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Hokitika Guardian, 5 September 1928, Page 4

THE RIGHT KIND OF ANGER. “Anger is nut only inevitable it is necessary, its absence means indifference, the most disastrous of all human feelings,” writes Mr Arthur Ponsonby, M.P., in the “Manchester Guardian.” Indignation has been the motive power behind the great forward movements in the history of humanity. Indignation at social injustice, indignation at tyranny and prosecution, indignation at cruelty, have boon tbo mainspring of vast corporate efforts. The ‘sweet-tempered’ man may bo a man who is incapable of being angry. This, far from being a virtue, is a grave defect. It denotes easy acquiescence, placid acceptance ol things as they are, and insensitive toleration of all that life offers. At any rate, lie is a rare bird, ill-equipped for the business of living, and is deserving of no praise. Whereas ‘lie lias a temper’ is really a compliment, although we must watch the exhibition of the temper in order to know if the compliment is deserved.”

APATHETIC LISTENING. “The wireless and gramophones arc all very well in their way,” lie said, “but I am sick of this apathetic listening and doing nothing. It is dreadful. Choral societies are the organisations which are going to make the people of England make music again. I should like to see junior choral societies established all over England. Children are leaving school with an extraordinary good musical training, and it just d.ies from atrophy. Recruit your voices from the schools, and you will bo doing a splendid work for the music of the country.”—Mr Sowell Wynn, H.M. Inspector of Schools. CANCER. “To-day we have a hive of able men all keenly interested in a serious disease which, if we are to believe the alarmist reports published by irresponsible writers in the lay Press, threatens to exterminate civilised human beings. Out of this world-wide swarm we all hope that some good may emerge that will enable us to grapple with this problem of cancer, and to allay public anxiety in regard to it. The profession is neither torpid nor is it asleep to the importance of grappling with it.”—-Sir John Bland Sutton. REST CURE HOLIDAYS. ‘ IT we must perforce work at high pressure we can, at any rate, learn to relax when our time becomes our own,” writes Dr Leonard Williams, in tbo “Daily Chronicle.” “Unfortunately, however, tbe note of thrust and drive seams to have taken possession of the atmosphere. It succeeds in obtruding its restless irritability even into tbe snored precincts of our peace. Games are no longer pleasing pastimes played with laughter and love; they have be come tbe very counterfeit of war grim-visaged and exhausting alike to nerve and brawn. Our Sabbaths ai' 1 no longer days cf repose, nor our holidays days of repose: both are devoted to deeds of derriug-do. In so far as this means sunshine and fresh an. there is, no doubt, much to be said m its favour, but when regarded in He light of tbe exhaustion of precious energy which it undoubtedly entails, it means a Nemesis in one fdrm or another.'’

THE LIES OF WAR-TIME. “In tbe last war a Government could send any lie is liked across the globe knowing that its success would depend on its skill in making its own lies seem loss improbable. than those of its enemies,’’ says the “.Man:b/:?t'’r Guardian.” “At tbe beginning of the war most of tbo lies in circulation were duo to private 01* semi-private enterprise. But as the war progressed Governments treated the invention and disseminaton of lies a,s a key industry, and made it one of their principal cares. Lying liccome a form of war service in every country. Mr Ponsonby, pursuing his valient campaign for peace; lias collected in a little volume, ‘Falsehood in War-time,’ examples of lies that nourished ill different countries in the Great .War. Hi.s book will serve a useful purpose, for these incidents of the war are soon forgotten, and it is well to remind ourselves how completely truth ami reason vanish from men’s minds when terror and passion master the world.”

ON. WORRY. “Our women folk often tell us that wo overwork. This should be received in the spirit iii which it is given, but not believed,” writes the Rev. Leslie 1). Weatherhead in the “Methodist Magazine.” It is safe to sa.v that no one ever overworks. We commonly do one or more of three things. We worry, or we rail to arrange our work, or we do work that is not an expression of our personality. The true cure for tiredness is very rarely inaction. For every one who is tired by having too much to do there are ninety-nine people who haven’t enough to do. Ennui is the anost tiring thing’ in the world. Worry is often caused by a failure to face up to some demand made upon our personality. If one may put it thus, there is something in the conscious mind, or sub-conscious mind, which is too poignant' to be 'dismissed from the mind, an yet to which we have not really faced up. Sometimes, indeed, worry is caused by the fear ol 'Something that may happen and a restless expenditure of mental energy ; wondering What we .shall do when and if it docs happen.”

PERSECUTION. “Persecution has a long and squalid history,” said President .Nicholas Butler, of Columbia University, in a rej cen fc speech. “It is distressing, of course, tliat the zest to persecute should persist at all. In a society and a State built upon and offering lip service at least to the finest principles j and ideals of liberalism as these have 2 been developing for some three hundred years, persecution is oddly out of place. But it appears that liberalism is a hard lesson to learn. Liberty as a personal possession may he highly acclaimed, while liberty ns an institution for the protection of all men may at the same moment he violently, even passionately, attacked. Much more than we realise the various outbreaks, legal or other, which aim at uniformities and conformities, at compulsions and at prohibitions, rest upon the lingering zest to persecute. Other reasons and other excuses, quasi-moral or quasi-religious, may he offered, but the real reason is the determination on the part of organised groups to compel their fellow-countrymen to act, and if possible, to speak and to think in accordance with their own particular practices and preferences. Those who continue to manifest this zest to persecute are out of touch with the march of progress. . . . Proscriptions, black lists, demands that individuals he deprived of posts of honour and emolument because of their lack of conformity to some more or loss outrageous law or doctrine, or because of their religious faith and opinions, arc all vestigial remains of that older and widespread habit of persecution which is now so happily on the wane.”