THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 114, 9 February 1944, Page 4

THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY

Comments —Reflections

“This question of State control is an issue,” stresses the “News Chronicle,” of London, which cannot be presented too plainly or too soon. It lends itself readily to misrepresentation. For (1) it is quite true that economic control is impossible without some measure of •bureaucracy’; (2) it is quite true that there are serious dangers in bureaucratic administration against which we must always be on our guard. And (3) it is obvious that no one wants bureaucracy for its own sake.’’

He knew perfectly well there were good Germans. There were Germans who were wise and cultivated, and who 'deplored the abominations committed by the Nazis. “From knowledge in my possession,” he went on, “at the present time I would say that all these good Germans have now made up their minds that this war is lost, and that they are thinking of one tiling only, and that is how to prepare for the next one.” —Mr. Duff Cooper, speaking at the Churchill Club in Loudon a few weeks ago.

“Victor Hugo once declared that a day would come when a cannon-ball would be displayed in a museum just as an instrument of torture is now; but that day is not yet. The dawn of such a day seems far distant in a world that is filled with the cannon’s roar; it is hard to believe, in the midst of global warfare, that a time will come when war will be regarded as ancient barbarism; but we do well to recall in hours of unbelief and discouragement the prophetic promise: ‘They shall beat their swords into plqwshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.’ We live for that blessed day, but not in it. It is useless trying to ignore the terrible conflict that devastates the earth or to stand apart from it; it is futile to whine about the catastrophe in which we are involved or induge in self-pity; we have to face the situation as it is, and, accepting its burdens and sorrows, to share in the travail of humanity.”—Mr. J. A. Potter. Literary Editor of the British and Foreign Bible Society.

“Ought we to train our people in the arts of defence?” asked Mr. Bevln (British Minister of Labour) in a recent speech. “I should hate to think we were becoming a militarized nation. On the other hand, the price we have paid in human life owing to our lack of preparedness in the arts of defence in this last 25 years compels me to believe that if you develop an education system taking care of the adolescent and at the same time training him in the elementary arts of defence on a purely citizen basis it will produce in this country a race capable of making an amazing contribution to international security. It will, first, contribute to the raising of the standard of life, and, secondly, to the production of a people with eharatcer and a sense of equality with a drive behind the State to provide a real opportunity for the use of these abilities. Thirdly, it will promote the consciousness that our security and the attainments of our civilization cannot be taken for granted, and that a readiness to defend them should the need ever arise is a necessary condition of their existence.”

“After the last war we were generous, unduly generous, with dire results; if we leaned either way out of the strict line, of impartiality we leaned rather toward the vanquished than to our late Allies; we were speedily out of sympathy with the fierceness of the revengeful pressure, natural enough, if terrible, of the successive Governments of France, and, in our habitual way, we had a sort of feeling that it ’wasn’t cricket’ not to try and help up the fellow that was down—a divergence of view which made the work of the Inter-Allied Arms Commission almost impossible from the start. Today, it is to be hoped and believed, we are wiser; we are still without desire for revenge, but we do realize that neither Hitler nor the sheep-like and terrible nation he has led understand cricket. It has l>een said —I think by Mr. Harold Nieolson —that the Germans are quite unable to appreciate equality; they must dominate or be dominated; or, in Mr. Churchill’s words, they are cither at your throat or your feet. There is, beyond all doubt, a very deep resolve grown, in us which can be best put into the two words ‘never again’; 20 vears ago there was eloquent hut rather vague talk about ‘a war to end war’; and yet that largely remained talk. We are one and all determined not to make that mistake :t, second time, whatever oilier we set in its place.—Lord Gorell.

“The poorest part of the population of Britain is actually better fed, from the point of view of health, than it was before the war. The consumption of milk in working-class families lias increased by about 20 per cent., the biggest increase being by mothers and children. The consumption of potatoes and vegetables has increased by about 25 per cent. Then the change-over from white bread to national bread, rich in vitamins, has further improved the diet. Two of the nutrients which were known to be deficient in pre-war diets were calcium and vitamin B. A dietary survey done in Scotland, shows that in working-class families the intake of the former has increased oy about 25 per cent, and of the latter by about 40 per cent. There is little doubt that this improvement in the diet has gone a Jong way to counteract war factors affecting health, such as the deterioration in housing due to bombing, increased hours of work, the employment of mothers, ‘the black-out,’ and otlifir psychological depressing factors. In both Scotland and England in 1942, the Infant mortality rate, which is largely determined by the diet of the mother and the child, was the lowest on record, and the rate of growth of children, which is determined mainly by the diet, was greater than in pre-war years.”

The Immortal. The wine of immortality Is his alone to quaff Whose pen corrodes with salt of tears Yet shapes songs-words that laugh. O bitter burnt his bread may be, But be shall savour crumb and crust Who breathes the atmosphere of stars While plodding through the finite dust. —Jessie M. Dowlin in “Green Mountain Verse; An Anthology of Contemporary Vermont Poetry.”