Untitled

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 171, 6 December 1912, Page 4

Brisk demand for Hoyle's Prints (fast dye), Eoslyn summer-weight underwear, and Warner's famous rust-proof corsets.

MATERIALISM AND PLEASURE. "Australian and New Zealand youths are not more seriously inclined than British youths. Materialism and pleasure are the dominant dangers in Australia," said the Rev. John Edwin Watts-Ditchneld, on his return to London from a trip to Australasia. "We do not know how long Mr. Ditchfield was in these countries," remarks a South contemporary. "Travellers' impressions are interesting, but these lightning calculators of national tendencies are apt to slip into errors. However, it will not be denied that the youths here are not more serious than their contemporaries in the Mother Country. Why should they be -more serious? They have better times than their brethren in the Old Land. There is not the grinding competition and economic stress here, wkatever Red romancers may say to the contrary. Health of body and mind is easier to have and hold here than in Britain, and this health in the young does not conduce to a cast of care on the face, and does not promote a grave mien and solemn deportment. Yet the youths of New Zealand are serious enough to recognise the importance of military training. The comparatively small minority of grumblers and objectors reveals the largeness of the army willing for martial exercise. As for the "dominant dangers'' of materialism and pleasure, Mr. Ditchfield's remark can apply to many countries. Man is naturally" fond of pleasure, and the avenues to it do multiply exceedingly in this age of the specialisation of industry. It is so easy to get pleasure for the ear, eye and palate that it is not surprising to find people accepting the offers. It is harder now than in Milton's time to "shun delights and live laborious days." It is useless to wail and rail at people who pluck .fruit from a bough which is ever dangled before them, especially when the fruit is not essentially noxious. If popular habits arc to be changed, the alteration will not come by the force of querulous speech."