A DAILY MESSAGE

Hokitika Guardian, 2 March 1929, Page 1

A DAILY MESSAGE

] OUR GREATEST NATIONAL DANGER -\lost ])oo|)lc have their own ideas of what constitutes our greatest national danger; and I have mine. I believe that our greatest national danger is the indifference of the intelligent. For every intelligent man or woman who is interested there are four or live who are indifferent to those things upon which the national good depends. To he s i re, they are not too indiffer- j ent to criticize the efforts of others, hut they are much too indifferent to take an intelligent working interest themselves in the affairs of the nation. What this country wants above all else is less indifference on the part of the intelligent concerning those tilings about which it is not a sign of intelligence to be indifferent. Flow many of our intelligent citizens will tell us that national affairs have reached their lowest point of degradation, and yet who will not lift a finger in any national cause? They tell us that the institution of Parliament- is swiftly degenerating; and yet they do nothing to preserve that institution, which, despite its weaknesses, is still incontestably the finest institution that the genius of man has evolved. They tell us that the code of public life is such that they could not bring themselves into contact with its contaminating influence, and, perhaps, by their resistance, help to maintain a nobler code. They tell us that the illiterate, the ignorant, and the vicious are running this country on to the rocks, and yet they will do precisely nothing to avert the impending disaster—keep croak about it. This nation has not so much to fear from the illiterate as from the indifferent. In any case, the former are tlie* product of socially preventable causes, which would he prevented if the hitter would convert their intelligent indiffer- j ence into intelligent interest, and pull their weight in flic nation’s struggle upwards. Not the pernicious activity of the vicious and illiterate, but the pernicious indifference of the intelligent, is our greatest national danger.