai n u had coine In v. it limit knock lie:. , They arrived at an nld eu ment in j Knglish political history. The two-par- | tv sy-teni liail sitllieed to l;c"i) the ring !I n i•"ri ie lj. oad-s" ord ili-mlays belt", ecu me.l Victorian statesmen. For | ;i 1 t.i- -t a century the issues had bean simple enough to le -ett',-,1 i y a | lain | | ears.;, i iv. :m Bull's and Blues; ami i a gene! alien '-iii- 1 i ha'-!;ed (.txinrd I against Camhi idge or ( orl.vtt again?! i Fitxsinimca.. felt no iilii cli v in -o!v----j ing it - nat tonal problems by lining up l I hi ml (da tone i.r i) i - r:i--i i and t'-eir | moie llamhiivaut suece r--. j But in i!>'.;<! t here v.u - a sharp j-‘slump" in pelitiea! ] er.-on-Fui-s. F j lie il ! ecu disci.v.Ted that politics reLit-, i lo more vital matters than tlie .-onto-nmtioii . ( Die Xort'c-W'e-t FrocI ier: an.l the sweet simplieity oi Die two-party system was fading aln.c-t visibly into a \agiler scheme ol three and even more parties, which o rii-s----peuded v.itli actual am! distinct points of vie"', and far exceeded the available j .sinpply of ligure-hea Is. The older gen- i ewitinn u-is wringing its InimF in Ie- " ildei'ineut. uuabie apparently to understand that although ihe House of Ccmmens had only two sides, it did not noi'O'sn! ilv follow that the country had only two sides as well. But their joint,,-s turned a watehlul eye on the political si cue. They were interested, because they had learnt that polities mav mean war or starvaiieii. And they "me there i-o hear what the parties had to say for themselves. Politics, at the younger end were becoming re-! again. SMajuimiwLitigxvcwi riir'in-*g«gjWß