THE TALKING AGE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 75, 19 November 1931, Page 4

THE TALKING AGE

Speech, it has been said, was given to man to enable him to hide his thoughts. Still more cynically it has even been suggested that its purpose was to hide the lack of them. In less sophisticated ages, when men were content to employ their gift of speech more simply, to express their thoughts rather than to hide them, there was less talk and more action. But those days, apparently,- have passed and the reason is perhaps to be found in the cataclysmic nature of man's last great appeal to action. At the close of 1918 the European races, from the dawn of history the great protagonists of action, found themselves mentally and physically exhausted and their civilisation threatening to fall in ruins about their feet as the results of their latest effort. Anything, obviously, was better than this, and when a silver-tongued apostle of talk arose at the peace conference the nations turned hopefully and gratefully to him as to a new saviour. That Dr. Woodrow Wilson, sentimentalist, dreamer and impractical idealist, failed signally to convert his own people to the new faith in words made little difference to those among their quandam allies, notably the British people throughout the world, who had accepted his theories as a new gospel.

To-day we are reaping the results. In the mternational field Great Britain, pinning her faith to words — conference, negotiation, arbitration — has steadily lost that prestige which was the fruit of her traditional readiness for action, while other nations, using words either frankly as a means to action, as Italy has, or less honestly, as a cloak for their thoughts and actions, as have America and France, have gained what she has lost. In the domestic sphere examples are numerous and undisturbing. Throughout the Empire empty words expressing equally empty promises have largely taken the place of action in politics. Financial depression, stagnation in trade, unemployment ; all the ilJs which a stricken world has suffered since and as a result of the war were to be cured, first by one party and then by another, without delay, without cost, almost without effort. An outstanding example is to be found in the record of the Dominion'.s last Parliament. Faced throughout its three years of life with an economic crisis of almost daily increasing danger, each ofi the three political parties in the House refused in turn the opportunity to act and clung desperately to its fetish of words; its formulae dignified by the name of "principles." We say each of the three advisedly because each undoubtedly had its opportunity. The United Party was in power, its chance is o)3vious. It was a minority, bfit it could at any time have 'rallied the best elements among the other parties behind a really sound and far-seeing programme. And because the Government was a minority, and therefore dependent upon outside aid, both Labour and Reform had each their opportunity in •;turn. The country, and the best men in the House, would undoubtedly have followed either had either shown any real grasp . of the actualities and any genuine desire to lead the way unSelfishly along the difficult, but only really safe road. But action seems to have bpen the last thing that any politician or party desired and the few halting steps that were taken were taken under the compelling force of circumstance. Even the decision to face the elector.s was reached in this manner. And now, although the campaign has been fully launched, its outstanding feature, if it can be said to have one, is the same pathetic clinging to the outworn faith in words as a substitute for thought and action; a faith which surely can survive the many betrayals it has suffered at the hands of hard, cold fact only through wilful blindness or worse. The same old sfiibboleths, the outworn formulae are all offered, some in a thin disguise of new words. Nowhere is there any sign of original, courageous thought .supported by a determination to act with firmness and promptitude, though these are the great needs of the moment. What a chance for a leader of men, could one be found; a man with the courage to think and to let his thoughts be interpreted by his acts. Such a man would not have an easy task among a word-drugged people accustomed to the type of politician who employs words as a screen to hide either such thoughts as he has or the fact that he has none. Unless the canker has eaten ; fleeper into the pationui character than we believe it has, the final victory of such a man would be be as certain as it would be nationally valuable.