PUBLIC OPINION

Hokitika Guardian, 20 August 1929, Page 5

PUBLIC OPINION

AN’ OVER-RULED WORLD. “The anguished cry everywhere is that the whole world is being overruled. The politician is gripping all the threads of our life in his own damp, perspiring hands. The message of redress ig in the air. Decentralise and govern a» little as possible, till government "reaches the vanishing point with the evolution of man. Holirics is warfare in peace-time. It is .the Hag that flutters idly over trampled life. ••• It is the symbol of spiritual ruiii. The sense of gain and possession which now motives all labour should yield place to a sense of public duty ..ml right conduct based on permanent values to evolving life. This is a straight and urgent call, if this great and costly institution is to help and not hinder as it now. does .our l'utifrc. A minimum of Government is the cry of evolving life.”—Air K. S, Veukatarimini, an Indian writer..

IIERTZOG AND SOUTH AFRICA “General Hcrtzog is creditedj with the intention of dissolving the Senate and appointing Government members to gain control, of the House; but even so he will be unable to command the two-thirds majority of the two Houses necessary for the acceptance of his native legislation, and his only alternatives appear to be either to drop the Bills altogether, or reach a compromise on non-party lines, as desired by the South African Party. There will be considerable relief that the more immediate dangers, of racial antagonism would thus seem to have been avoided.’’ —Sunduy Times.’ ’

'TRANSPORT AND EDUCATION “I think that as means of transport improve, and as the housing problem finds . its solution increasing in the garden "suburb, the tendency of the next half-century will be to build more and more day schools in the country, in the ,midst of 30-acre playing fields, the ideal set up by the Board of Education for schools • of 50!) people. The' inffucnce of the country, be it mountain, moor, or river, or mere meadow-land, should be within the reach of all Brittisli children.’’ —Aliss' Lucy A. Lowe, headmistress, of Leeds Girls’ High School, in an address reported in the “Yorkshire Post.”

ANONYMITY IN GIVING. “Recent weeks have witnessd more fcliaii one gallant attempt fit anonymity in • making large contributions to thanksgiving or charitable funds, says the “Times” in an editorial. “It'is found to be no easy thing to do good by stealth. The great- British public: will have none of it. Thanks to professional renders c|f veils,to the • indiscretion of sonie too openly admiring .friend, /or even to a momentary -lapse tram dissimulation on the part of the contributor himself,' the’secret whispered" in* the closet ■is . sooner or later placarded at the street corners and proclaimed by the wireless upon -the housetops."' The left hand has once more successfully insisted on being in the know. The world dobs not lightly put up with the suppression of names, whether for praise or ifor'hlame. Its witch doctors smell but the doer of good as diligently as the 1 doer of evil. The cloak of anonymity is a challenge to the insatiable will to 1 know of the human mind.”

“TAKING A SIDE.” “ •Taking a side’ is a process which for a variety of reasons is a harder matter for some of ns than for others. Diffidence will account for this ; so, too, will honesty at times: Rut most frertuently of all to blame, I fancy, ’s chronic indefiniteness of mind. The man who goes normally through., his days 1 halting between two opinions ’ deservedly discovers the hopelessness "of. forming a clear judgment or of “showing oneself a whole-hearted paitisan, when the call is peremptory for either. To my mind one of the sorriest tragedies of life is the fact that ue men, as the years increase upon. ns. seem unable to carry with us into the afterclays' vorv much of that wholesouled, red-blooded, almost pugnacious partisanship which thrilled and commanded and inspired us in our younger days. Imagine, if you can, the lad of the right sort, to whom his school is almost precisely what Jerusalem was to the Jew of old—‘ the joy of the whole earth ’ : quite the most distinguished and delightful institution. con ■ eeivable. 1 Let his right liaiub forget bor cunning,’ if he is ever tempted lo think differently ! ” —Rev. W. Mansell .Merry, Rector of Oxford.

THE DEMOCRAT’S WANTS. “A Mussolini could perhaps describe with some exactness the condition of iflairs that lie would like to see. Rut what the democrat wants is to liberate forces that hardly know that they exist, to unite forces that have hitherto believed themselves to be competitors or even enemies, to charm from the emerging soul of multitudes unborn undreamed-of harmony. This makes him an easy target for the controversial thrusts of those who believe in mt-and-dried solutions. Rut, his vis’on being whet it is, and the wealth of human possibilities being as yet so unexplored, any attempt to put his vision into words beforehand stands self-con-demned.”—The Rev. Canon S. C. Carpenter in “Democracy in Search of a Religion.”