THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 295, 10 September 1941, Page 6

THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY

Comments —Reflections

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.—Shakespeare, “Hamlet.”

“Hitler has afforded us now an opportunity—a brief opportunity, pernaps, and most probably our last—to throw off our lingering complacencies and easy-going delays once and for all. Let us search tirelessly for weak spots in our national defence measures and hasten to make good any that can be found.” —“Yorkshire Post.”

“I am no killjoy. I want to see the people getting a fair measure of recreation. But when I hear of DOO cars at a race meeting and 60,000 at a football match I wonder whether we are crazy. Merchant seamen are being shot to pieces bringing petrol and other supplies here. Think of the petrol consumed, the transport used, and the services required for all this so-called re-creation and ask yourselves whether we are really organizing our resources for war. This sort of thing must stop.”—Mr. E. Shinwell, M.P., in ad-, cressing Durham miners.

“The astounding achievement of the Nazi regime in Germany, in reducing to barbarism what we had thought the exceedingly advanced intellectual structure of German education is a terrible object lesson in the destructive power of an educational system. If peace is an ideal, and represents something for which it is worth while to dedicate the energies of great masses of mankind, it must be something more than a temporary absence of fighting. I offer this as a definition of peace—good will, effectively asserted against greed. I affirm my quite clear conviction that not only in this war, and not only in times of special stress, but at all times, because of the nature of men and women, force is,an indispensable element in the ordering of human life. Our task is not to eliminate force, but to consecrate force. Law must have force put at its disposal in order that there may 1 be no lawless use of force. Part of our aim must surely be to dedicate force for the upholding of justice between nations and for the upholding of International law.” —The Archbishop of , York, on “Education and Peace.”

“To think of the man in the house as the ‘breadwinner’ and of the •woman as his ‘dependent’ is really idiotic. The woman who spends is ‘winning’ the family bread as truly as the man, and he and his children are as ‘dependent’ on her as she on him. To say that one is more important than the other is senseless. They are as equal as the two blades of a pair of scissors. It has been a great misfortune that Loth men and women - should have agreed to think that one blade is more important than the other, because it is not true and the idea has made our civilization lopsided. And it is again a misfortune because it has deprived women of the confidence in themselves and their opinions that they so greatly need today. The enormous majority of women would rather do their own work than any other, and by ‘their own work’ I mean quite definitely and unashamedly the work of • a wife and mother in a home. I assert this, and it is one of the few things in this shaky world that I am absolutely sure of. . .” —Miss Maude Hoyden, in her latest book, “Women s Partnership in the New World.”

“The Russian .peasant is accustomed to offer passive resistance. During the last 20 years he has known how to thwart the excessive encroachments of his own Government. He lias preferred to burn his harvest and kill his cattle rather than give them up. He is not afraid of death, or fire, or torture. If all that is true of opposition to his own authorities, how much more difficult it makes the progress of a hated alien invader. Again, unlike D'rance and the Low Countries, Russia has no oil stations at every crossroads to refill the advancing Panzer divirions. She has few roads running from west to east either; most of them run from north to south. Finally, the Government and their troops can retreat to the Urals, even beyond, and still Russia remains unconquered. No, Russia’s capacity to resist can certainly not be measured by the degree of her preparedness.” —Mr. Cevra Soloveytchik, contributor to the Russian “Economic Review.” writing in the “Yorkshire Post.”

“The most tragic aspect of this attempt to survive, alone on our continent, is that it would amount at best merely to sustaining life in a charnel-house. With Britain gone, with the bright lamp of English liberty extinguished, with all hope of resurrection denied to the little democracies that have contributed so generously to our civilization and our culture, with the hobnailed boots of an ignorant and obscene barbarism echoing in every capital from London to Athens, we should live in a new world, changed beyond all recognition. In this downfall of democracy outside the United States there would come, for many of our own people, a loss of faith in our (,wn democratic system. Our confidence would be undermined, our vision dimmed, our ranks divided. In a dark, uncertain world we should stand alone, deriving from no other country the 'sustaining strength of a common faith in our democratic institutions. What would it profit us to aeliieve, at last, this perfect isolation? We have only two alternatives. We can surrender or we can do our part in holding the line. If we decide for the American tradition, for the preservation of all that we hold dear in the years that lie ahead, we shall take our place in the line and play our part in the defence oE freedom.” —“New York Times.”

No Surrender. Time and its ally, Dark Disarmament, Have compassed me about, Have massed their armies, and on Ba tie bent, My forces put to rout; But though I fight alone, and fall and die, Talk terms of peace? Not I. They’ve shot ray flag to ribbons, but in rents It floats above the height: Their ensign shall not crown ray battlements While I can stand and fight: 1 fling defiance at them as I cry “Capitulate? Not I.” —Quoted by Professor W. Mac Neile Dixon, in a recent lecture.