EVILS OF THE DAY

Hokitika Guardian, 1 May 1929, Page 6

EVILS OF THE DAY

I •' n • 'COMMISSIONER- HAY’S WARNING j "'Smoking women. CHRISTCHURCH. April 30. One of the old evils of England—indulgence among the upper classes—is still strongly evident. Commissioner James Hay, the head of the Salvation Army in New Zealand, told a reporter yesterday. One '.Sunday, lie said, lie conducted a service in thf East End and another at night with one of the best corps in the Wesl End."and be was able to make comparisons in the great difference of st- ' -d< --■■ viggle among the pom pvd indulgence among the rich. •‘ill the course of my travels.” ho sa j i, “i[ hi ">■ '''eon through parts of •Knr.r •■<• "id Great Britain, and I must .sn v that r .was rather dispirited with the lack of employment in England and the effect of the dole. England is certainly up against a big problem, but I thought that there was evidence of trying to cope with it with musterIv grips. Conservatism, apart fron tlio Government, prevents the peoph from going for a radical cure, but- T an hoping that there will he an improvement soon. “It is depressing to observe, too. that- among the society that is to he encountered on limits, in travel, and in many hotels, an enormous mass of the women are smoking. 1 regard it as i sign of the decadence ot the age,” Commissioner Hay added emphatically, “and men who are thinkers, and can look on the past lives of nations, will relegate the mentally that goes with smoking, ceaseless gambling, and caul playing, to the decay that has been associated with nations in the past. “I saw also a good deal of e\idence that young life is left to form its own ways and habits, and to choose its reading at a too tender age. and I am alarmed lest that spirit should get too strong a hold ol the Dominion. We can .develop a belief in the fine independence of. the person without breaking down the higher things which, if absent, will spell ruin for us.” Commissioner Hay ended on a note of optimism, expressing the belief that people would lie returning to sober wavs, and adding that even the indications of the dress building or dioss ideas of these days, may have behind the a- stronger thought than the meic passing change in dress. He is of the view that in many quarters there is a desire to revive not Victorian standards of modesty, but some of that mod,-