FOUR CARDINAL VIRTUES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 July 1941, Page 6

FOUR CARDINAL VIRTUES

CHINESE CONCEPTION OF LIFE.

When we talk of war aims, writes Mr O. M. Green in “China’s Struggle With the Dictators,” it is apposite to consider whether China may not have something to teach us. In the mere matter of constitutional form she is not yet a democracy. But if that much-quoted word means anything that will bring the world after its present upheaval to a better state of life for all mankind, it must mean more than ballot boxes, bureaucrats, liberty degenerating into licence, lack of discipline, party tyranny, and the hideous gulf between rich and poor which have hitherto been the most conspicuous manifestations of democratic practice. That deeper meaning has surely been inherent in the Chinese conception of life for 2600 years. They may not always have practised it; in fact, they have not; but they have never lost sight of it altogether, and in recent years their faith in it has been revived in new forms with burning effect. Confucius knew nothing of republics. He would have said that forms of government are immaterial compared with the quality of the men administering them. But when he defined the four cardinal virtues which may be interpreted courtesy and good manners, justice and uprightness, frugality and integrity, modesty and selfrespect, he surely traced the whole pattern of harmonious life for peoples and governments alike.