Random Reflections

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 355, 9 February 1937, Page 3

Random Reflections

By

“JOPPA.”

No thoughtful man or woman can help reflecting on the Etate of Europe at present, hog-ridden with the hysteria of savage nationalism, each nation arming again to the teeth, and each building up a barrier of economic isolation in antagonism to its neighbours, even though it means the stifling of its own prosperity.

Now, love of country is a necessary emotion in the make-up of a complete human being. For we are not merely individuals but members of the fellowship of our family, community and race. We each owe almost all we are and have, to the assistance derived from these fellowships, and tqe least w*e can do in return is to be loyal to the groups from which we derive so much benefit, to assist their development and their advancement. Love of home, country and nation Is our grateful response to the benefits we have received and are ever Receiving. But when these national loves become perverted into a contempt and hatred of other groups, they have become a disease. Because a man loves his mother, is no valid reason for his wanting to go round kicking the other fellow’s mother. The worst evils nre the pervereion of what is good. A bad religion, a bad ideal, a bad patriotism are terrible and dangerous passions, for what in them is worthy and noble becomes a cloak to what is evil in them, and the good and evil mingle in a ruihing torrent that leads to destruction. That is the tragedy we are watch-

ing in Europe to-day. France, Germany, Italy—inflamed with a passion for their own national advancement, crackling and roaring with a frenzied hatred of others; Hungary watching her chance to bring Czechoslovakia again into subjection; Serbians and Croats at daggers drawn; Roumanians, Serbs, Austrians, Czechs, all glamering at one another over everheightening customs barriers; the Balkan states frantic with fear and hate of Italy, and Spain busy committing suicide in a civil war between two conflicting political ideals. What has gone wrong? A debasement of human nature. I That’s what’s wrong. It is the price ■ of materialism that Europe is paying. No longer is man acting toward man on the basis of reason and moral purpose but on the basis of brute

force. It is a reversion to the beast, where argument is settled with tooth and claw, but in the case of these human animals with tooth and claw re-inforced by the deadly weapons of destruction provided by modern science’s mastery of the forces of nature. Of this hideous degeneration the rise of the modern military dictator is perhaps the worst symptom. The blame lies' on the mass of the people. When a nation lacks brains and energy to govern itself, it becomes the victim of the bully. The form of a government matters little: what matters is that the power behind the authority of that government is the mind of the people, not the brute bullying of a dominating group or individual and that must mean that within a nation are vigorous spiritual and moral forces which give a unity of life to the people and make the government the embodiment of that life.

The spiritual life of Europe has disintegrated—hence its political condition. To us in this new land of New Zealand comes the warning to get busy building up a spiritual life based on high ideals- and noble traditions which can find expression in a political and social life which will be the living expression of the sou! of a free people—free because they are under the law of their own spiritual ideals and moral energies' and so no slave.people to be bullied into an artificial unity by a dictatorship imposed upon them, and because free, no slaves to base fears which engender suspicions and hates towards their neighbours. And that means that Taranaki must get busy producing something more than butte:fat and bacon! it means that the farmer must be concerned beyond his dairy factory returns and the business man beyond his profits and the working-man beyond his wages. It means even more than taking a passing interest in Politics, at election times or thereabouts. It means that each and all of us have to be concerned actively in creating the inner energies of mind and spirit from which a free, vigorous national life will result. How

far are you standing in and for those means of upbuilding a national soul? What interest have you in the school or the church? What do you think about art? What do you know of the high spiritual traditions of your race? Or are we to go the way of spiritual disintegration, tyranny, slavery, force, dictatorship?—you and I—the ordinary citizen—aye settling the question, not the few chaps on top but the great mass of each community. These are rather serious reflections but there they are—for the matter is serious.