PUBLIC OPINION

Hokitika Guardian, 27 February 1930, Page 7

PUBLIC OPINION

A “BUSINESS’ FOR GOVERNMENTS.

“Satesmen can hardly ignore the fact,” asserts the “Manchester Guardian,” “that if there are not wanting signs to warn the British Parliament of the risks of delay, neither has there been any lack of portents which should remind the Indian leaders that India is in no case to move too fast. The control of a business which determines the fortunes of 300,000,000 souls has to he transeferred. .There is need of good-will and patience on both sides to enable the transfer to be effected with safety.”

MINDS FOR ORGANISING TRANSPORT.

“The common waste of scientific research, the burial of negative results m individual cemeteries with no tombstones, is as marked a practice here as elsewhere in industry. For advance today is really not so much fishing about for a lucky discovery, as the patient elimination from a field of total possibilities, and a record of other people’s negatives is a. valuable contribution to anyone entering any such field of research. In my view there should be in every department, and business—what ever we may expect by suggestion and illustration and question from those responsible for running things as they are, to the best advantage—some minds set aside for considering change and' improvement, and for experiment. The type of mind is often different, its abilities grow by what it feeds upon it evolves a technique and knack and process of discovery nnd eliminaion; It gets a ‘feel’ for a line of success; it learns to see the wood despite the tree! More can. be accomplished by ten .such minds on a problem in its most favourable setting, getting three yards into the problem, than a. thousand men with their daily occupations snatching a few moments of amateur application and each getting three inches into it. The readiest co-operat-ion between the two types is wanted, but the drive, Die concentration, and the technique of a select corps, as the cutting edge of discovery, is essential. —Sir .Tosiah Stamp.

BRITISH CIVIL SERVICE

“Our Civil service,’ said Sir Austin Chamberlain, at a meeting of the Institute of Public Administration, “is I think the unique possession of the British Empire. I know of no other service comparable with it in its traditions of impartiality and of loyality to the chiefs of very varying views and varying capacities with which the Civil Servant in the course of his existence is called upon to deal. There is imposed on the Civil Service in regard to controversial matters a greal silence. Its members may be criticised, but they are precluded from defending themselves, and sometimes it must, happen in the whiligig of political fortune that they see a good case spoiled by a bad Minister, and are sub jected to blame .which is not really theirs. But I do hope that wO politicals —and 1 include in the term members of town cQuueiln, country councils and other authorities —have on the whole been faithful to our side of the bargain, aud that we have recognised that, if we are. to accept this devoted service, this impartial help from you. whatever your private inclinations or your party proclivities may be, we owe it to you to keep you and your names out of the. party conflicts, and to take to ourselves or to reserve to our class the criticism, which we may have to make on public affairs.”

A TALK AND A COMMENT. Mr Sydney Walton records a recent alk with Sir Henry Lumi, in which the latter said:—“To me the very hist ideal which should he set before youth is that of mere success in commerce. At least no merchant traffics in m} heart,’ says one of Browning’s characters. Not that the merchant is to he condemned. But obedience to the best the soul dictates, sacrifice and risk and adventure, something of the spirit which possessed men in the Elizabethan days; even failure may spell high success if the motive b noble. “If you will look at history adds M.r Watson in the “Yorkshire Evening News,” “I think you will he surprised to find that the great failures have often been the fountains of the ultimate, true success. • Does not Chesterton say somewhere that the most hopless hour ill. English history has ever been the most hopeful? On a Swiss house in Malone there is a sentence in French which in a rough translation may be read: ‘Do what is right, and let them talk.’ Which

brings to mind that shrewd and valiant inscription on the ‘Varsity gate at Aberdeen : ‘They say, What say they P Let them sav.’ For, as I understand Sir Henry Lunn, success is not in the praise of tongues.”

THE WOiIKLESS AND, TIT E WINTER,

“It is a promising, fact,” '.states the “London Daily News,” “that in spite of the baffling growth of unemployment at one end, tliero are nearly 300,000 more persons In employment than a year ago. But whether a start is made or not, the problem of the unemployed army—now approaching 1,400,000will be ,n critical, issue in the coming year. The English democracy is the most patient, the most tolerant and the most law-abiding in the ivoild, b„t adult suffrage has given it a political power which we are convinced will be used ruthlessly, against any Government that, by apathy, timidity or incompetence, fails in its dutv. ’ to that tragic army of the workless.”