CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 173, 31 October 1910, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

A MILD PROTEST. The average member of Parliament will enter with the t greatest zest and abandon on the discussion of trivialities that cost the country lots of money and do the country no good. He and his comrade will wrangle violently all night if necessary on matters a board of two business men would settle in ten minutes. By his inordinate desire to say as little as possible in as many words as possible, he pushes the chief business of any session into the background until

the time comes when it must be done or shelved. When November comes and it is seen that important work for which he is paid is still untaekled, lie chafes in his intolerable chains, and says he is poisoned by bad air, is overworked, that he is being culled upon to "legislate by exhaustion/' and all those other phrases that were coined a couple of decades ago and still do <luty as epigram*. Hansard up to the moment is a record of dreary platitudes and infinite littlenesses. In the matter of achievement there is much to recommend the session, but in the weary diversions from main issues, few preceding sessions can offer a parallel. The Government programme for the session was an extremely important one, and it may be assumed that if the Government drafted a programme its intention was that it should be completed. The Premier was reported to have said that he would have no compunction in keeping Parliament chained to its job until the business has been completed, but there is excellent evidence that a wild rush will begin about now in order that poor overworked politicians may not be done out of any race meetings, and may get into their stride for the next election. The most important duty a politician has to perform is evidently not the duty inside the four walls of Parliament, but in the larger fields of the electorates. To "get there" is certainly an achievement, but to do something when there is the chief duty. In the next week or two we shall probably be treated to marvellous performances in the passage of legislation. If there is any virtue in record-breaking, the passage of two or three Bills a day would be useful as showing the people that it is not only piano-players, brass bands, and scullers who are entitled to recognition.

THE ETERNAL TRUTHS. There are no new truths, but there is variety in the expression of them. No modern author has said anything essential that some ancient author or leader Jias not already said. The speaker or the writer who expresses to his public the incontrovertible facts his public know to be true is the speaker or writer who gets the "best hearing." It is because some folk do not see the obvious that its explanation is necessary, popular and useful. In explanation of the point we quote Rev. P. W. Fairclough, who in Dunedin

lately told the following eternal truths: —"There is a clear relationship between the red blood of physical health and strong, robust, moral life. The cold regions produce the hardiest people, and also the best average of character. Hard life generally is more favorable to character than the hothouse. Cities have to be replenished with new blood from the country. There is a constant rise of new and poor men into the leadership of things. Degeneracy shows itself quickly among those who have no occasion to deny themselves any gratification. Degeneracy expresses itself in artificial wants, itchings and yearnings. Some iron pills for the anaemia of race and character were the following:—(1) Back to nature, the simple life, as illustrated in Daniel's thriving on plain food; (2) the work cure, the strenuous life (perspiration that ought to have been shed and wasn't is a prolific- source of evil); (3) home and hobby; (4) screwing up of resolution (a wise man had recommended wobblers to face the cold shower every morning). The preacher referred to the robust type of plain living, plain speaking, hard hitting, and earnestly believing men who figured in 'Westward Ho!' Amys Leigh had insulted the master and then run home from school. 'Go back,' said the father, 'and take your thrashing like a man.' Nowadays the father would have gone and had a row with the master." The last sentence is not necessarily a perfect truth, for human nature does not wholly change even in ten thousand years. "One swallow does not make a summer," and the odd parent who "has a row with the master" does not typify parents in the bulk. But truth is the best emphasised by its contrast with statements that do not belong to the eternal verities. If nothing but truth were spoken or acted or believed there would be no place for moral teachers.

RACE "DECAY." Following the same trend of thought it is interesting to observe that eminent thinkers express ideas that at bottom are the result of instinctive knowledge as apart from the study of theories. Professor S. J. Chapman, of the Manchester University, in speaking of the alleged degeneracy of the race to which we belong, said that he agreed with the Royal Commission that there was no race deterioration and no chance of it. He put forward the incontrovertible truth that the quality of the race was not dependent upon the state of development of any generation of the two'factors, the germ cell of the race, and the degree in which the individual is cultivated from birth. The way in which they brought up the individuals had a great deal to do with the vitality and efficiency of each generation. But each generation, in so far as it passed on its" habits and customs to the following generation, had an enormous influence on the kind of child life which it afforded the rising generation, and in that respect the future of the race. The future of the generation depended in a large degree on its educational questions. An improved education system should not merely aim at giving an educational minimum; it must be a system which would sift out the best and encourage the admixture of classes and provide greater education nobility. Education in" Britain still bore some of the marks of its origin, and was largely responsible far the production of clerks. Education must be of a more technicological, as distinguished from a technical character and should overlap with work. He thought that ultimately it would be necessary to make continuation of education during work compulsory for the youth of the country.