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Hokitika Guardian, 15 June 1925, Page 2

In a speech made last February by Mr limlyard Kipling at the annual banquet of the Chamber of Shipping of the Fniied Kingdom are the following cogent words:-—“'For the moment there is a lull in the wars fought with visible weapons. We are deep now in the world war that aims to destroy tho spirit and will of man in his home and at his work. A sound man whose morals can lie gassed and gangrened in time of peace till he condones' and helps tii create every form of confusion that will ruin himself and his neighbour is doing his country infinitely more harm than a thousand casualties on the battlefield. It Is cheaper to induce your enemy to cut his own throat for what you have persuaded him are lofty motives than to to do it for him against his will. And tlii- is the essence of the new model war to create ill-will, which is tho mother of despair, and through that ill-will to exploit the damnable streak in each of us which leads us in stop our own work and talk about the duties of others. The rest- follows by itself, 'flic aftermath of the war. which still hangs round us like mustard gas. helps this attack. Fur if you have driven a densely-crowded, highly-civilised pop. illation through the whole cycle of primitive emotions they are hound to come out of it shaken to the core of their souls; and in that state they arc as open to moral and mental infection as a tired man is to influenza. So wo have now his Majesty's ship (front Britain crowded to the rails with passengers —some of them storm sick, many of them ship-stale --w ho get in each other’s light at every turn, and spend their time telling each othei how the ship ought to Ivo run To argue with them is useless. Tt only sends their temperatures up. Our sane attitude towards each other must he that of goodwill a goodwill just a little more persistent, just a little more indefatigable, than the ill-will which is being fabricated elsewhere. For if goodwill can once more be made normal, with it must return that, will to work which is tlie trade-mark of established health in a people. If tho will to work he 100 long delayed, then all that our race has made or stands for must [lass into the hands of whatever nation first recovers that will. Our recovery has been held hack by the propaganda of ill-will and despair that is meant to wreck all effort- at its source. But do you think the engines of his Majesty’s ship Groat Britain can he adapted to burn this kind of fuel? I don’t. - ’