WELCOME TO NEW MEMBERS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 56, 8 March 1937, Page 14

WELCOME TO NEW MEMBERS

The Lyceum Club on Thursday evening was en fete to welcome a number of new members. The president (Mrs. A. D. Kerr) spoke of the activities of the club, and said that the programme had been designed to show what the club could do.

The glee singers acquitted themselves admirably, although they had only just reassembled after a long Amusing dialogues were given by Misses Keddell and Ahem on behalf of the Dramatic and Play-reading Circles, and by Mesdames Kerr, Berry, Brangwyn, and Watson for the French Circle. Miss Ethel Gibson contributed violin solos, and Miss Eggers sang two delightful songs.

the background. As for example—the rise -! women, which meant an everincreasing interest taken in social questions—and the problem of leisure, which now manifested itself as a nuisance under the form of unemployment, but which might turn out to be the greatest of human goods, with the human being no longer bound to unremitting and grinding toil, but with leisure for things of the spirit."

Referring to the general world situation, General Smuts said that there were indications that this was slowly —very slowly, but steadily improving. The economic state of the world was getting better. An encouraging sign —not spectacular—but very important —was the agreement in regard to currency exchange between the' United States, Great Britain, and France. That move, in some ways the most important of the post-war period, might have very far-reaching results in the future.

If nations were arming now it was not because they were warlike, but because they feared war, and were preparing themselves for self-defence. The whole outlook and mentality, the whole spirit, the necessity for selfc arming, was entirely different from what it was in 1914. The motive now was fear, not aggression. "If," he said, "we can succeed in dispelling that fear if we can, by fair dealing, by mobilising good feeling between nations, dispel that fear, mankind may once again see the light, and set its face In the direction of that light.". Nations were ranged against each I other, and Governments were planning on a huge scale for war, but underneath on the purely human plane there was an entirely different situation. There was fundamental good will instead of the feeling of hatred which existed in 1914.

Also, he said, in the attention paid to the education and care of the child, there had been an enormous change. In the years to come the whole force of human society would be behind the child, and that must make an enormous difference to society. Indeed, when that time came they would be almost in Paradise, without its temptations. He did not believe in the glorification of the State: the greatest thing was the human soul.