KEEPING FIT

Evening Star, Issue 18809, 6 December 1924, Page 3

KEEPING FIT

THE TONIC OSF COMPETITION. There is a verso in tho Bible which declares tl-'u “iron sharpeneth iron.” The n id or spirit of man is intended to be understood in this connection. But, as a matter of fact, the same truth applies also to Dio body (writes the medical correspondent of the London ‘ Times ). Wo keep fit by striving against one another. When opposition fads, there is stagnation and weakness. Animals kept in captivity, for example, suffer from lack of the dangers to which wild life exposes them. The safety of their new surroundings releases them from the need to he active, to react quickly, to develop to the utmost their powers of self-preservation —i.e., their fitness. CAT’S VALUE TO THE MOUSE. When the cat’s away the mice may play; but if the cat. stays away too long tho mice deteriorate os independent, sellreliant, and self-sufficing creatures. As far as modern business is concerned, competition represents the “ cat.” Say what we will, it is this “cut-throat” necessity which has made our working classes, and our “capitalist” classes, too, the fittest in the world. As was pointed out at a conference of business men lately, conditions of life in factories and workshops were never so bad in this country as during the period when Britain was the “workshop of tho world” —when tho demand for our goods far exceeded Dio supply. Competition was at a minimum in those days, and so there was no need to trouble about efficiency, whether of mind or bodv. The same conditions, on a worse scale, obtain now in Soviet Russia, thanks to the fact that competition has been eliminated in that unhappy country. THE USES OF ADVERSITY.

When competition became fierce, in tho latter part of the last century business efficiency increased enormously. The health of the business man increased with it. Men worked hard, ate more sparingly, and began to live longer. Moreover, there were demands for better education, better sanitation, bfttor housing for both masters and men. These demands, in point of actual fa-ct, were but aspects of tho urgent need for more efficient men to carry on the struggle. Indeed, it is fundamentally true that competition is the basis—the only possible basis—of liberty, since it produces the type of men and women capable of understanding and enjoying freedom in the large sen.se. Business men owe much of the joy and health they have in life to their opponents—as is seen when a man retires with a fortune or succeeds in buying up all his competitors. Men who do. either of these imprudent things usually lose their fitness. At tho very height of his power, in 1811, tho Emperor Napoleon was a. sick man —moody, depressed, and lacking his accustomed vigor of action. In 1813 and 1814, when his enemies wore, driving him to destruction, and ho was lighting with his hack to the wall, his physical strength was marvellously restored. In the campaign of 1814, all the qualities of leadership, of rapid decision, of marvellous adaptability which had carried tho young Buonaparte to his throne reappeared in full force, and tins in spite of tlie fact that the campaign was wellnigh hopeless from the start. SUCCESS A SNARE. The truth is that great success is unhealthy and unwholesome. Man was not. created to be prosperous in the permanent and established sense of that word. He was created to strive toward prosperity. Striving and fitness are synonymous terms. For which reason we invent games by means of which wo can goad ourselves to activity. We turn friends into makebelieve foes that we may improve our bodily health. Tims, those who talk of Socialist millenniums, when competition will be abolished for ever, betray a gross ignorance of human nature. If their dreams were realised not only trade and prosperity would vanish, but the traders themselves would lose their active qualities of mind and hodv.

Indeed, physical vigor is the distinguishing mark of most of the big “fighters” in (he commercial world. As has been pointed out before in these articles, the man who is ever alert lo seize an opportunity or develop a new idea restores his .strength in that process. It follows that "overwork” is largely an illusion. It is hut n pleasant name for unfitness engendered either by too much success or too little resolution. Men with assured positions are notoriously more liable to this complaint than those who must remain in the fighting lino or lose all that they possess.