The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1927. THE NEW OPTIMISM

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 176, 15 October 1927, Page 8

The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1927. THE NEW OPTIMISM

A LITTLE time before Mr. Stanley Baldwin temporarily left the worries of statecraft in order to cross the Atlantic and celebrate his 60th birthday synchronously with the recent celebration of Canada’s Diamond Jubilee of Federation, he heard an Englishman say that a pessimist was one who when he had two evils before him chose both. This melancholy epigram was taken over to Canada and there, to the delight of a nation ot optimists, was turned into a gayer wisdom. If it were true, argued the British Prime Minister, then the converse must also be true —that an optimist was a man who of two good things chose both. . . Thus, again, out of the lowest depths of pessimism comes the highest optimism. Of course, the cynics may say that the Balctwinian optimism at least explains the success of profiteers and politicians, but there is something better in it than sordid gain. It is so good in purpose that the happy definition might well he adopted as a vital principle of Empire policy. Whatever else the present year has failed to bring, it has brought into British -life a'new optimism, a brighter outlook, a more virile determination to overcome the evils of war and unrest and disperse a host of difficulties. And it was time that someone, able to speak as one having authority, told the world, as Mr. Baldwin did so well in Canada, that Grreat Britain is not a decadent country, that its‘working people have not forgotten how to work, have not lost heart and hope, and that the nation is not dying. On the contrary the Old Land is more alive with energy, enterprise and courage to-day than are its great Dominions. Its record has no parallel in history. ISiot only have great Britain’s finances stood the weight of a Himalayan pile of war debts and the terrific strain of dislocated industry and desolated markets, but promise to come through this year with a splendid result. Already, the irrepressible Mr. Churchill, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, has predicted that there will be no necessity to reimpose any of the 40 millions of direct taxation remitted by the present Government in 1925, or any of the 20 millions of indirect taxation remitted hv the first British Labour Government in 1924. Moreover, there is every expectation that every penny of British debts under the Sinking Fund—an immense total of 65 millions—will be provided this year. There is reason for the faith that has been expressed by Mr. Baldwin. The older industries throughout the kingdom are improving gradually, while the new trades, such as electrical engineering and the manufacture of electrical products, motor manufacture and the production of artificial silk, have made rapid progress and almost promise to change the industrial history of Great Britain. The phenomenal expansion of the motor industry is the outstanding feature of the latest International Motor Show in London, the value of estimated sales of British cars having been set down at 70,000,000. It may he true to an exasperating degree that the British industrialist is slow to change his ways in order to meet changing needs, but it is also true that British industry is changing steadily all the time. Factory reorganisation is now a prominent feature of industrial activity. Employers are learning to forget the class prejudices of their forefathers and are not now too proud or too stupid to co-operate with their workmen for greater efficiency. It is still difficult to convince many of the Die-Hard school of Conservatives that it pays employers to encourage employees to earn more wages without incurring the threat of a reduction, hut the old wall of industrial conservatism is toppling down. It is to be hoped that the new optimism will break through the mist of politics in this country and inspire responsible administrators and irresponsibly talkative politicians to clip their unpardonable extravagance and give a lead to the people in the practice of economy and the performance of good work. After all, the core of real optimism, be it old or new, is simply the spirit of self-reliance and the will to do honest work.