PUBLIC OPINION.

Hokitika Guardian, 10 November 1927, Page 2

PUBLIC OPINION.

PREJUDICE OR CANDOUR. It is a pity, surely, that a man who insists on testing for himself the worth of an institution or a creed or a reputation, and declines to he fobbed ott with conventional opinions about it, should almost invariably be accused of bias against it when he comes to the conclusion that it is not all that it- is reputed to be. I do not doubt that I am to blame for the l>elief that I have a violent prejudice against France—a country in which 1 have lived very happily'—hut when I examine my conscience, I can find no prejudice in it against anyone of anything that is not false or pretentious. The French are notoriously among the most narrowly insular people in Europe, but they are so certain of there superiority in culture to the rest of us that they regard anyone who expresses a doubt about it either as a barbarian or a base fellow. I have made myself very unpopular in my own country because I refuse to accept ready-made romantic beliefs about Ireland as a place full of charming, witty men of genius, and woman of great lieauty and unimpeachable virtue. There are as many fools and idiots and ugly, vicious women in Ireland as there are in any other country. and there can be no hope of good government in Ireland until tho Irish realise that fact and rid themselves of the delusion that they are the Lord’s Anointed Race.—Mr St. John Ervine in “The Observer.”

SPIRITUAL VALUES. “Never Ik*fore lias there been such an overwhelming demonstration, in every sphere of life, of the hopeless futility of any system of civilisation which is based upon tho rejection, or tho but qualified acceptance, of the spiritual values upon which human well-being depends. The insolence of every such system has been visited a judgment which will serve as p. warning to succeeding generations. The incompetence of all efforts to rebuild the shattered fabric of the world upon any oilier than the best spiritual foundations is being exhibited daily in every province of human life. Never l>ofore has there liven such an opportunity, created both by the conscious helplessness and by the truer vision of mankind, for advancing to the acceptance of higher ideals and for a concerted attempt to apply them in all directions to the problem and task of Human progress.”—Dr Scott Lidgett. in his new book, “God, Christ, and the Church.”