PAST AND PRESENT.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 59, Issue 20, 3 November 1938, Page 4

PAST AND PRESENT.

Written in 1807, the following extract from “Harper’s Weekly” was reprinted in “The Times” as showing that the present generation is not alone in supposing its troubles are unique and overpowering: “It is a gloomy moment in history. Not for many years—not in the lifetime of most men who read this—has there been’ so much grave and deep apprehension; never has the future seemed so incalculable as at this time. In our own country there is commercial prostration • . • thousands of our poorest fellow-citizens are without employment and without the prospects of it. In France the political cauldron seethes and bubbles with uncertainty; Russia hangs, as like a cloud, dark and silent, upon the horizon of Europe, while all the energies, resources and influences of the British Empire are sorely tried in coping with the vast and disturbed conditions in China- Of our own troubles, no man can see the end.” Ik comment, a correspondent remarks: “The troubles to which it relates have long since been lor gotten by most of us and, as I need scarcely remind you, were succeeded by years of great industrial development and social progress. What has been can be again. We may well have confidence that our present difficulties will be surmounted and that the future holds prosperity at least equal to that of the past.”