RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 239, 4 July 1940, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights On Current Events

(By

Kickshaws.)

Think victory for Britain —if you don’t think defeat for the enemy. The Free Ambulance, it is claimed, is the lifeboat of the roads. Well, long may it continue to keep off the rocks.

A substance is stated to have been isolated in America such that five pounds weight is equal to the energy in five million pounds of coal. If Hitler gets hold of the stuff, if there is life on Mars, it won’t be long before there isn’t.

It seems strange that a time when Britain is assailed there could te any reason to anticipate the worst. Have we grown different from the men whom we honour as our ancestors.' The time to talk defeat is after defeat. When dangers are around it is a time to think victory. We have seen in France what happens when even a small fraction of the people talk defeat beforehand. Yet France was only half defeated. Even half-defeat is not defeat. Even three-quarter-defeat contains within itself the seeds of victory. Defeat is 90 per cent, a state of mind. A nation that does not kuow when it, is theoretically defeated may snatch from it one hundred per cent, victory. In times of danger our perspective gets deranged. Dangers alone do not constitute defeat. The state of mind, indeed, may be more dangerous than the danger.

We seem to be all thinking for Hitler instead of against him. We think he must be irresistible. Yet we never think that a brigand is irresistible. We know that in time the police will mass strength to match the plunderer. For a time the plunderer seems to have things his own way. Our way of thinking is not to live perpetually ttrmed to meet every possible counter to every possible man who goes beserk. We prefer to use more and more force against him so that in the end his line of action will not be worth while, at first though he has the advantage. It is the same with nations. Maybe we have let things go rather far. lor that the blame may be apportioned Inter on. Now is not too late to stop voting ourselves boxes of chocolates. We are men enough to vote ourselves the castor oil to cure our trouble; or whatever nasty medicine is required. Let us think about that, and how best we can take the medicine. Thinking about defeat is like giving one another anaesthetics to cure the enemy of indigestion if he eats us.

There are few traction engines these days. The internal combustion engine has replaced this form of transport. Maybe some folk can interpret the voice of the petrol engine. It is a rhythm rather than a voice. It is as music is to speech. Well, the oldfashioned traction engines used to speak where now sing the petrol engines. When a.trhetion engine was going up a hill, what did it say? Those who have heard the voice of the traction engine of say 30 years ago or more will tell you that when chugging up a isteep hill it said: “I think I can ... I . . . think . . . I . . . can I . . . think , . . I . . . can I . . . think ... I

.. . can.” By then it was at the top of the hill. Well, the traction engine never said “I think I can’t.” Even if it stalled on the hill it said “I . . . think . . . I can.” If it couldn’t, why the driver took a rope and wound the engine up the hili. That is what we should plan to do. Let’s think about that.

It is no use asking the other fellow what he thinks. What matters to the other fellow is what you think. If you have an “I-think-I-can” look about things, well by the time everybody has that look everybody will be doing things to make the thought a reality. Baden Powell used to tell his scouts in the early days about a frog that fell into a bowl of milk. The frog realized it was up against it. It could swiin, however. “I think I can save myself, thought the frog. It. swam and swam. “I think I can,” said the frog, and it swam and swam. It went on swimming and swimming. That frog never gave up. It got tired, but it never thought it couldn't swim. If it had it would have been drowned. After a while the milk turned to butter because the frog swam so hard it churned up the milk—rich Jersey milk. It created for itself a little island, where it sat a while till it jumped out of the jug and the impossible had happened. If that frog had thought it couldn’t, well, it wouldn’t, and that applies to us all right now.

Maybe Hitler has crushed all Europe. Maybe he has made more tanks than France, and he did get a flying start in the aeroplane business. Nevertheless, it is quite wrong to think he has done anything more wonderful than has ever been done before. Even a run-away horse appears to do wonders as it careers along gathering troubles all the way. In contrast, let us think what wonderful things happened to Britain. Geologically speaking, it is only a flash since Britain was an unknown island somewhere to the north. Since then things have taken shape. That little island is considered so important Hitler is prepared to sacrifice a million men or more to gain it. It is surelj more wonderful that this should be so than it is to be dazzled into defeat. How did men who wore skins and used bows and arrows come to own the world? How is it that the British Empire is the only large collection of individuals who have been at peace with themselves? Largely it was produced by a state of mind. Duly a state ot mind will create action to retain it. * * *

Let us not think that defeat is imminent. Let us think that a very necessary dose of medicine has been required. Hitler, perhaps, is the medicine man, but we never admit toward a doctor a defeatist attitude. Few individuals weakly choose chocolates when it is obvious that medicine is required. It is the same with people sufficiently advanced to got ern themselves. They are not fitted to survive if they vote themselves a chocolate box in which to live. The mote chocolates we have voted ourselves the more bitter the pill we must accept, later on. Maybe we have voted ourselves too many chocolates—too manyluxuries and too few aeroplanes. A nation is not lost, an Empire docs not fall if it realizes a fact and acts, while, think victory for Britain, think vietorv for the Empire. The medicine will not then be noticed. Tl ’ crc . 1S nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. Shakespeare never doubted it. Thought is the seed of action.

“I read recently of an energetic worker making many pounds of gingernuts for the soldiers,” writes “M.W.S.” “The news item mentioned that difficulty was experienced in getting a supply of suitable tins. I wonder if you could’ tell me if there is any place in Wellington where suitable tints could be loft.”

[Maybe the energetic gingernut maker*would care to give some information .regarding the suggestion?]