A PLEA FOR SILENCE.

Hokitika Guardian, 30 October 1923, Page 4

A PLEA FOR SILENCE.

(Sydney Herald). A recent report from England states that, as a result of the broadcasting epidemic which now overruns that country, the ether is becoming so crowded with messages that great difficulty is experienced in getting them through. This reveals a state of affairs which is for many and obvious reasons very interesting ; and there is one aspect of it. in particular, which well deserves our consideration. Success will ultimately attend the efforts of inventors to clear the ways; hut an additional handicap will threaten quietude, and a further premium is apparently to he placed upon noise, of which the world already has so large a surplus. Broadcasting is doubtless a good thing—in its wav and in reason; hut, like all other good things, we may have ton much of it. In the path of that possibility wo lie to-day. One of the latest fields of its exploitation is the railway ; and in Britain—and, of course, in America—it is now possible to "listen in, 1 ’ while speeding on a train journey, to whatever item one may care to choose from the menu which is being disseminated continuously through the startled air. We must assume, of course, that the congested state of the editorial highway allows free passage for the selection, and dotes not, through misadventure suddenly overrun the profound dissertations of one’s favourite orator with the blaring indiscretions of the latest jazz. With a thoughtfulness that is almost beyond praise the priests of this particular altar of efficiency announce that "after careful consideration we have decided

not to have loud speakers, because of the possible annoyance they might cause to passengers who prefer to Ira vd io sileinv. Instead, headphones of the oidinary type will lie fixed within reach of every passenger, who will listen in as he may choose.” lie may provide himself with a headache of the ordinary type as well, one imagines, without further charge! The adject’’vc ‘‘possible” as used above has its merits ; but the question might well he asked: Why not employ "exasperating,” or even ■•infernal.” instead ? The impertinence of the innovation is a! most sublime. While the long .gracious panorama of the countryside unrolls itself beyond the window one has to affix a headpiece, and upon the instant the exhilarating strains of "Yes; we have no bananas!” will vary the inon..ton.v. The conception takes one’s breath away! A preference for silence, we hope, is not quite -o eccentric or unreasonable as the quoted notice seems somewhat contemptuously to suggest. Kor silence is lie coining so rare itself in tlio.se 'lays that a craze fur it might wc-ll ho created, if for no other reason than that which engenders in the human breast a passion for collecting curios. Of late years iioi.-o has come to inherit the earth: and if silence bo. as wo are told, the perfected herald of joy, there is indeed hut little message of happitiss lor any of its. Yet we cannot believe that the apparent love of noise which holds Us to-day is anything but a temporary obsession. Ii is, perhaps, a corollary of the rush and worry of

the age; one ol the waves that the groat convulsion of the war has sent racing over the sea of civilisation: but that it is either necessary or natural we cannot Concede. The worid has been tor some long period now ons i nuge factory ol trouble, and Hie roar 01 the machinery lias dinned itself into our ears so persistently that we have become used to it, and Would, it may he, find a shock in its cessation. But it is beetle and abnormal state of things, nevertheless; and the sooiuv we can mend ii by importing into our affairs a little more of .Mr Candle's great desiderata, peace ami (piiotiiess, the l-.etter. There is more happiness in communion with "the silence that i. in the starry sky” than in all the whir! ol modern society: a greater wisdom lives with retired solitude and her best nurse, contemplation, than ever joins "the various hustle of resort.” There is, indeed, much to lie said for broadcasting, or for any oilier means of attracting attention, if the right things he drawn attention to. and the people will li-teii: tor in that general "listening in” wisdom may find space to speak, and peace, at least, will in' exailed. But. the great need of the dnv is not speech, hut silence ; n not quest hut quiet ; is not riot hut rest. Xoi; that the world need he turned into a I rnppist cell; there is moderation in all things; hut it should at least he bolter able to offset with quiet (lie funcoil of the times. There is immense virtue in such quietude, and immonsurabhpower. Death, the All-embracer, Death, the Leveller, has also well been termed the Yilctioor. But there are greater and far grander silences than those with which Death stills and chills: there are the quickening and inspiring silences of Life. Great thoughts are conceived in them, great resolutions are horn of them; great enterprises grow to fair fruition in their fertile soil. Silence is golden, indeed, and most noble in the end: and there is healing in its wings.