The Dominion. SATURDAY, JULY 17, 1937. “SLEEPING OPTIMISTS"

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 249, 17 July 1937, Page 10

The Dominion. SATURDAY, JULY 17, 1937. “SLEEPING OPTIMISTS"

From the events of the past week the public should have been able to harvest abundant material for reflecting upon our political and social conditions, and the direction of the current. Ihe proceedings at the New Zealand Farmers’ Union conference in Wellington have revealed serious apprehensions concerning the manifest determination of'the political party at present in power to change our traditional system of government by the gradual conversion ot_ the country into a Socialist State. In Auckland distinguished visiting members of the New Education Fellowship have indicated weaknesses in our education system and in the body politic revealed to then practised and discerning vision. Ihe opening session of the Wellington Diocesan Synod provided Bishop Holland with the occasion and the opportunity for addressing to the meeting and to the public at large an earnest and stimulating appeal for a new and exemplary order of Christian living, with freedom and tolerance based upon a foundation of civic righteousness. Political and social problems are inter-related. In a democracy it is assumed that the solution of these lies in the hands of the people themselves. The fact that they delegate the task to their elected representatives in Parliament and Government does not absolve them from their responsibilities as citizens. If these are shirked there will be a depreciation in the standard of civic efficiency, which will be reflected by a corresponding depreciation of efficiency in government. What we have to guard against is a feeling of complacency in the presence of social and economic dangers. “The price of civic complacency,” declared Professor Hart, of the University of California, in an address at the New Education Fellowship congress at Auckland, “is economic ruin, social disaster, and the death of democracy.” Civic complacency is a noticeable attribute of the New Zealand democracy. It is demonstrated in the neglect of thousands of electors throughout the country to discharge their duties as voters at local and general elections: in the failure to give serious and critical attention to the warnings of our social sentinels of the dangers that threaten our moral and economic stability; in the growing tendency to shuffle our responsibilities on to the shoulders of the Government, sacrificing our independence and initiative of action by looking to that paternal institution for assistance and support in every kind of trouble. Is abortion prevalent? Leave it to the government. Have we enough money to spend ? Demand that the' Government should see to it that we have. As long as we look on the Government as something apart from ourselves, an institution with a bottomless pocket, which has been given to understand that its only chance of clinging to office is to attempt to satisfy everybody’s wants without regard to the consequences, complacency will remain a prominent defect of our citizenship. What, in a manner of speaking, does anything particularly matter as long as we beat the Springboks? “I do not enjoy the role of alarmist,” said the speaker abovequoted, “but the geese that cackled under the walls of Rome are credited with having rendered a greater service than the sleeping optimists within. Historically speaking, I would have preferred to have been one of the geese.” What we need, as the Bishop of Wellington said in his Synod address, is the cultivation of the sterner virtues. The seed should be planted in the schools, where the process of cultivation and growth can be systematically supervised. As we have emphasised before, and as was urged by one of the speakers at the Auckland congress during the week, a place must be found for ethical teaching based upon the principles of Christian living, and more adequate recognition of the sterner virtues. Humanitarianism must not be confused with soft sentimentality in the pursuit of the cause of social betterment, otherwise our citizenship will lose its vigour, and the dry rot of sleeping optimism will'stimulate the process of decay.