PUBLIC OPINION.

Hokitika Guardian, 17 March 1926, Page 3

PUBLIC OPINION.

A. BRIGHTER OUTLOOK

“It is true that unemployment is still unemployment whether it is in the caol mining or any other industry, and, from the social and individual standpoints, the unemployment of a thousand miners is as great a calamity as the unemployment of a thousand engineers. But there is, nevertheless, a certain degree of comfort in the discovery that it is a sudden and acute adversity overtaking the export coal industry alone and not the general failure of our industries to hold their own in the markets of the world which accounts for the recent aggravation of unemployment, now. happily, subsiding again.”—“ 'The Times.”

CONCERNING PSYCHO-ANALOGY. “ A painful case of suicide following on, hut not necessarily the result of, phyeho-analytie treatment has left on many minds the impression that this form of medical work, psycho-analogy, is in need of much closer inquiry, and perhaps of supervision, than it has hitherto received. Research into tho structure of the mind and into the respective parts played by instinct or unconscious emotion on the one hand and will-power on the other, is obviously a thing that should never he discouraged. But equally obvious it is a line of investigation that only those of large experience in psychology, of firm balance, and trustworthy character, should be allowed to follow. Whether qualified doctors should alone ho permitted to practise psycho-analysis we are not prepared to say. That might mean the strangulation of all real and effective search for the determining sources of human volition and ieeling. But tlie time does seem to have come when the official body of tho medical professional might well set on loot an inquiry into this comparatively recent cult.”—“ Sunday Times.” A EUROPEAN SURVEY. “The statement has been reiterated many times in the last lew years that the future of British industry is bound up with the progress of Continental affairs, and that recovery in the various countries of Europe is a primary essential to a revival in British trade. The past year has been marked, a.s was its predecessor, by evidence ol improvement in European conditions, particularly in the realm of finance, where notable approaches have been made to monetary stability, without which no healthy development ill production and consumption can take place. In addition, the year 1925 lias been, more than any other year since the war, a period of reconciliation. The evacuation of the Ruhr, tho Locarno pact, the reapproachmcnt between central hanks, and tho project for a world economic conference under the auspices of the League of Nations, are all signs of a. growing recognition of community of interests and of a genuine desire to reach prosperity, through the avenue of peaceful policies' and mutual consultation.” —“ Monthly Review” of the Midland Bank.

INTEREST IN GAMES. “ Modern education has. enlarged as it was designed to enlarge, the ordinnrv man’s capacity lor interest. Interest in games is only one ol many new interests. The mid-\ ietorian. employer or workman, had very little interest outside the harrow sphere of his work. All work and no play certainly make them very dull boys. Tlie Georgian employer plays gull, whilst bis workman goes to see Aston Villa. Both are brighter—and we see no evidence they are less efficient. No doubt there are dangers in the widened interests—dangers of dissipation of thought and effort. But are these dangers to-day actual or only potentials Is either employer or workman the worse man;* Certainly the fact that people take amusements seriously is not in itsell a bad thing. For our part we prefer tin; gentlemen who gels worried over our athletic defeats.”—“ Birmingham Post." ON DOING .SOMETHING ELSE. “A great many people are happy in having some hobby, apart from games or pastimes, to which tliev can turn for recreation when the day’s work is done. Some of them have won high distinction at those spare-time occupations; and olio and all have found that they pursue their respective callings witii all the more success for having a second interest to which thex can turn. It would indeed he a great thing- for all of us if we could do something else. ’1 hero are those x\lu> declare that they find life dull. But that is nearly always because they choose to make it so. They have missed the moral in the poet’s word: ‘The world is so full of a number of things.’ ” —‘‘Evening News” (London)"

SAITH THE WOMAN PREACHER. “I have learned more of religion from scientists that 1 have irom theologians. 1 have preached in churches after a service in which the hymns sung had tunes so sentimental and words so dishonest that j have felt when I started to preach that the congregation was debauched. A" artist will not worship a god ot ugliness. nor a scientist a god who lives on lies. Unfortunately, this is too often the god who is proclaimed lroill Christian pulpits.”—Miss Alice Maud Rovden, the well-known preacher.

THE CLOCK IN CHINA“TI«* cry that education is the bane of modern' China has little meaning. It is true that students and schoolboys enmme in all sorts of wild politics, and are in the forefront of that nationalist movement which has taken ant,-British and revolutionary forms But t o dock cm Snot he turned back. Hu. most extraordinary fact in the chaos and confusion that prevail m Hi" , now is the thirst for knowledge in all classes of the community. H'-it Western ideas and theories are often ill-dioesed. that in polities they are often carried to ridiculous extreme, is almost inevitable when -such a- vast population is awakening to a new national effort. The generals may light and intrigue, the politicians may use and fall, foreigners may sigh tor tin a ,ro of ignorance, hut nothing now is going to stop China from acquiring Western knowledge tor her own pmposes ’’--“Times,’'’ (London).