Evening Post. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1923. CONTENTMENT & APATHY

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 142, 13 December 1923, Page 6

Evening Post. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1923. CONTENTMENT & APATHY

Some timely remarks upon a well-worn theme were contributed by the Mayor of Auckland in the speech which we reported yesterday. Presiding at a meeting convened to promote the Girl Guide movement, and honoured by the presence of the Governor-General, he expressed his regret at the poor attendance. "Is it creditable," he asked, "in an Empire movement of this kind, at which the Go-vernor-General is present, that we have not a wider and more satisfactory response in Auckland?" Treating the question as answering itself, the Mayor added some pertinent remarks of a general.character which are just as applicable to Wellington as to Auckland, and doubtless fit all the other Dominions just as closely as they fit New Zealand.

at n B U to° much contentment, said Mr. Uunson, among our community at 1116 PriviieS*s, position, and lot that the people enjoy. There is "1 T% t- here iB no realisation of what toe Empire calls for and demands. It is time our citizenship generally realised more of their obligations, and that they made more self-sacrifice and responded to these movements when a call is made upon them by the head of their

In the milder terms appropriate to his position,. His Excellency associated himself with the Mayor's expression of regret, and said that it was the only meeting he" had ever attended in Auckland which called for such an expression. He was sure that nothing but ignorance of the great value to the whole community could account for so poor a display. . ' ■ :-

It is impossible to say that Auckland lags behind the other cities of New Zealand in the public spirit and enterprise of her citizens. Auckland haa, on the contrary, often given a lead in a great social, philanthropic, or Imperial movement which the rest of the Dominion has been glad to follow. The apathy which has so distressed hey patriotic Mayor is, as we have suggested, a typical malady, and if there are any communities in New Zealand, or in the Empire, to which his general remarks would not be equally applicable, Wellington is certainly not one of them. We are apt to blame the war for all that has gone wrong in our public life during the last four or five years, and to assume that, like the period or convalescence that follows a serious illness, the mere lapse of time will operate as a cure and set us on our legs again. It is a convenient and comfortable doctrine, but it will not work. Human progress, which is th,e only alternative to human retrogression, is not to be promoted by merely marking time or Bitting still, and the lazy fatalism which is based upon the contrary assumption is utterly unworthy of the Western civilisation which we have inherited, and of the stock from which we are proud to have sprung. But Mr. Gunson's remarks were not specially directed to the apathy and the fatalism which have their origin in the war, and look, or pretend to look, to peace for an automatic cure of all our troubles. The cause with which he dealt was one which not even the fatalist can regard as evanescent, and whioh none of us can regard as in itself an evil. The apathy which he attacked is not the apathy of exhaustion and depression and despair whioh the war has bequeathed as a! terrible legacy to some less fortunate nations, but the apathy which represents the seamy side of a superabundant prosperity. A community depressed and demoralised by the exhaustion arising from the war may reasonably hope for a gradual alleviation as the normal economic forces reassert themselves. But there is no hope of this kind for a country which,, is already suffering from a too great prosperity and has reasonable grounds for. the expectation that it may be becoming more prosperous still. It was when Jeshurun waxed fat that he kicked and " forsook God which made him," and the purge of lean years was needed to bring him to his senses. After becoming far too rich during the war, our own favoured land felt the sobering effect of lean years shortly »fte?*ftrd», hm ths contentment and the lazy indifference ta which

Mr. Gunson referred are evidence of a returning prosperity, which has already gone far enough to have a very bad effect upon our morals.

The evil is, of course, not a new one. It was widespread even in the good old days, but it is more conspicuous now in contrast with the splendid spirit of patriotism and self-sacrifice which the war called forth, and the inevitable reaction has perhaps made it actually worse. Apathy is as old as democracy itself, and has sometimes been called its worst enemy. It is a disease to which these southern democracies are particularly liable, both from their high general level of comfort and prosperity, and from the patience and indulgence of the Mother Country by which they have been able to enjoy substantially all the benefits of nationhood with no appreciable share oi its burdens. The comradeship of war produced a glorious exception to this general rule of irresponsibility, but with the easing of that terrible strain slackness is returning, and perhaps to a more dangerous extent than before. And so, while our Prime Minister has been displaying our patriotism in . the limelight on the platforms of Great Britain, and urging her benighted electors to " put the Empire first all-the time," the Mayor of Auckland laments that a lazy enjoyment or the privileges of our position is blinding us to its obligations, and that " there is no realisation of what the Empire calls for and demands." And, unfortunately, we all know that the prophet who declines to speak unto us smooth things is the one that comes the nearer to the mark.