“UG LIFICATL ON. ’ ’

Hokitika Guardian, 30 December 1929, Page 8

“UG LIFICATL ON. ’ ’

“Tivo girl clerks looking out of a railway carriage window were heard expressing unfeigned distress at sight of an inappropriatey placed advertisement hoarding, it was a pleasant surprise to note that it offended the sense 01 fitness in the minds of the two ‘business young ladies/ who recognised and resented its intrusive vulgarity. It is evidently not merely the cultivated lastidiousuess of the ‘educated’ person, the sensitiveness of the artist, the perceptive faculty of the literary man, cue fussy, willing sight-seeing eagerness of the middle-aged tourist that is gripped by the charm of unspoiled country features and hurt by the hideousness that threatens their annihilation. Girls at typewriters or shopcounters see these things, too. They exclaim ‘What a shame!’ when they notice uglifieation. The unlettered ‘sailor home from the sea’ may find it hard to voice his appreciation of the simple beauties of rural building; but with him, and with them, as well as with more articulate public, a reckoning must be made sooner or later by tne perpetrators of modern piracy.” —“Achitects’ Journal.”

MOTHER EARTH. ‘‘The economy of Nature, its checks and balances, its measurements of competing life—all this is its great marvel and has an ethic of its own. Live in Nature, and you will soon see that for all its non-human rhythm, it is no cave of pain. As I write I think of my beloved birds of the great beach, and of their beauty and their zest of living. And - there are tears, known also that Nature has its unexpected and unappreciated mercies. Whatever attitude to human existence you fashion for yourself, know that it is valid only il 11 be the shadow of an attitude to Nature. A human life, so often likened to a spectacle upon a stage is more justly a ritual. The ancient values of dignity, beauty, and poetry which sustain it are of Nature’s inspiration; they are born of the mystery and beduty of the word. Do not dishonour to the earth lest you dishonour the spirit of man. Hold your hands out over the earth as over a flame. To all who love her, who open to her the doors of their veins, she gives of her strength, sustaining them with her own measureless tremor of dark life.” —Henry Beston, in the “Outermost House.” y

THIE TEACHER’S OPPORTUNITY. “Though I am afraid there are some ;pcople> who, either from a- cult of cynicism or from sheer stupidity, profess to believe in the inevitability of another war, no thinking person alive to the sweep of scientific achievement now doubts that civilisation has it in its power, for the first time in history, to destroy itself. The preservation of world peace has thus become synonymous with the preservation of civilisation itself, and its promotion is at once the teacher’s greatest responsibility and his greatest opportunity.”—Sir Charles Trevelyan, Minister of Education.

181 L I Ul UU ULilt iwii • COLLARS V. OVERALLS. Major L. Urwick, director of the International Management Institute, in an address at the Conference of Works Directors and Managers at Oxford, reports the “Daily Telegraph, said:—-“Tti many businesses, the factory and' office are regarded as two separate worlds, and the man who wears a white collar imagines that heis superior to the man who wears overalls. I have never been able to discover why a ledger clerk should regard himself a superior to a fitter. I appreciate that there are reasons for this distinction in social status, but its existence is a threat to efficiency, and wo should devise methods by which the status of the factoiy operative may be gradually amelioiated until it is equal to that of the clerical staff. I have often wondered what effect it would have on the foresight of working men if they were paid monthly instead of weekly, and what effect it would have on their morale if they had fuller assurance of economic equivalence with the administrative staff in the event of illness. W,q cannot expect men to think five or ten years ahead when they cannot see five days ahead in the ordering of their own lives.”

JOHN BULL AS CB EDITOR. “What adds to Snowden’s difficulty is the view in England, which is Ins own view, that France has fared ever soimucfi tetter than Britain in the post war liquidation. France has no unemployment: French foreign trade is greater than before 1914. Drench credit is stronger that British, as witnessed by the embarrassing withdrawal of gold from London to Paris. D ranee has obtained from the United States and from Britain herself, a debt settlement on terms one-quarter more favourable than Britain has obtained in Washington. Almost every English man feels his country has been caught between American rigidity and Continental evasion, that lie has had to hear a disproportionate share of the costs of the war, that bis statesmen have been stupid and his financiers inept, and that as a result he has been left to hold the baby. This mentality reminiscent of the French just alitor the Peace Conference, rondo's excessively difficult the task of any states--man who represents Rritnin in an intern at ion a I conference. Snowden, having won popular attention and applause by leading the pack in this outcry against past performances, suffers now ns did Poincare after Cannes, when he had to try to collect reparations.”— Mr Frank H. Simonds, in the American “Review of Reviews.”