LET US GET TO BUSINESS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 135, 30 January 1932, Page 4

LET US GET TO BUSINESS

"In years to come, the so-called 'prosperous' era through wliicli we have just passed will be looked back upon as a particularly barbarous time. The "world has been engaged in a frenzied pursuit of material wealth, Tbut it cannot be said that this has brought eontentment or happiness, Rather, it has brought a materialistic coneeption of life in which the true arts have sunk to a very low level and the study of them has become confined to a comparative few." In these few words Professor P. P. Worley, of Auckland, in the course of an address to the Rotorua Rotary Club recently summed up the history of the past decade, not in New Zealand only, but throughout civilisation. Professor Worley's subject was "Some Aspects of Education," and he sought to show that since the war material things had been permitted to monopolise man's attention and energies to an unreasonable, even a dangerous, extent. To a jury of reasoiiable men only one verdict is possible. But Professor Worley, in sufnmarising his case thus, did more than clinch his argument. He proved that history does in a very literal sense repeat itself. During the past century or so the advance of human knowledge has been so rapicl and so extensive and has given man such a vastly greater measure of control over some aspects of his material environment, that the fact is; too often lost sight of that the same laws or f orces as before the dawn of the scientific era still, in the last analysis, control his thoughts and actions. This truth also the professor demonstrated, though perhaps not. with conscious intention. There is a tag to the effect that nature dislikes a straight line, the truth of which is easily demonstrable in the material sphere and history teaches tis that it is equally true of evolution. Throughout the story of man it is nlfl.in thnf. his mnrnL -nf nrnorpss hns nrnppprlpf! nnf

along a straight line, but by cycjes, sometimes risirig to the heights and proceeding with great rapidity and sometimes sinking to the depths and seeming rather to retreat than to advance. To-day his feet are on the curve beyond the crest of the present cycle and he faces with doubts and a troubled mind, as he has always done, a downward path whose lowest point he cannot yet clearly see. What doeS the future hold, he asks; will the descent be long and difficult and deep ; where are the -aids which helped me to climb and now seem powerless to prevent me from falling. These are the questions which trouble him and now as always he begins to turn from the material to the mental or spiritual for guidance and comfort. That in thus turning from things to ideas man is acting in accordance with the 'law of his being, history proves. All tlie great spiritual movements iri history; all the great epochs in the arts have had tlieir birth during or immediately following periods of material stressl The "turning from ma'ferial things, therefore, which corisciously br uiiconsciously marks in an increasing measure the tbought of to-day and of which Professor Worley's remarks are an illustration, is a symptom of what man is" going through in this year of grace. Fortunately it" is also something more; it is eyiclence that human hatlire still is very much what it has always been; governed by' the same instincts, susceptible to the same stimuli, obedient to the sariie laws, and therefore, " there is no reason to doubt, ' capable of the same courageous efforts in the face of d'ifhculty and danger.' This being so, there is no justification for pessimism regarding the future, Mr. Forbes notwithstanding. What man has done he ean do, • and in this age, when his physical environment has become so lar gely his servant, it surely is reasonable to fexpect that he can do it with rriuch Iess difficulty than ever before if only he will call to his aid his incomparably greater resources. The downward curve of the present cycle can be flattened and slioftened and ihe rismg curve of the next brought nearer by intelligently planned effort. Tliis is" true of all civilised countfies; it is partidularly tru'd' of New Zealand, where the national life is less complex than iii the older Jands; The question is, are New Zealanders prepared fo make the effort and capable of 'the intelligent planning. The qiiestion answers itself ' in a way which leaves no exciise for doubts * andf no justification for depression. Therefore, let us get to husiness.