Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1908. THE SIMPLE LIFE.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 43369, 8 September 1908, Page 2

Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1908. THE SIMPLE LIFE.

this above all—to thine own self be true, Ana it must follow as the night the day Ihuu vanst not then be false to any man Shakespeare,

The idea sounds idyllic—there are not wanting some unreflecting folks who fondly imagine it novel, like the new theology, or the findings of modern science, wi ereas the writer of Ecclesiastes knew the circulation of the blood, and Job states quite frankly that the earth is hung upon nothing, and as to the new theology, it isn’t a bit new. The fact is there is nothing new, and nothing simple either, under the sun. Th e longest way round is the shortest way home and will remain so to the end of time.

And yet in recent times or rather in the present day, man, painfully emerging a little further out from barbarism, and realizing that the sweat of one’s brow is acrid, and “ the fever and fire of the brain ” acutely wearing, is apt to pause and glance over his shoulder to where the distant fields of the past look green. But they aren’t really green, these

fields. If one went far enough back (and that wouldn’t be very far either) one would find the tiny child sen who ought to be out playing there slaving themselves to' death in hideous factories. One would find unfortunate laddies crawling up house chimneys brush in hand, and emerging at the top to lift up the pitiful cry of “ sweep ” after the hazardous adventure. One would find schoolmasters like Whackford Squeers, monthly nurses like Sarey Gamp, and wicked old uncles like Ralph Nickleby. There are st li people with the proclivities of these celebrities in the world to-day, but life is less simple than it once was, and their vices do not so readily find the chance to mature. Life to-day has more of the qualities of a well conducted household, where there is a certain element of strain to keep up to time with meals, and to maintain a certain well ordered routine of work and social duty, as'compared with an ill-assorted establishment where the inmates dine without tablecloths, set the dirty saucepans on the parlour mantel-shelf or the floor indifferently, and commonly regale the homecoming toilers at the day’s end on tinned fare. Certainly the-most comfortable life is not the simple life—unless somebody else is keeping the simplicity going by doing all the work. There are others who do not look back so much as forward —and the trouble of these people is that they look forward too eagerly, and would seek to thrust society upon those changes which time the great wonder-worker may himself some day accomplish, with a precipitancy which is calculated to retard natural advancement. These people say, wealth is badly distributed, there are too many private owners, too many individual distributors of I he world’s good things. And there is some truth in what they say. If only labour and its rewards could be perfectly adjusted what a happy thing it would be, but the adjustment is not such a possible thing as some folks think. When you begin to operate in the realm of an established order, such as the present social or commercial system, you find that those systems, faulty as in some points as they may be, nevertheless represent law, a law which says not only “thou shalt’,or “thou shalt not,” but a law which says (i thou cans’t ” and “ thou cans’t not ” It is no use to think that by giving more and more power to the State you are going to cut ..the knots of our modern discontent nor make everyone equal. The State is gradu • ally and surely coming into more and more power year by year, but it is not going to be a very simple thing to equalize everyone’s chances, much less his possessions, and as to equalizing individuality that is quite out of the question. No, there is no simple life, no simple solution of life’s problems, either for a man or for the State.