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THE BRIGHTER SIDE

It is natural to the Englishman to grumble (says the Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert Samuel, G.C.8., M.P., in John o’ London’s Weekly). “ Miserable weather, isn’t it? *’ is the remark that comes most easily to us. And perhaps it is the climate that is chiefly responsible. In a time, however, of severe trade depression like the present there are graver reasons for grumbling than the vagaries of the weather. Business ledgers and private account books seldom conduce to cheerfulness nowadays. The immense burden of taxation, the ominous figures of unemployment, weigh like an incubus upon the spirits of the nation. • And far-seeing minds have other and deeper reasons for disquiet. The generous ideals which buoyed up the British people through the trials and sacrifices of the Great War, the hope that that was to be “ the war to end war,” the hope that it would inaugurate _ a reign of liberty everywhere—these were followed by a period of disillusionment, which has left its mark. Great armaments are still maintained throughout most of Europe. There are still oppressed peoples who murmur and threaten. And beneath it all, underlying the whole of our civilisation, there is a vague consciousness that, in this age, mankind is in a state of intellectual confusion. The impact of modern science on the ancient religious creeds is beginning to show its full effect. There is an uncertainty about fundamental things. This is not a generation which is inclined to be light-hearted, striding along the ways of life, laughing and singing, feeling sure of its road and confident of its goal. We are disquieted.- We glance uneasily to right and left, and grope our way cautiously.

And yet—there is another side. Armaments threaten; but after all it is the fact that for ten years the world has been at peace. Except for the last flickerings of the Great War in the mountains of Asia Minor, a whole decade has gone by and no nation has drawn sword against nation. Civil war there lias been in China; sudden, dangerous quarrels there have been here and there; but no open conflict between any two States. I can recall no other decade in the history of the modern world when our troubled planet—all of it—was at peace. That is a great advance. It is an achievement that stands to the credit,. mainly, of the League of Nations. The Pact of Paris, by which almost all the countries of the world have solemnly renounced war as an instrument of policy, will help to render the reign of peace secure. Reason has begun to come into her own. It was Athene, the Goddess of Wisdom, who, in the Homeric story, attacked and wounded the God of War, “Ares, the blood-stained bane of mortals,” and drove him from the field. And if there are still great armaments, the fact, remains that the principal naval -Powers have made a mutual agreement to limit their ship-building,.'.Not a single new battleship, on the old scale, has been built anywhere in the world for several years past, and not one is to be built in the years immediately ahead.

Intellectual confusion about many fundamental things —yes. But, on the other hand, what a splendid clarifying of many of the dark places through the amazing advance of science. Compare the views of the nature of man and of the universe that were current 200 years ago, or 100 years ago, or even 50 years ago, with the views that a series of marvellous discoveries and deductions have made possible to-day, and the contrast is full of encouragement. Those who have ears to hear:

“ All this mighty sum Of things forever speaking ”

are beginning to detect, in these days more perhaps than ever before, some inkling of the message x.that runs through the whole.

These are the imponderables. Let us come down to the practical affairs about us. Let us take things that can be counted and measured. And let us take first, what is undoubtedly the most important of all, the factors in the social condition of the masses of our population.

My memory turns back to the days, 40 years ago, when I was living for a while at Toynbee Hall in the East End of London. That was the time when General Booth, of the Salvation Army, had written his striking book, “In Darkest London,” with its ironic title recalling Stanley’s “ In Darkest Africa.” It was the time when Charles Booth was publishing his great social survey of London, “ The Labour and Life of the People.” The same ground is now being surveyed again. The first volume x>f the new inquiry that has been undertaken by the London School of Economics, giving the general results, has just been published. It shows a very different picture. Much poverty and suffering remains, but far less than prevailed 40 years ago. Wages have risen and the cost of living has fallen. The real wages of the skilled workman—his wages in terms of the articles that the money will buy—have risen in that period, we are told, by 14 per cent.; those of the unskilled worker by 28 per cent. At the same time by weekly hours of labour have been reduced —by about one-seventh. The unskilled labourer to-day will receive for one hour’s work haff as much again, measured in commodities, as in 1890.

Similar conditions apply generally — except, no doubt, in those large and important areas where the staple industries are for the time being seriously depressed. On the whole, the dead-weight of sheer, grinding poverty has greatly diminished.

The social services, whether State or voluntary, and the laws for, the protection of labour, have contributed powerfully to the same end. The taxpayer and the employer may complain at their cost, but on the other side of the account there stand the vast benefits to the nation which that expenditure has brought. Nearly a million and a-half old people draw their pensions week by week at the post- offices; follow, in imagination, those pensioners into their homes, and picture the conditions that would prevail if those resources were stopped. Nearly half a million workpeople every year draw compensation for injuries suffered through accidents at their work. In the old days, if the injury was temporary, the workman would have returned to work with his savings depleted, or with debts accumulated; if it was’ permanent, he would have been thrown on the industrial scrapheap. A population of 17,000,000 people are insured against sickness. Forty years ago only a fraction of that number could fall back on any proper provision in times of ill-health; vast numbers of working-people were brought by illness to destitution. Abuses no doubt there are, here and there: the social services impose no doubt a heavy charge, but remove that charge at the cost of increasing vastly the national burden of poverty, and the country as a whole would be far from gaining by th e exchange.

There are still many and grave defects in the housing of the people, both in town and in country, but here again conditions were far worse a generation ago. By an in'imense national effort, and at heavy cost, 1,600,000 new houses have been built in Great Britain since the war. In Greater London alone new houses have been provided for nearly a million people. Medical, surgical, dental services have been greatly improved. Public sanitation has made a rapid advaneje. A vast organisation for infant welfare has been established. The results can be measured statistically. Forty years ago 18 people in every 1000 died each year; now the figure.is 12, a reduction of a third. Of the infants born, 150 in every 1000 died in their first year; now the figure is GO, a reduction of much more than a half. Rates are heavy, no doubt, but it is better to pay rates and live than to pay none and die. Education has made great strides. We are told in the new Loqjlon Survey’ that, 40 years ago, nearly half the parents of the children who were then at school had themselves received no education at all; now the proportion is less than 5 per cent. The quality’ of the education given has markedly improved. The opportunities of proceeding from the elementary schools to secondary and technical schools, and to the universities, have been greatly enlarged.

Thousands of new playing fields have been provided in the towns. The bicycle and the motor coach have opened the gates of the countryside to the town dweller. The cinema and the wireless throughout th e year, seaside holidays in the summer, offer additional recreation to millions. All these things have brought about a higher standard of civilisation. Excessive drinking has shown a retnarkable decline. The convictions for drunkenness have fallen by more than two-thirds compared with prewar—they were 189,000 in England and Wales in a year; they are now 52,000. The committals to prison, for all causes, have fallen by’ three-fourths in the same period; they were 159,000, they are now 40,000. Nearly half the gaols of the country have been closed, and the sites and buildings transferred to other purposes.

We no longer see, in times of bad trade, the pathetic and degrading processions of half-starved people in the streets, shepherded by police, singing: — “ We’re poor working-men, who want - to work,

But we’ve got no work to do,” and collecting pennies from the passers-by. The ragged children, the “ street Arabs ” who were a common sight in the days of my youth, have disappeared, and most of the beggars also who used to frequent the towns. The standard of dress of the general population is very much higher. Charles Dickens would hardly recognise the Londoners of to-day. , I have added up the figures of the savings of the people—th e deposits in savings banks, building societies, and cooperative and provident societies. I find that in 1890 the total was £170,000,000. The corresponding figure for the latest year—with the investments added in National Savings which did not exist then—is no less than £1,23/,ooo,ooo —seven times as much! And if our national trade shares in the world-wide depression, and our staple industries are hard-pressed, there are many of them which, over a series of years, have been able to show great headway. In shipbuilding, in the manufacture of electrical machinery, in aero planes and cycles, in some branches of the motor industry and of the chemical we are still in the van. We have vastly improved our national equipment in roads, and in harbours as well. The tonnage handled by the Port of London is close upon 50 per cent, more

than it was before the war. In electricity the number of million units used throughout the country was 1600 then. Last year it was 12,000.

Turn again to the imponderables, to the things for which there are no statistics, but the things which, in the end, matter the most. Who is there who can measure the enlargement of human happiness that has resulted from the emancipation of women—the ending of the restrictions and inhibitions which frustrated innumerable lives among the larger half of the population? Who can count the value, in terms of well-being, of the wider access opened to the whole nation, to the best of music and of art, of literature and science?

I am sure that it is a profound misreading of our own age which regards it as materialistic and sordid. The response to the national appeal during the Great War, the unstinted sacrifices that were made, the complete subordination of all material considerations to those which were held to be higher, was a sufficient contradiction. And there are numberless movements and undertakings in ou® land to-day which point to the same conclusion. I was wandering not long ago through Liverpool Cathedral, perhaps the noblest structure now being built anywhere in the world—majestic in its conception and beautified by every adornment that piety can suggest and ar', supply. Let those who say that this is a sordid age visit and contemplate this work of our own generation, now steadily being carried to its completion. It is an inspiring testimony of , man’s recognition of the Unseen Powers about him, of hig reverence for the Divine element that permeates and transcends the universe we see and know. Such an enterprise as that is not less typical of the age in which we live than any of the economic and material activities which may bulk so largely in our thoughts and daily discussions. There is immense work still to be done. The faults of our civilisation remain enormous. The duties before us are vast; they demand incessant effort, at a thousand tasks, by all men and women of goodwill. But if we see things in,their right proportions, we find that the progress already made in a single generation is striking. We may draw from that, not a reason indeed for inaction, but the encouraging conviction that, since To-day is so much better than Yesterday, To-morrow may be made better still.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/OW19310630.2.254

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Otago Witness, Issue 4033, 30 June 1931, Page 68

Word count
Tapeke kupu
2,177

THE BRIGHTER SIDE Otago Witness, Issue 4033, 30 June 1931, Page 68

THE BRIGHTER SIDE Otago Witness, Issue 4033, 30 June 1931, Page 68

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