VOICES of the NATION

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 82, 31 December 1926, Page 15

VOICES of the NATION

SAYINGS AND WRITINGS :: :: OF THE TIMES :: ::

Thoughts on Books. “Reading does not withdraw us from life; reading enriches life. Books are counsellors, and no one is so wise as to be beyond the need of counsel. Books correct us in the gentlest ana subtlest way; not openly like other mentors, but by a considerate delicacy they show us the folly of our conceits, and make us wishful of better things. They also enlarge our sympathies, and I am persuaded that many people would live a kinder and more serviceable life if they followed a course of good reading. And vet it is ( a good thing to be without books for a time; it is a particularly good thing for anyone who is inclined to be bookish. There is always a danger that the brain may run away with the heart’s best blood, and to have one’s shelves empty for a few weeks does certainly help us to get our blood flow in the right direction. Our empty book shelves are a chastisement, not joyous but grievous; but they yield the peaceable fruits of righteousness to those who are exercised thereby.”— Rev. Arthur E. J. Cotton, in “The Common Bush.” “Frills” Worth Our While.

“We are always being, urged to get rid of frills in our schools, and to get down to thoroughness and the essentials. Some of the frills that occur to many men in the street are just those things that most of us know to be vital in children’s development. We need beauty in every form; we need books urgently’; not forty copies of a reader for each class, but the best books of the world, and reference books beside; a school library in every school, not a .nielgre classroom shelf of exercise books and manuals. If we are to cut down expenses, are the school kinema and the school wireless installation indispensable, or is it only their novelty that impresses?”—“A Teacher,” in the “Times” Educational Supplement.

The Enigma of Evil. “God made the universe for His own ends: and man can get knowledge of God. Moreover, if there be a purpose tn the whole, that purpose shows itself in the finest qualities, of humanity. God is love. “Why, then, is there so much evil in God’s process which we call Nature? We cannot say. The problem of evil baffles us. There are many partial answers. Without evil there could be no ‘spirits of just men made perfect.’ The Kingdom of Heaven would be peopled by automata. Presumably God attaches supreme value to free spirits who have struggled for righteousness, lie wished men to make themselves worthy of eternal life. But lie enigma of evil remains. Remember, however, that science, like faith, has its unsolved enigmas.”—Bishop Barnes, in the “Daily Express.” An Economic Reunion.

“The whole trend of European politics as instanced at Locarno and Geneva, under the new treaties and steps of the League ot Nations, is to bring closer and closer together those whom the Great War seemed to divide, and to compel territories which were torn apart bv peace treaties to become economically reunited. Economic facts are stubborn things, which must ultimately carry the day. The question then will arise, indeed, has already arisen, for Great Britain (which, after all, in spite of its powerful . industrial position, is only one State of 45,000,000 inhabitants) where does it stand between combinations such as those of the United States and (as I may call them) the future United Economic State of Europe? We must ask ourselves: Where are we coming in ?”—Sir Alfred Mond in the “Spectator.” Labour In London.

"To puff the victory away as an insignificant event is either completely to misread the situation or to be guilty of a stupid insincerity. Even if the figures did not denote, as they do, the strength of anti-Goverument feeling as the result "of nearly a year’s inept handling of a grave national question, they would show swiftly Labour is gaining an effective grip of local administration in the chief centres of population, and therefore in those places where policv matters most and where both the example and the pace are set for the rest of the country. The effect in the course of the next year or two may be startling.”—The “Daily News,” in discussing Labour’s victory at the recent London municipal elections. Prosperity In Neutrality.

“Amongst British Co-operators at home real constructive empire-building is going on. There is growing up a bond of understanding and business experience that will go far to eliminate antagonisms (or supposed antagonisms) between producing organisations on the one hand and industrial distributive movements on the other. The whole question of trade relations is en-' tering upon a dispassionate and enlightened phase. Frank and objective discussion is permissible, accepted and appreciated. Into that discussion the organised consumers of Great Britain are entering most heartily with every interest, and especially with the primary co-operative producing interests of our Dominions; and there is being laid a foundation of prosperity in mutuality which is at once the wisest and most profitable of all forms of Empire-build-ing.”—Sir Thomas Allen in the “Daily News.” "Mv Lord” is Confident.

“We hear sometimes of the rubber output of the British Empire amounting to (>0 per cent, of all the rubber that is produced in the world, and supplying America to the extent of fourfifths of all the rubber that is consumed in that country. The tin output of the British Empire amounts to 62 per cent, of the total output of tin in the world. The nickel output amounts to 90 per cent., and the British Empire is supplying to America all the nickel that country consumes The area of the British Empire is four times that of the United States of America, and the population of the British Empire is four times that of America. It is because I know of these figures, not from books or from study, but from actual experience in the outer marches of the Empire, that I live,here in the capital, confident of our future, and prepared to risk monev. time, effort, everything that man can give, in building up an even greater confederation of nations than there has ever been in the long history of the world.”—Lord Beaverbrook.

Solidarity in War. "One of the most praiseworthy features of the war was the solidarity with which the Allied countries, Russia excepted, continued to stand together through long years of difficulties and disappointments. Conflicting interest, jealousies and national pride made themselves occasionally felt, as they were bound to do, but it still seems true to say that in no previous war were the relations between allies more unselfish or mutually helpful than in the war of 1914-18. Between officers and men of the various armies a feeling of good comradeship everywhere prevailed, while in niatters connected with concerted action the respective authorities invariably displayed every consideration towards each other—not an easy thing to do when dealing with people whose language, customs and temperament are entirely different from one’s own.”—Field-Marshal Sir William Robertson. Geography Will Tell.

“In the long run geography will inevitably prove a more potent’ factor in trade than Imperial sentiment. The people of Great Britain cannot safelv ignore the fact that their country is part of the Continent of Europe, and that within that continent thev have always found—and will probably always continue to find—a multitude of willing customers for British manufactures of _ good quality, and also for Great Britain’s highly developed shipping and banking industries. To sacrifice this valuable business with our neighbours, on the speculative chance of developing more business with the Antipodes would be a piece of sheer commercial folly.”—Harold Cox in the "Edinburgh Review.”

An Anomaly in Justice. “It is merely childish to demand that a man should be allowed to ‘do what he likes with bis own.’ Since we do not allow a man to do what he likes with his own dog or his own drainpipes, it seems a curious anomaly that we should allow him to turn his wife and children into beggars by a stroke of his pen. And this is all the more curious now that the power of the dead man over his fortune is so much restricted in the other direction. Steeper and steeper death duties have already considerably altered the outlook of rich men’s sons,.and given the.amassing of vast wealth a national as well as a domestic significance.—“ Evening Standard.” Questions For Conscience.

“Real wealth cannot come into existence otherwise than by labour of head, heart, and hand,, nor can that which is but its shadow or reflection—credit', money, of purchasing power. What, then, has the moral sense to say about the picking up and appropriation to our own uses of these drifting values which we know, or ought to know, have not been brought into existence by ourselves, but have been laboured for by others ? Could we respect ourselves as we would wish to do if the fact were consciously before our minds that our 'findings’ are other people’s ‘losings’; that for every unearned ‘plus’ there is elsewhere a ‘minus’ in the reward of someone’s labour?”—Alexander Mackendrick in the “Hibbert Journal.” Preparing For the Pulpit.

“Knowing that 1 was called to teach and to instruct the people,, and to do so regularly, twice on Sunday, and once or more in - the week, I gave myself to a constant and purposeful study, main- 1 ly of the Scriptures, but also of other books, history, philosophy, social science, and poetry. And, to avoid the dangers of the study' and the student, I got into touch by systematic visiting with my people. It was a life of unremitting toil; I felt that I was not my 1 own; I knew that 1 must live wholly to receive and to utter the word of God. < There might be recreation, holidays, the intercourse with friends; but all must be. subordinated to the main object, and j then, they contributed to the main object, as much as, sometimes more than, the specific toil. Life became a single interest; it had one steady and steadying purpose: to receive and to utter the word of God.”—Dr. R. E. Horton in the “Capacity For God.” The British in China.

“British policy must seek to remove legitimate grievances by negotiation with an authority with whom negotiation is possible. That appears to be the course which His Majesty’s Government are pursuing. It may be regarded in some quarters as unnecessarily limited, but by no legitimate use of words can it be described as provocative or aggressive.” —“The Times” (London).

The British and Their Hobbies. “The British have much to teach us in the wise use of our leisure hours. With them the hobby is a mark of distinction. Such enthusiasms suggest a very high stage of civilisation. The one characteristic clearly distinguishing than from the beasts is his pursuit of the unessential, his love for the extraneous, his passion for the genetically unimportant. Who can imagine a polar bear trying to go farthest north, or a marmot climbing to get the view from the mountain top, or a bird distinguishing trees by their annual shedding of leaves, or a monkey attempting to understand the language of the parrots, or the seals playing ball on the Pribiloff Islands ? Yet every one of these creatures feverishly hunts his food, works to protect himself from the weather and from his enemies, and, like the American industrialist, dies promptly. when he retires from his regular business in life.”—Cornelia James Cannon in the “North American Review.”

Eating to Sleep. “It is believed, and in many cases it is unfortunately jtrue, that food taken at bedtime will dispose a person to sleep. The food selected • for this purpose is usually milk, or some semifluid concoction in which milk is the main ingredient. The majority of people decline to regard milk as a food having nutritive value; they insist that ■ it is merely a beverage, which comforts without fattening or inebriating, which nevertheless is paradoxically endowed with the inestimable quality of keeping up the strength. When a person wlio suffers from sleeplessness pro- - T claims the fact loudly from the heartrug, which appears to be. the fashion among insomniacs, he is in reality advertising his gluttonv ”—Dr. Leonard Williams.