"A HAPPY NEW YEAR"

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 1, 2 January 1931, Page 8

"A HAPPY NEW YEAR"

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —It is usual at this season of the year to wish all and sundry _ a Happy New Year, but at the present time, under'existing circumstances, it is nothing but a ! conventional, hollow mockery to do so, unless there is a spirit of sincerity, honesty, and truth going with ip, which shall be an earnest of endeavour to make it a Happy New Year to all, irrespective of their class or station in life. We have left the old year behind us. A year of trials and difficulties for very many of us. But the problems of the old year are still with us. The solution to those problems has yet to be, found. We endeavoured in the past to burke the issues, to gloss over the miseries, to side-track the responsibilities, with the result that the problems are still with us, and still unsolved.

We endeavoured in the past year, to side-track our difficulties by misrepresentation, by the suppression of truth, by the utterance of fallacious arguments to gull the public into a sense of false security, with the result, that the greater our success along those lines, the more difficult the problem has become. And we still have those same problems with us, but in a more accentuated form, owing largely to our misrepresentations and utter want of sincerity." The problems of the old year are still witH us, and the solution has still to be found; but they cannot be found along the lines of insincerity, misrepresentation, and untruthfulness. All problems are solvable, when approached in a spirit of truth and honesty, and sincerity of purpose. Can we not therefore, in the coming year, make an effort to approach our difficulties along these lines, and see what truth, honesty, and sincerity of purpose •will do for us, and by so doing, ensure that it shall'be a Happy and Prosperous New Year for all.—l am, etc., W. MADDISON. Ist January. Iflol.