PUBLIC OPINION.

Hokitika Guardian, 27 June 1928, Page 4

PUBLIC OPINION.

CHICAGO ! “For any English city to degenerate into a precise imitation of Chicago is scarcely conceivable,” says the ‘‘Yorkshire Post,” “ because of Chicago’s special local problems. But we shall be wise to feel that a similar kind of democratic degeneration is always lying in wait for every city where democratic government is practised. Opportunities for corruption in Chicago are especially plentiful, hut there is no democratic city in which they are entirely absent. Probably there is no city in which such opportunities are not sometimes turned to profit. But in England a case of municipal corruption that comes to light is treated as a scandal, while in Chicago, it seems, corruption is accepted as an inevitable part of the political machine. In this difference of outlook lies the only effective safeguard of democracy against abuse. Once an honourable tradition of public service is lost, the degenerative process gathers way with fatal rapidity. Vested interests multiply, and as corruption increases the difficulty of persuading honest men to enter politics becomes always more severe.”

BOOMS AND BOOMIiETS. “Wc have all watched the booms and boomlets of tho past—in mines, in rubber, in oil, and in other markcfcs. In this boom, however, there an? points of difference which give more excuse for those who cherish the imperishable delusion that one may get riel; quickly and easily without the application of brains and industry. That will be for ever a delusion. One lhay thus get rich quickly, but many must fall heavily by tho way. But those who are now buying stocks and shares in the hope of fantastic profit seem on the whole, less likely to be ruined, even if the fantastic profit still eludes them, than their predecessors in other Stock Exchange booms. ; The facilities for gambling on tho Stock Exchange are not what they were, and tho industrial shares in which ' the present gamble is going to have, in most cases, solid achievement behind them. In fact, it might be more fair to describe the present activities as speculative investment.” —The “Morning Post” on recent London Stock Exchange activity.

THE RIGHT TO HAPPINESS. “My own opinion is that the right to happiness and the right to fine weather stand on about the same level. Strictly speaking they are not rights at all. We have to take both things, both happiness and weather, as they conic. Unless we can be cheerful in bad weather, our cheerfulness in good weather won’t amount to very much. In the same way I am inclined to think that nobody can be very happy in life until he lias learned to hear a lot of the other thing, without making a fuss about it.”—Principal L. P. Jacks, D.D.

bVHE DRIFT OF ART TREASURES. “Trade may follow the Hag; hut collections follow trade. The Romans collected Greek antiquities, the seventeenth century English collected antiquities of all nations; where tlio treasure is there will the pictures be gathered together. Great masters must flow as naTurally towards America today as they flowed towards England in the seventeenth and eigliteentth ccniines}' Ephrain D: Jones, of Chicago, and Abraham Lindonlieim, of Los Angeles, aro'n very much tho same position as Lord Arundel and Horace Walpole were in their days. They are tthe willing buyers; other people are the willing buyers; other people are country which has’ a shortage of pictures; their vis-a-vis are in countries which have an abundance of pictures.” Afr J. 0. Squire, in the. London “Mercury. ’’