VOICES of the NATION

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 33, 2 November 1929, Page 21

VOICES of the NATION

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

Accident Statistics. “The difficulty of interpreting statistics is illustrated afresh every year by the Home Office report on accidents in factories and workshops. This difficulty is seldom realised by popular publicists,” says “Engineering.” “According to the figures given in the last ■' report it appears that during 1928 154,319 accidents were reported, of which 953 were fatal, the corresponding figures for 1927 being, respectively, 151,664 aud 933. It is the last figure which retains relative significance from ' year to year, but a better idea.of the trend towards safety would be given were it correlated with the total inan- • hours worked. Under present rules every mishap which prevents the victim earning full pay for a period of three days must be *reported. It, appears, however, that in some factories every misadventure which requires eveh a few minutes’, attention in the ambulance room is recorded, The death rate is thus of greater statistical significance, and it is exceedingly creditable to those responsible that, in spite of the ever-increasing use of machinery, the number, if allowance be * made for the fluctuations of trade, shows a steady tendency to diminish.” A Motor Race and a Moral. ‘Those who hoped to witness a British victory in the recent International Motor Race were disappointed. A German won the race, and‘ the. second place was gained by an Italian. None the less, the contest provided a triumph for a type of car in the development of which this country leads the way," says the “Birmingham Bost.” "Though the British ‘Baby’ cars could not win anything higher than third place, they won a moral victory well worth gaining, and their splendid efforts prolonged the chances bf a British victory long after the more pretentious British representatives had dropped into the background. They kept the lead for more than 300 miles of the 410-mlle / Bourse. True, they were given a start of five laps in the total of thirty, but the feat of covering this distance in a ‘baby’ car at a speed of almost 60 miles an hour to gain third place is at least as remarkable as that of Rudolph Car-, raciola in winning the race in a jjowerful German car at a speed of 72.8 miles an hour. It will be long before Ulster forgets this struggle of giants and midgets,” JTlie Individual Mind. “That there will be any advance in sheer Intellectual capacity ! simply do not believe. There is more likely to be retrogression—and. it has already taken place. The mind of. ftian is like an eagle or a lion. Starve it in desert wastes, and it will-travel far for its prey, and develop keen appetite, fleetness and strength, and endless resourcefulness. Feed it regularly in a rich park, and it will become flabby and listless. In the Intervals of hard work as a bank clerk, I searched the treasures of world literature, aud traced the progress of mankind, with a feverish zest, a breathless and awed curiosity, "that I feel sure I should never have known had I gone comfortably on at school to sixteen and proceeded to the University. Much I have missed, I know, even mentally: in par-' ticular the discipline of regular instruction and study. My mind, 'I admit, is chaotic, '.unreliable, and occasionally slop-overish. But it is at least my own mind, and its life has been one of sheer delightful adventure, with never a moment of ennui., Some day it may be possible to combine adventure with discipline, the advantages of selfeducation with those of systematic instruction and guidance. But it hasn’t been done yet, in our educational system, if one is to judge by the crucial test of average taste in literature.”— Lawrie Tod, in the “Scots’ Observer.”

. The Count against Worry. “The count against worry is a twofold one, and very serious at' both points. In the first place it tends greatly to make life, our own and other people's, fr®tfiil and unhappy; and it is a very serious thing, and a very wicked thing, to do that in either case. And then worry helps to make life futile as well as fretful; unfruitful as well as unhappy. The worrying people are never the great achievers in the work of life, but the exact opposite. Even if we do worry about great and important matters, which is seldom the case, our worrying is the very poorest of all possible preparations for great crises or emergencies that may come to us. Generally the habit of worrying becomes so much of a disease that the one afflicted with it cannot discern between great and small, and gives as much thought to trifling and footling issues as to great ones. In general we worry because we haven't learned what are the great and important and worth-while issues of life.” —“The New Outlook.” •

Happy Invalids. “There is no disputing the fact that numbers of men and women carrying burdens of sickness, never to be laid down on this side of the grave, are intensely happy, incomprehensible as this may be to the person in normal circumstances, who is often intensely miserable. The usual explanation offered is that such happiness is temperamental . . . and leave it at that. . . . Undoubtedly the secret of happiness is achievement —conquest. When a man has finished digging his garden he is happy for a time. The author is happy yhen he has written the concluding sentence of his book; the business man when he has negotiated a successful deal, and the sportsman when he has created a fresh record. There is no happiness without achievement, and no achievement without conquest. Achievement is essential; and many a sufferer has built up a spirit so indomitable that he has found an occupation within the scope of his limitations. Such a triumph must bring intense happiness seeing that he has, of his own determination and perseverance, converted uselessness into usefulness. Some of the world’s greatest work has been done by such as these.” —Mr. Leonard Smith, in the “Daily Chronicle” (London),

“This Civilisation.” ' ’ “This civilisation is not going to depend so much on what we do when we work as on what we do in our time off. We are organising the production of leisure. We need better organisation for its consumption.” — President Hoover. Schneider Cup Philosophy. “Regarded ah a sporting event, a million people certainly thought the Schneider Cup Race worth while,” says London "Truth,” “for it lured them to the glorious symphony of blue and gold that was the Solent. The railway companies and other merchants of transport thought it worth while; the makers of aircraft and their engines will always think it worth while; highspirited airmen will always think it Worth while. This is the one side of the ‘all depends’ qualification. The other is: What' constitutes the. practical value of the event in relation to everyday life? Call the Schneider Trophy race a great sporting event, the America Cup race of the air, the Football Final of the air—anything you like of the air—and I quite agrge. Praise the skill shown and the engineering /.perfection attained up to the hilt and again I quite agree. But when the Master of Semphill declares that ‘nothing in aviation is more important than this competition’ I confess to feeling that this is the verdict of an enthusiast. The current craze for the ‘last word’ in speed by air, land, and water is being ridiculously glorified as emblematic of national greatness. For every individual who reaps the benefit of this particular form of national greatness ten thousand are finding the high road hideously unsafe, the waterside an intolerable uproar, and the sky steadily approaching ■ the same condition.” .

A Novelist looks at Life. “If I had been asked instead of how I looked at life, what branch, of . study I should consider the most valuable to boys and girls being trained, presumably, for life in our schools, I 'should. answer the study .of history,” writes Miss Sheila Kaye-Smith,' the novelist in the “Yorkshire Observer.” “The man or woman who has never studied history can have no clear or unbiassed view of life. The present in itself is almost non-existent, so essentially is it bound up with the past and with the future—it is a mere line of demarcation between them, a mere Euclidean line, without breadth or depth, merely length and position. It is only as a collective sense that humanity is ever likely to ‘see life’ in any true meaning of the word. But in this struggle for a wider view there are certain individual facilities. One is, as I have said, a regard for history. The next is imagination—the realisation that our own personal experience as a man, as a woman, as a father, as a writer, as a dustman, a shop assistant, a millionaire or art collector or chimney sweep, is in itself valueless as the basis of a philosophy.” A Schoolboy’s Meditations.

“A schoolboy about to enter the world,” in the, course "of . “Meditations,” contributed to the “Education Outlook,” writes: ‘lt seems to me now that the higher we get in school, the fewer careers are open to us. On leaving the elementary schools we migh have made builders, plumbers, undertakers, or poets. Now with bur burden of Greek and Latin and Algebra the horizon is considerably narrowed. Our schooling stops. Suddenly we find that we are expected to make a contribution to the breakfast table. We wait. We may see a place empty; We try to slip in. Whichever number our dart hits may be . ours for life, for in England a boy getting a job at 16 ■ may be found at the same address at 60.” To Briand. “About M. Briand there can be no two minds. He is the foremost European of our time. If any man can be, Instinctively as well as intellectually, the citizen of a continent as diversified and as upon the ruins of its successive ruined Empires as' Europe, it is the French Premier. With no other Frenchmen have I. felt that he represented the essence and the wit of modern France, the France of the Revolution and of the Three Republics, of the peasant. and the artisan, the stubborn and cynical individualism combined with an instinctive and natural democracy, as is the case with M. Briand. He is. a great, almost an inspired, orator, in whose speech the subtle intelligence, the lively and mocking wit, struggle for the mastery over a grave and profound emptidn. And, what is rare in an orator, he can not only move the masses: he can move their leaders. No other speaker at the League Assembly in. my recollection, with the single exception of Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, has had and held so long the undivided attention of the leaders of the nations.”—Mr. George Slocombe in the “Daily Herald.” The Church’s Cities.

■“lf the world’s case against the Church is that it is not Christian and progressive, and idealistic enough, there is a hopeful significance in the fact that the world has got some idea of the spirit of Christ, and a sense of what a real Christian Church ought to be; the consciousness that the real Church of Christ must seek the light, follow the truth, bear a courageous witness, and act in the spirit of comradeship! In looking for the elements of hope in to-day’s religious situation, we must take account of the presence of a nucleus of really sane and faithful people both in and out of the churches. The heart of the race is still sound. Some of those inside the churches are really splendid; loyal souls who are shouldering the burdens of their churches and clinging to their churches through unprosperous days; men and women who have the real love of Christ in their hearts, whose characters are beyond reproach, and whom to know is a benediction.”—Rev. H. Bulcock, in “The ■ Highroad.”