MR COLECHIN AND THE NEW AGE.

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume LVI, Issue 89, 22 November 1935, Page 4

MR COLECHIN AND THE NEW AGE.

Sir, —Re the par in your Local and General column of your issue of November 8, with regard to the remark made by one of my hearers at my recent meeting at Irwell, that I am 1000 years before my time, I would say that we are apt to form the idea that because we are living in a progressive age everybody is progressive and intelligent. But we will have to remember that we are following an educational procedure that has come down to us from many generations. And conventional edicts grow into iron-bound, steel-ribbed customs and traditions; it sometimes takes an intellectual earthquake to change them. Many of the superstitions of the past have been dealt some hard blows, but it sometimes takes generations to change the opinions of the general public.

The principles for which I stand are considered to be, not 1000 years before their time, but long overdue, by some of the most brilliant minds of to-day; to mention a few, the late Mr A. R. Orage, editor of the New English Weekly and New Age; the Most Hon. the Marquis of Tavistock; the Very Rev. Hewlett Johnson, D.D., Dean of Canterbury; Professor Fredrick Soddy, Professor of Economics; Viscount Leverhulme; Lord Sempili; Lord Melchett; Lord Cranworth; Sir Geoffrey R. Clarke; Sir Edgar Saunders; and so. the list could be extended to fill every column of your paper, including his Most Gracious Majesty King George V., who said, in opening the World Economic Conference in 1933: "It cannot be beyond the power of man so to use the vast resources of the world as to ensure the material progress of civilisation." His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, addressing the London Chamber of Commerce, said: "There is no scarcity of commodities. It is, I feel, at the consumption and distribution end that failure has occurred."

It is an honour to be considered ahead of our time rather than behind it; that has been said of the advocates of a new idea all down the ages. The mentality that clings to the old and obsolete idea is a drag on human progress, therefore I trust that the voters of the Riccarton electorate will on the 27th strike to establish the New Age of Prosperity, Security and Plenty for all, that this scientific age makes possible, and thus do away for all time with this degrading poverty and starvation in the midst of plenty.—l am, etc.,

J. ED. COLECHIN,

Independent Candidate for Riccarton,