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Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1908. SOCIALISTS AND SUNDAY.

This above all—to thine own self be true, \nd it must follow as the night the dag Thou canst not then be false to any man Shakespeare.

That the socialists may be in danger of acting upon the fallacy that “ Man doth live by bread alone appears to be evidenced by the fact that they can find no better way to employ their time than by discussing the all important question of our food supply on Sunday afternoon. We refer to the meeting which was convened by the Socialistic League at the foot of Queenstreet, Auckland, on a recent Sunday afternoon to discuss the establishment of a public fish market for the city. We have no quarrel whatsoever with those who hold that purity and cheapness in our food supply are of primary importance to the community. Some time ago it was stated in the Press that one of the causes of the increase of mental disease in England was the bad quality of the cereal food supplied to the public, who were compelled to eat an excessive quantity of the wretched stuff in order to extract sufficient nutriment—a necessity whioh laid them open to digestive trouble. First-class quality in our food we hold to be an essential to our national wellbeing. It may be remembered by those who have' read the history of the French He volution with what terrible vengeance the populace rewarded a politician who had taken a light view of the food question. “ Let the people eat grass,” he had said when once the question as to what they should eat came up. And the infuriated people reversed the mandate, stuffing grass into the moiith which for its levity they had silenced for ever. Food is a matter of paramount imp stance. But what we do quarrel with is the present day tendency to fake too materialistic a view of life. It is of no use heaping up statistics to prove that countless numbers of the lower orders in the older lands live in a state of destitution and depravity, if from such statistics you intend to argue that the destitution is the cause of the depravity. It powerfully promotes it is true, but yet you might remove the destitution without removing the depravity. And although the effect of environment is not to be underestimated (can hardly be estimated with regard to the young) yet if your Socialist or any other person parts company with the one, we pointed out that it is not what a man eats but rather what he contributes to the fund of human sentiment that decides what he is—whether he is a wholesome or an unwholesome factor in Society. If your advooat® of a Golden Age potto company with this view, he is pursuing his programme with the Golden Age left out* If may be urged that movements which are in their essence purely social or political need not concorn themselves with the invisible, nor take account of those national religious observances which belong to the British race. But the reflection very naturally forces itself upon the common mind : If after a wise legislation has secured for the worker a holiday afternoon once a week, and leisure every evening for our operatives and artizans, at least, the Socialists can do no better with their Sunday than take up its afternoon discussing the absorbing question of “ What shall we eat, and wherewithal shall we secure our profits ?” then what place have 'life’s supreme considerations upon the Socialistic programme, and by the time we’ve all got all we want to wear and all we would like to eat, will there be accorded to us any opportunity for discussing the faots and phenomena which lie beyond the physical and painfully external things of life ?”

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TAN19081022.2.4

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 43388, 22 October 1908, Page 2

Word count
Tapeke kupu
642

Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1908. SOCIALISTS AND SUNDAY. Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 43388, 22 October 1908, Page 2

Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1908. SOCIALISTS AND SUNDAY. Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 43388, 22 October 1908, Page 2

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