COMMUNITY ADVANCEMENT

Greymouth Evening Star, 1 April 1920, Page 8

COMMUNITY ADVANCEMENT

A PLEA FOR CO-OPERATIVE . ACTION.

(By P'. R. Climie.)

(Organiser Canterbury Progress League.) ■ .

Now that the war is over, it has' become evident that while men and guns were essential, it was. leadership, ideals and organisation that really won the war. It was the spiritual • working through the material that gave us the victory. / Having played a good part in helping to shape the world's destiny, New ■Zealand is. now entering upon the most thrilling period of its history. We are faced with both inspiring opportunities and profound responsibilities. The strength of a. nation >v the composite strength of its urban and ruial committees, and the 'strength of each community is meas-ured-not so much by the abundance of its natural resources, or its position on the map, as by its leadership ideals and organisation. The quality of the last two factors is determined in no small degree by the character of tin.! first. To community leader-

ship we must look for much, of the -motive power which will guide this country into a new era of progress and human happiness. Leadership is of two kinds, official and unofficial,, it functions through Government units, and cooperates through citizens' organisations. It is the unofficial variety that I am spe- . chilly concerned in, and to which 1 , desire to refer. In America, the home of those uu- ' official organisations there are mu.e. than three thousand communities ad- , vancing themselves by means of co- - operative citizenship or "team thinking" as it sometimes called. Ten millions of dollars arc spent each year by American cities through these organisationsfor community advance- , meat. The ideals of these- organ- ' isations are finding expression , in a way that would have been impossible otherwise. New Zenla.no, 1 ■ believe, is beginning to realise the . value of co-operative action as a 5 means of advancement,- and before , long. New Zealand, like America, will . be able to boast of the strides that ■ have been made by the application of this great principle. I'nlike the game of politics, where one man must , lose, that another may win, comnum- : ity co-operation is essentially a game < ill which the prospect of one man's < winning increases as others also win. ; A popular philosopher has illustrated i this truth by a story that inns some- 1

iliing like this:—"One of three neighbours owed the second a pound and the second also owed the third a like amount. Taking !L pound from his pocket the first"neighbour '■aid the second, and the second passed it on to the third, tluin two pounds of debt had been liquidated, and the j:ound was still in the neighbourly d; but a greater wonder knight have happened, for if the first neighbour liad given the second a good idea and he had passed it on to'the third, all tluee would have been possessed of of if, though it had (ravelled the road the pound did." The public mind should be directed to the great fact that individual success is made possible bv the. ad vance of the world. It is'the group progress that makes individual" progress easy. If the group were to stop, such as happened in China a thousand years ago, (he progressive individual would be left stianded. ]nUividual citizens should understand, therefore, the del it they owe to their community and to the progress of the age. How much, say, would the

Christchurch tramway' system he worth if the people ■were" to move away from the city? How much of a gigantic monument of failure would any of your large Oeymouth premise, he if the people decided to shift to some other place? AH these husiness concerns, large or small could eminently afford to contribute nine-tenths of their capital toward,; preventing such a catastrophe as thb "trekking" of their own community. Yet history is a record of the ri'se and fall of cities far greater in their day than any Now Zealand town. , Babylon, Athena, home. Florence, Pompeii, should each teach us the folly of depending wholly upon the material forces to maintain commun- ; ities. It is mankind that builds cities and ' (ears them down ftgain, wlietlier they be in the Soudan, in Belgium, in Serbia, or efoewhere. A community i should therefore think progress, should be guided by its optimists, should value constructive men more than destructive ones, should have a ' clear idea of the demands and nnssi-

bilities of future growth, and should have the courage to live up to these ideals. This should be the founda tion of all citizens' organisations. j The returned soldier has brought a new element into the thought of the body politic, and the mental evolution through which he has passed aims towards a higher valuation of .man and a lower valuation of property. Men who have been required to risk life itself for, the common ■ good, and whose comrades lie under ' the poppies in,Northern France, will . give short shrift to law or custom that denies them a fair participation in the prosperity of this generation. To keep the matter straight, there ...must be an organised centre of community leadership, where* the clear-est-headed and most patriotic citizens may exert their influence to the utmost. Let us think of the New Zealand that might be if we were all united 1 ,'upon a programme of national advancement, if the wisest of our local leaders in all our communities were betiding "for certain fixed points to be reached >,say, in five yearsi. No matter how high that aim might t<>, we would out-run it, just as our war effort far exceeded our most sanguine expectations. Every public-spirited man in New Zealand would be exalted in an atmosphere of public service, just as he was elevated in a patriotic spirit during the great war period. It is-the only lack of leadership and organised community followings, tliatstands in the Way of this magnificient possibility'. While rapid strides are thus possible, the spirit and technique of community organisation are usually of alow growth. Little can