The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. TUESDAY, JULY 9, 1935. NEW PIONEERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 160, 9 July 1935, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun.

TUESDAY, JULY 9, 1935. NEW PIONEERS.

For the cause thct lacks assistance, For the torong that needs resistance, For the future in 'he distance, And the good that we can de.

"Xgav Zealand needs a new type of

pioneer; pioneers in the mental and moral spheres who will give us a real outlook and objective." The type envisaged b\* the Rev. H. K. Archdall is not new. Among the makers of New Zealand have been men of courage, vision and ideals whose example and leadership were a Avholesome and stimulating influence in the days of early colonisation. Governor Hobson, Sir George Grey, Bishop Selwyn and others set an example for the infant nation in those critical days when the foundations of its character were laid, and fearlessly endured hardships and personal dangers in devotion to their cause. In them the pioneering spirit came to flower. It flourished in the soil of this remote land. Grey, although an autocratic governor, was a radical at heart, and had the qualities of a statesman. Selwyn was a leader of the type of Burke; almost in rags and poorly shod he went along untrodden trails. Strong in mind and body, he spared not himself in his great work. Like the pioneers who went out into the vast plains of America, or like the founders of Australia's "outback," he faced risks, physical and moral. A leader of this type is akin to the revolutionary in his willingness to sacrifice anything, everything, to attain his ideal.

But ideals become worn by continuous use. They lose their lustre. Like revolutionary doctrines, they take on a different appearance with the passing of time. The ideals for which a revolution is fought tend to fade into a conservative body of doctrine, which produces a conservative state of mind. Prance poured out the blood of her nobility under, the spell of the revolutionary call, "Liberty, equality and fraternity," but in a hundred years France has lost much of her progressive spirit. In America it has been much the same. A Constitution which was hailed as the guardian of liberty has become the straightjacket which restrains Roosevelt and his Administration in their pursuit of the New Deal. Britain, on the other hand, has a more fluid Constitution, and, although free from revolutionary upheavals since 1688, is in many respects the most liberal country in the world. A Constitution cannot be expected to stand unrevised and unchallenged by the tests of generations. Neither can doctrines nor ideals. What will be thought of the Russian five-year plan or the programme of Lenin a generation hence? These produce their changes and then come to rest. Static conditions set in, and the only hope of future change may be by another breaking away.

Prdgress in science, education, literature, art and culture marches against similar handicaps. A leader like Newton makes a dilcovery which revolutionises science and sets the course which others follow. Epstein has conceptions of art which are repellant tc many people. Some forms of literature appear so extravagant and exaggerated that they are meaningless to the average reader, but who can say they will pass away and be forgotten? The final judgment may be very different from to-day's. "New occasions teach new duties; time makes ancient good uncouth." But amid- the almost bewildering changes of the present day man should be able to make his way in safety 'if the right mental and moral balance be preserved. The British race"' is evolutionary, not revolutionary, in character. This is the most favourable soil in which to cultivate the spirit of the pioneer.