ROTARY

Radio Record, Volume V, Issue 45, 20 May 1932, Page 3

ROTARY

What it Is and Does

By

Mr.

Sydney W.

Pascall

— President of the Rotary International — Mr. Pascall is the first English President of the Rotary International and is at present travelling through New Zealand

id OTARY is a world-wide organisation of representative business and professional men, of 3500 clubs, 160,000 strong, in nearly 70 different countries. During my years of office I shall have travelled more than 60,000 miles and met thousands of my fellow-members in many countries. In South Africa I found men both of British and Dutch descent forgetting old animosities and bearing confidence in one another in common service to their

Motherland. The Rotary clubs of India draw their membership from European and Indian stocks, from Hindu and Mohammedan communities, in friendly unity, giving of their best to serve India. The four principal races i Malaya — Malays, Chinese. Indians and Europeans-find in the Rotary clubs a common ground for co-operation on equal footing, that is essential in a community that can never have a homogeneous population owing to the racial difference that prevents inter~ marriage. Everywhere Governors, Viceroy, Prime Ministers and high officers of government testify to the fine service rendered by the Rotary clubs. What is the greatest service we Rotarians in such countries

as‘New Zealand can render? I \think, at the present time,-it is to draw the various classes of the community in united effort for the common weal. We must learn that employers and employed must work together and not against one another and, as an employer I realise that it is for us employers tc take the first step. We must by our actions win the confidence of those we employ. / Further, I quote from a fine speech on service made by the Prince of Wales to the young people of England, and I think it appropriate since New Zealand is a young country: "We have before us to-day a world sick with,fearful doubt, wearv with repeated disappointments, a world of troubled nations whose vital need is courageous faith in each other. ‘It is an era of potential plenty, when confidence should be supreme, yet we see in almost every land widespread distress and perplexity. The War-time generation still doubts, is still seeing through a glass darkly, and here lies youth’s opportunity. For you have it in your power to confront every, obstacle with boldness and originality, with the faith which means to triumph and to encourage and to invigorate those whom may be older than you in years and experience." ]

We who are enlisted under the banner of service cannot be obfivious of the economic trouble everywhere around us. We must seek to understand the causes of our present discontents. Thereafter we must apply ourselves as citizens to supply the remedies. We do not pretend to be able to cure ills that baffle the acutest minds of the age. Bu I am very much mistaken if we do not come to the conclusion that most, if not all, of the distress arises from a deep-set spiritual cause. We have been too deeply saturated with the doctrine of self-interest. Personal selfishness, class selfishness, national selfishness have brought us to the present pass. We must learn to co-operate, to serve one another if we would win out. No nation, no individual, ever grew really great upon the ruin of others. "Give and take" is a good principle, and it is significant that the giving is to precede the taking. In these days more than ever no nation, no individual, can live to itself alone. We are not self-sufficient. The Rotary motto, "Service above self," is not merely a great ideal, it is a practical policy

thereby render a greater international greater brotherhood than the Empire a: world,

that aione wili enabdie US tO emerge from our present ills. Again quoting the Prince of Wales: "First, for a fresh response to national service, for a greater spirit of unselfish and adventurous helpfulness in the midst of problems which our ablest men find difficult to unravel. "The second point is that the opportunity for service lies at our door-in our own village, in our town. "And my third and last point is this: That depression and apathy are the devil’s own; they are not English, so away with them! Let us make ourselves fit for that service and dedicate ourselves to it." May New Zealand renew its old prosperity and make its proper contribution to the strengthening of the Commonwealth of Free Nations united in the British Empire, and service in making possible a mong the nations of the wide

"Service above Self"’ We must learn that employers and employed must work together and not against one another. We have been too deeply satuvated with the doctrine of selfinterest. Personal selfishness, class selfishness, national selfishness have brought us to the present pass. No nation, no individual ever grew really great upon the ruins of others. No nation, no individual can live to itself alone-we are not selfsufficient. Depression and apathy are the devil’s own; they are not English, $o away with them!