PUBLIC OPINION.

Hokitika Guardian, 6 March 1928, Page 4

PUBLIC OPINION.

g I RUSSIA'S HANDICAP. y “There are important elements of I stability in the new Russia,” states cl the “ Daily Telegraph.” “ The acquicl sition of the land by the peasantry, ir who constitute the vast majority of a the l people, is one of them. The sub--r ! stitution of a federal system of Re- :- j publics for a centralised Imperialism ci : may prove to be- another. There are ;. those who believe that from the Soviet e j organisation, resting on local councils y | and rising by stages to a supreme adi- i ministrntive authority, there may he e ! developed a new type of democratic s State; hut any such development im-■-j plies conditions of political liberty and il freedom of elections such as have not a | yet existed in Soviet Russia. What is 0 I certainly not permanent is the exercise r I of unrestricted despotism by tho leads ors of a party constituting a trifling - minority of the population.” r I AIM. UPPERS SHOULD BE CURED. “ It is no exaggeration to say that - every ease of leprosy, if treated pro- . perly. that is, with due attention being given to exercise, good food, and all the other adjuncts to the chaulmoogra treatment, should recover complete! from the disease. While saying this we have to recognise that tho present--1 day treatment of leprosy is by no means perfect, and that in spite of many encouraging results, failures are I often reported,” writes Dr. R. G. Cochran in the annual report of the -Mission to Lepers. “But this is only to he expected ; for in a disease which runs such a protracted course, tinstage at which the patient presents himself for treatment, his general health, and a hundred and one other factors have to be taken into considcrintion. Anything which reduces the vitality ot‘ the body mitigates against effective treatment. 111 spite, then, of pessimistic reports that have been issued from time to time, there has been no other decade in the whole history of leprosy when the hope has run so high and when the massed results all over the world have justified such optimism.” A C ANON’S ILLUSTRATION. “ When 1 put on the headphones where is tlie melody? Is it in the broadcasting station, or in my aerial, or in my head? Certainly if there were no broadcasting station there would he no melody.” writes Canon Peter Green in the “Manchester Guardian.” “And if there were 110 aerial no one in my house could hear it. And if I did not put 011 the ’phones or were stone deaf 1 should not hear it. So if there were no glorified Christ in heaven broadcast- ( ing His grace there would be no grace at all. And if there were 110 Sacrament the people in church would not receive that grace in the form of sacramental grace. And if I did not take tlie Sareanient or had no faith T should not myself receive the grace. If this is taken not as as explanation (110 explanation is possible), hut as an illustration it may help some.” d SAYS RABTNDRANATII TAGORE. “It lias been said that for the ful- n filmeut of life it is necessary to have * true harmony of relationship with all things,” said Dr Rabindranath Tagore in a, recent speech reported in the- “ Schoolmaster. 1 ’ The harmony of re- 1

lationship of all tilings gives us immensity of spirit, and it struck me that that is the object of education, to train our minds to'uttam that harmony of relationship with all things surrounding us through intellect and through moral and spiritual endeavour. Education can be had through poring over some encyclopaedia or books, but they do not satisfy the living mind, and therefore it is the teacher’s first duty to make their objects of knowledge living in themselves—-that is to say, they must take a living interest in their objects of knowledge.” rxrVEIiSITY PRINCIPAL AS OPTIMIST. Mr C. Grant Robertson, principal o! Birmingham University, in a speech reported in the “ Birmingham Post,’ which is in strong contrast to many pessimistic utterances made to-day, said:—“Why should people mak< everyone so depressed bv imagining tins country is helplessly backward am being out-distanced in all her industries:’ In a great many ways it is very unjust to this country, and till diily unjust to other countries. W are not down and out; we have not lost brains, energy, and enterprise. We are going to maintain our position in the world, and we need not he airait' of competition, although it means hard work. We have had plenty of competition in the past, and shall have plenty in the future. I believe in my countrymen. 1 see a great deal o' them, and l do not think the present generation, the young generation, ol Englishmen is inferior to the generation to which I belong.” NO REMEDY IN SOVIETISM. “ The Soviet Government may continue to exist for a few years longer, or it may suddenly collapse in storm. No one knows. But the clear lesson of these years of crucial experiment in unhappy Russia is that in the search for a romoYly for the ills of modern civilisation there is no more glaring danger signal than Bolshevism. r lhc experiment is the sternest warning of our time.”—The Times” (London). THE “SIXTY-FIVER.” ‘The fact is that the sixty-fiver of to-day is measurably nearer the midday of liis powers than he was a generation ago,” writes Lord Shaw. ‘‘Then, lie would have boon east out into inexorable winter; now ho is pleasantly introduced to Life’s Indian Summer. A new compartment of life is coming into being. I call it the Reflectivo Age. ... In Life’s Indian Summer one- is disengaged from the strife, and one of its elements of happiness is the equal mind. Parties wage their battles and campaigns; scandals convulse society; the interests of men heave up and down as now ideas fall into the placid waters of old habits and customs. To some these novelties come as a disturbance which they view with a flustered disrelish. But such men are they of the fossiled fish type? They grow, let us hope, fewer and fewer in number. Larger and larger grows the number of those who use Life’s Indian Rummer as the Reflective Ago. But if ils felicity is to he attained it must have ‘its seat and centre in the breast.’ H is not at all. not any of it., for ‘the lean and slippered pantaloon.’ Nor will it come to those in the passionate grip of that habit—the habit of amassing wealth in which to die.” |)lv.\N INGE AND THE PRAYER i BO' >K. “I have always thought, and now t feel sure, that two things have boon mixed together which ought to have been kept apart. These two are the lion-controversial improvements in the Rook of Common Prayer, ami the question of ecclesiastical discipline. There was no reason why the former should not have been proceeded with and brought to a conclusion, without arousing a floret* struggle between the Catholic and the Proto,slant elements in the Church. A xast amount of .solid and valuable work on lion-con-troversial lines lias for the moment boon made unavailable, because partisan ambitions and rivalries have invaded the field, and have occupied nearly the whole of it. In just the same way. boneficient educational legislation was wrecked in the last generation by the rival fanaticisms of Church and Chapel. The Bishops have an appallingly difficult problem to solve and few. I think, would covet a share in such a responsibility. But T repeat that a common-sense revision of the Prayer Book might have been carried if it had not been entangled with disciplinary ' questions which have nothing to do with it.” Dean Inge.