HARD TIMES

Hokitika Guardian, 12 March 1931, Page 2

HARD TIMES

BRINGING OUT CHARACTER, The old bus and I think we have 'found a satisfying, if not altogether satisfactory, answer to an age-long riddle. As we consider ourselves fairly sensible we always like to get our views accepted by appealing to the common sense of others. So before stating t?ie riddle and our answer we will ask a few questions of our own. If you were seriously ill what sort of nurse would you prefer? A flighty, chattering one who bounced in and out of the room? A fussy one who was always feeling your pulse and taking your temperature with a thermometer and a general air of impatience? 'Or one quiet in manner and quick, without being abrupt, in action, pleasant, and carrying an atmosphere of serene confidence 1 He would be a foolish patient indeed to wish for any but the latter.

What sort of master would you like teaching your hoys at school ? A fretful, passionate, peevish one? An absentminded one, dreaming of his own affairs and teaching only as a job? Or one who took a human interest in his wfork and tried always to make pupils understand by getting into their minds? purely the latter. In every sort of occupation you can ask yourself somewhat similar questions. You will find that it is in the melt and women themselves the answer must bo sought. And the answer will bo determined by one thing only, namelv, character. dulling prosperity.

The age-long riddle I referred to is, why should people suffer from hard times? The bus and I think there is something more than the usual sort of explanation aboht supply and demand, over-production and under-consump-tion, involved in the answer. Ye think, without any claptrap concerning a “wise purpose.” that it comes in one of the inevitable, natural cycles in order to re-establish “character,” which, in prosperous times, may hare become dulled, or got out of hand. It is easy enough to be pleasant and cheerful, when things; are going well. We can all be fairly honest then. But avhen the pinch comes how many of us can stand up against temptation and face the world in the spirit of Mark Tapley? The great majority meet hard times well because the essence of man is not only hopeful but wholesome. The rich are tested as well as the poor, though in a different way. Those who live for wealth only draw their purse-strings tighter. But the generous-minded do not cease to “consider the poor and needy.” The small minority of the latter who suffer from meanness of mind and festering jealousy become a real danger in the hour of trial. The dishonesty which is in their very hoiies makes their necessity at oiice a clonk and an excuse for the exercise of it. Secure in the tolerance of the law for people in misfortune it becomes the purpose of their lives to injure and despoil those who have laboriously provided against a veiny day. The fancied equality conferred by a free education on all who accept it, however absurd and illogical it may be, gives them, they argue, a title to the same consideration as the gloriously nntient in hard times. WORTHY AND UNWORTHY.

In cnir pursuit of utility we have too lornr neglected character. In the England of fifty years ago no one was engaged by people with a sense of responsibility without “a character.” It was something to be proud of by its possessors. Now. owing to sentimentality and a necessary diplomatic pose as the friend of everybody, we are inclined to err on the other side, and to rescue the unworthy at the expense of the worthy. To-day dirt and dishonesty are hidden by cheap finery and a brazen face, whilst ‘‘the guild of the poor brave things” meet hard times in clean cotton and with humid, smiling eves in pinched faces.

Let us be sensible and re-establish character as an essential of justice and sound progress. Why shouldn’t we? At its lowest estimate it would pay us as a commercial proposition. As a method of reform of those needing it, it is likely to be more than social nostrums which Ignore it.