ROUND IN CIRCLES

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 55, 6 March 1937, Page 27

ROUND IN CIRCLES

AILING CIVILISATION

SUGGESTED CURES

"Prime Ministers declare that we are going up and up and up, on and on and on, while it becomes increasingly obvious that we are really going round, and round in circles. We are wandering aimlessly in a Wilderness of our own making, and how to reach the Promised Land which Man's mastery over Nature has made possible is a problem which we seem unable to solve." This is a quotation from the forew.ord to "Seven Pillars of Fire," a recent Herbert Jenkins publication. The volume consists of essays by sev.en well-known . people who attempt to grapple with .this unsolved problem. Each writer takes the world of today as he sees it, tries to diagnose the malady from which it is suffering, and suggests, a cure for it. The essays between them give'a broad view of the current situation and a clear, idea of the 'conflicting forces which, if not harnessed, seem destined to destroy what is known as Western Civilisation.

The ' 'contributors' are:—Dr. Maude Royden" ("The Way of Religion"), Dr. L. P.' Jack ("The Human Fact"), Professor A. E. Richardson ("Erewhon Come True'f), the Marquess of Tavistock ("The Riddle of "Money"), C. R. W. Nevinson ("The Arts Within This Bellicose Civilisation"), Captain Bernard Acworth ("The Coming Reformation"), and Sir E. Denison Ross ("Utopia While You Wait").' The conclusions to which each of these writers comes are what one would naturally expect from their outlook. Dr. Maude Royden. sees in a return to God the only hope for our sick civilisation. "Not. until the written word of God is once again restored to its former position as the absolute foundation for national affairs, no matter how we all, as individuals, fall short of our high calling as sons of God, can we hope to see England prosperous, England merry, and England free," writes Captain Acworth. Dr. Jacks, finishes his essay thus: "But wh/.-e a disintegrated education has failed, an integrated education may possibly succeed. All .depends on the quality of the' human material. If' this declines, nothing can save us. If j it improves, there is ground for hope. Prediction can go no further." WRONG SENSE OF VALUES. "Perhaps the whole tendency of this present civilisation can be summed up by saying that our sense of values is distorted and that we ignore the substance and grasp at the shadow. If this is so,. -it is the highly-artificial urban life of today which has caused it: a life surrounded by' unparalleled ugliness which oppresses all five senses. And in order to regain our true sense of values and so our inner harmony and peace of mind, we must reverse the flow from country to town and try to undo all the damage which has been done in a century and a half of; violent changes and social dislocations." That is Professor Richardson's final paragraph. Mr. Nevins'on is convinced that civilisation, culture, and the ultimate construction of the future lie in the hands of Great Britain: . THE MONEY PROBLEM. The Marquess of Tavistock is quite certain that Social Credit is the key to the money problem and the one. and only solution. "One. thing which .is quite certain," he says, "is that neither Communism nor any other political creed can secure for its adherents the blessings promised, so long as it leaves the control of money in private and selfish hands, and so .long as it fails to remedy the fundamental defects in the monetary system." We cling, we.are told, to a financial system suitable to the Middle Ages. "It is perfectly useless nationalising the banks if nothing is done about the problem created by labour displacement, by machinery and the problem of the gap which must separate the price which people can afford to pay.for the total output of goods from the price at which sellers can afford to sell—a gap which would still exist 'even if we did away with all rent, all interest, and all profits. Finally, no country can expect to re-main-solvent so long as -the State borrows, instead of creating, the money that is needed for extraordinary expenditure." "In prophesying, perhaps, the only safe thing to say is that the future will be different from anything that one can foretell, since the mind' of man is. too weak to do more than imagine a further development of the tendencies which exist in his own' lifetime. History traces curves, while man thinks in straight lines," is the final paragraph of the book penned by Sir E. Denison Ross. ■ ■'•■■-.

In: the meantime the doctors differ; the patient is rapidly getting ' worse, and a speedy demise seems to' be facing ailing civilisation. ' :