SOMETHING TO AVOID.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVII, Issue 36, 12 June 1915, Page 4

SOMETHING TO AVOID.

In an address at Wellington the other day, Archdeacon Harper described the spirit of “Prussianisin’’ which he said had been allowed to dominate the Germanic races, and he queried if this spirit was not inclined to manifest itself in a lesser degree outside the limits of the German Empire. A feature of “Priissianism” was the pursuit of its own interests to the exclusion of, and at the expense of. all other intereses. Wore we not taken up too much with our own interests’

Was not everything we did for the interest of New Zealand? Were we not, to mention one tiling, keeping from our shores members of other portions of the Empire, simply in the interests of our own little New Zealand? He did not say that we should not work for the interests of New Zealand, but let us remember that we were part of the empire in all questions, and part of the world, and that there was a duty outside as'well as a duty to this country. Archdeacon Harper concluded that lie had put a very extreme parallel before his hearers, because be bad felt it necessary. I There might be exceptions, great ex-, eeptions, to what he had been saying. I As one born and bred in the country, lie believed there was a greatness in ourselves and in our future; but we must not ruin the prospects with the spirit of Prussianism. We should remember that the tli roe great fallacies of Prussianism were—(l) that greatness as a nation or individuals must always he achieved at the expense ofj someone else; (2) sufficiency self-con j tainod for all that was required; (3) ( that the great purpose of life was to seek one’s own interests. These were the underlying evils which had brought Prussianism into conflict with the world.