VOICE OF THE NATIONS

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 155, 27 March 1926, Page 15

VOICE OF THE NATIONS

SAYINGS AND WRITINGS ;; :: OF THE TIMES a ::

Roads for the Workless. “Road schemes are one of the most practical and useful ways at the present time for dealing with unemployment. All over the country, and particularly in Greater London, there arc big schemes ready to be started as soon as 'the necessary assistance from the Road Fund is forthcoming. Mr. Churchill must on no account be permitted to find a temporary relief from his financial embarrassments by diverting the proceeds of the Road Fund fiom their legitimate purpose. This is not merely an important matter for the users of motor vehicles. The local authorities and the ratepayers are vitally interested; and not less the interests ot trade and commerce are affected.” — Mr. Phillip Snowden, M.P., in the “Hull Evening News.” Trade Boom Map of To-day. “To sum up: If an industrial map of Great Britain were drawn, on which the ‘sunshine centres’ of this current period were marked, justly and without exaggeration the mass effect of the result would be surprising. The economist, with his curves and indices before him, would tell us that a trade boom is due before long. If he were a little bolder, he could, without being less scientific, place it more exactly-— sav. towards the end of 1927. It is, therefore, high time that industry stamped its cold feet into an exhilarating warmth and set off along the road to prosperity.”—“Daily Express.” The Wrong Spirit. “I could not belong to a Church which demanded from fellow Christians of another persuasion that, on entering its membership, they should either deny their previous Church or be subjected necessarily to a rite of admission which seemed to signify that they began their Christian life afresh.” —Dr. R. C. Gillie.

Understandng Through Wireless. “Broadcasting, bv reason of the variety of types of programme, has shown how varied can be the tastes of people of one nationality even .in a single art such as music. The listener at first protests vigorously against the broadcasting of material not understood or to his liking; later on he becomes alive to the fact that the broadcasters are not producing strange programmes for their own amusement, and that, after all. there must be folk with other ways of thinking. Finally, we find the old self-centred listener sitting down to study the other fellow’s taste, an educational process of which he usually is not aware, but one of the greatest social value.”—Mr. A. R. Burrows.

A Novelist on Novelists. “Manv of our modern novelists arc too self-centred. They don’t get hold of the average mind. They forget that a novel is primarily designed to entertain. I am not the.least bit ashamed of saying that. I think it is 'a far greater art, if you have a story full of ideas and character, to put it down in such a way that it will live for any ordinary educated mind, than it is to write so that nobody will understand vou except the intelligentsia. There is nothing wrong in being popular.”—Mr. Gilbert Frankau. Consistency. “Consistence, says Emerson, is the bugbear of little minds. Lowell borrows this dictum with a slight verbal change. The two American thinkers obviously meant that inconsistency is the bugbear, the accusation, of which, little minds are afraid. It is true that most people dislike being caught out in self-contradiction. Many people say a thing the first time because they have heard someone else say it,. and stick to it because they have said it. themselves. Inconsistency is certainly a bugbear for little minds. A man who never changes his opinions never corrects his mistakes. Public opinion usually allows a politician to ‘rat’ once; but having ‘ratted’ once, he must stay where he is.”—Dean Inge, in the “Morn ing Post.” “Our Own Gifts.”

“It is infinitely important . in life that we should attempt to cultivate our own gifts and use them at full stretch for the service of humanity, and not strive after the gifts of another which will not naturally become us. If there is anything more ridiculous than the attempt, of a boisterous and breezy person to play the part of the strong, silent mam it is afforded by the spectacle of someone who is by nature intended to be of the quiet type apemg the breezy heartiness of the jovial fellow.”—The Rev. H. R. L. Sheppard, in the “St. Martin’s Review.” Toward Better Times.

‘‘The most profitable direction for our energies is towards the removal of the barriers to international trade which are set up or strengthened from time to time by the exaggerated spirit of nationalism which has taken hold of all the nations of the world, and expresses itself in hampering in every way the free interchange of commodities which is the breath of life to international commerce. There arc, however, I am thankful to see, signs of a rebellion of public opinion al) over Europe, and even in the United. States, against this maintenance of what is to all intents and purposes a bitter economic warfare. The League of Nations is proposing an Economic Conference to consider the whole situation, and the International Chamber of Commerce, whose influence is, I believe, steadily growing, is appointing a strong committee to study the whole problem. I hope that another year may see good progress made.”—Mr. Walter Leaf, chairman of the Westminster Bank.

The Real Congo. “Before seeing it wc had held what I suppose is a very popular belief—namely, that the whole of the Congo is a detestable country of monstrous swamps, moist heat, interminable and impenetrable forests, myriads of noxious insects and many lesser discomforts. We found it to possess scenery of infinite variety, a climate which compares favourably with much of the rest of Central Africa and not at all impossible for the white man, agricultural possibilities of the greatest, and evidence of such miner.- 1 , wealth as may one day astonish the world. And not a shred of evidence could we discover of those atrocities of which so much was made some years ago.”— Ms, R. Ratcliffe Holmes.

A Futile Spectacle. “Is it too much to expect that public opinion in this country can become potent enough to impress upon employers and employees in all industries that peace is, for both of them alike, their first and greatest interest ? When one writes down words like these, their truth seems so obvious that it is difficult to understand hqw anybody can for a moment believe that greater advantage is to be derived from a state of perpetual irritation and hostility.**— Sir Harold Bowden, Bart. Dream Sunshine. “I admit that dream sunshine is not as filling as the solid stuff that tans your cheek and fills your nose with odours of sea - salt and thvme. But dream sunshine is proof against climate. You can turn it on at any moment in any place in any mood. Nothing can rob me of my visionary landscapes and seascapes. I can see the • rolling and billowing moorlands soaked in sunlight. Dartmoor and Exmoor are mine in a flash, if I choose. 1 can see their melting curves and shimmering folds. I can pluck dream primroses in Devon lands. I can walk dream walks on dizzy cliff paths. I can hear dream Waves breaking over dream rocks.”—Mr. James Douglas, ia the “Daily Express.” Welfare in Industry. •“In every industrial centre in Great Britain the" signs may be seen. From the small factory, employing little more than 100 people with its simple recreation schemes and benevolent funds to the great business which provides work for thousands, ’ with its scientific yet human system of employment management, its pension. funds, its educational schemes, and its farreaching welfare organisation, which, without trespassing on personal privacy, smooths many sharp corners in the lives of hundreds of workers, the movement has spread into every type of industry and business, and is spreading further every day.”—“lndustrial Welfare.” China Suspicious. “At the present day a spirit of. intense suspicion of everything foreign has gripped the heart of China. The terms ‘foreigner’ and ‘British’ are. almost svnc-uvnious to the Chinese mind, especially the less intellectual mind, so that ’ when speaking generally of ‘foreigners’ they mean particularly ourselves. This is one of the reasons why England is bearing the brunt of the storm, and not only suffering for her own mistakes, but, in addition, enduring a flood of calumny that belongs rightly in other quarters.”—.Mr Frederick Anson, in the “Fortnightly Review.” Right Education.

“The object of education is not to enable a man to ‘get on,’ but to enable him to use rightly the time when he is not engaged in getting on. Judged by that standard, he was afraid a great many successful men could scarcely .be regarded as educated, for I venture to say there are a large, number of quite successful men in these and other parts who, when their business is done, spend the rest of the evening in reading the evening paper from beginning to end, including the advertisements.’ It was not easy to turn in leisure time to exacting tasks, but one could turn to a new task — something that one had not been doing during the day.”—The Archbishop of York. The Radio Talk. ,f The new variety of popular edification made possible bv the development of wireless is of a kind peculiarly suited to the national temperament. It panders to the susceptibilities of all people who have a latent zeal for information, but lack the energy to sally forth in search of it. It comes near to providing, if only in tabloid form, the benefits of the British Association lectures hitherto the preserve of a fortunate few, for the humblest listener who cares to continue listening, without demanding anything more than the minimum of exertion. Furthermore, no one need know that the listener is improving his mind.” David Cleghorn Thomson in the “Weekly Westminster.” Buy a Picture. “It is not a general custom to buy pictures costing £'2o, or even £lO, and many’ who could well afford these mod-, erate sums have never experienced the perpetual pleasure of having a good painting on the walls of even a small house. lt seems to many an extraordinary sum to pay for a picture, but this mistaken view would be altered if more people ventured to buy a work of art which, in the nature of the. case, is unique, and expresses the artist’s vision in such a wav as to stir our appreciation of beauty’.”—“The Scotsman.” The Team Spirit. “We want the ‘club spirit,’ the ‘team spirit,' and for great combined purposes ‘mobilised thinking.’ But what this age wants perhaps more than all is to capture the spirit of Wordsworth —‘the plain living and high thinking,’ ‘the homely beauty,’ ‘pure religion breathing household laws,’ wisdom which ‘lives with children round her knees,’ ‘books, leisure, perfect freedom,’ ‘the nobler loves and ( nobler cares. . . .’ As Thomas Grgy wrote (in 1760):-‘To find oneself business, is, I am persuaded, the great art of life. . . . some spirit, something of genius more than common, is required to teach a man how to employ himself.’ ”—Mr. F. W. Raffety, in ' the “Brotherhood World.” Mussolini Speaks. “A tourist boycott has been threatened. We shall face it calmly. If put in practice we shall meet it on the square, and if reprisals follow we shall meet them on the cube. We shall ask not only for an eye but for two eyes, not onlv for a tooth but for all the teeth. Let them have no illusions. We tolerate tourists of all kinds, even those in barbarian outfits who visit our monuments and enter ourbasilicas in primitive costumes. The Upper Trentino : s Italian and we shall.see it remains so. Nothing will make <ts remove our flag from the frontier where it flies, but we may carry it farther if neccsswy-”—Sigaar MnssoKtA.