PUBLIC OPINION.

Hokitika Guardian, 8 November 1927, Page 1

PUBLIC OPINION.

THE GOOD -MASTER. Sir Harold Morris, president of the Industrial Court, at the annual conference of the Industrial Welfare Society, quoted from Thomas Fuller’s book, ” The Holy and Profane State,” published in 1042, in which Fuller wrote of the “good master.”:—“He has a heart in the midst of his household. First up and last to bed. He aims at his own and his servants’ good and lie advances both. He oversees the work of his servants, lie provides them with, victuals, and ho allows them also convenient rest and recreation. There is no difference now,” commented Sir Harold. “ The firm or company carrying on business cannot hope for success without following some such precepts as Fuller set out. The general manager must be the first to arrive and the last to leave. The victuals have their counterpart in a well-run canteen and rest and recreation in tlio sports ground of the present day.”

CHURCHES AND WIRELESS. “The first hostility between wireless and the Churches lias been broken down, hut there is more to he done yet in making the fullest use of the great opportunity which broadcasting presents. The first timidity has been overcome; it is now the place of courageous policy to turn what seemed to he a rival into tlio best of friends.” —“ Optinniß,” in the “Westminster Gazette.” “ IT PUZZLES ME.” Air Robert P. Seripps, tlio well-known American newspaper proprietor, wilting in the “Daily News,” says: “ I have heard a good deal about tlio unemployment and tlio hard times in England. It puzzles me. Last night I went to tlie dog races, and there was a crowd of 100,000 there. Why, if we got a crowd of that size in New York it would he a front-page story. You may he losing championships, but there is no doubt that the English go in more for sports than we do. We arc more serious-minded. And I hear that you get enormous crowds at your football matches, too, held on the same day.*

THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. “ I low greatly does a little of the philosophy of history illume our own times.” said Dr Robert Clark. Medical Officer of Health for .Manchester, in a speech reported in file “ -Monthly Notes” of the Institute of Public Administration. “It makes national administration a living tiling and local government the pulse of that life as it reaches the people. Such nil illumination is for the eyes ol all who choose to read. It is the most valuable of all protections against disordered thought upon the evils of our own times. Still more does it show to us tlio position we fill in the great complex of human development, and until this is realised no man can give of his best to his country unless lie lie one of the favoured of the gods to whom tile muses have imparted tlio divine fire of genius.”

O.MAiON SENSE VERY UNCOMMON

“ Everyone prides himself upon his (ommonseiise and makes a boast of open-mindedness,' writes Dr. >. Aveling, AI.C.. Ph. D.. D.Sc., Reader in Psychology, University ol London. “ 'Phis is so true that it is the deadliest of alf routs to call a man a fool, and unforgivable to hint that lie may lie pig-headed. Yet common sense is a most uncommon quality, and an open mind a curiously unusual phenomenon —at anv rate, after earliest middle

“ What most people mistake for common sense is a kind of horse sense, the greatest common measure—though, surely, not a large one!—of practical beliefs. What most call open-minded-ness is no more than readiness to adopt one stereotyped tradition in place of another, every one ol which can be summed up in a vulgar proverb.”

A BISHOP OX SCIENCE. “ Tn so far as seienee stands for lacing all the facts, and continually revising one’s theories in the light ol them, the scientific spirit can never he a foe to the spirit of religion. It is when religion tries to maintain positions in the teeth of convincing evidence against them, or science first rules out some facts of experience as irrelevant for its own purpose, and then arbitrarily suppresses them as untrue, that science and religion get across one another. The antagonisms of yesterday, however, have to some extent been replaced by mutual respect and understanding to-day, not least because the best representatives of both sides, realising more and more bow little is known compared with wliat yet remains to be discovered. have largely exchanged the dogmatic spirit for the spirit of inquiiing inve.”—The Bishop of Bipon.

SPAIX XOT AX OPEX BOOK. ‘•Spain, unfortunately, is not an open book to the outside world. There are few means of securing a true reflection of Spanish public opinion, and it is. therefore, difficult to say how the people regard iho Dictatorship, oi in what spirit they may look upon the new Assembly. There have, indeed. been signs that a certain element of enlightened opinion is hostile to the Dictatorship. and there is. surely, importance in the fact that Senor Sanchez Guerra, the leade: of the Conservative Party, has this week gone into voluntary exile in Franco as a protest against the action of the Dictator. The action of this politician is probably an indication o r how little is hoped for from the Assembly. A'et, when all is said, it must be admitted that the problem of government in Spain is a serious one, and bad though a Dictatorship—and it bad bc--1 cause it is a definite hindrance to progress. and because it checks the natural and free growth of opinion—few but the older type of politician could wish to see a return to the system which almost invited General Pyimo de Rivera’s coup d’etat. —“ Liverpool Post.”