JOY OF LIFE

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 November 1923, Page 7

JOY OF LIFE

MR .MACDONALD’S IDEALS.

Mr Ramsay Macdonald, the leader of the British .Parliamentary I’arty, was invited by the Yorkshire Evening News to express an opinion on the'view that everything is darkly and sombrely coloured, and to -answer the question; “Where shall we turn for joy?” In response Mr Macdonald, writing from Lossiemouth, a tiny seaside town in Momj shire said : . Certainly there is ample joy in life if we do not deliberately forbid it as an unwelcome guest. Some people find joy in lugubriousness, so when they speak we ought not to misunderstand them. The generation is allowing itseli to trust .’boo much to outward things for joy. . , . , A good walking stick, a pipe, and any weather are. enough; any pocket treasure like “The Open Road ’ Clone of the Gohlen Treasury volumes add luxury to the elementals. Get our people away from the pettifogging vanities land the empty wildeniesscs of towns; get them away with nature from self-regarding am sighing introspection, and they will find joy abundantly. I’lu'ui at. home—our old Scots sum's oi "ay humour and lyrical love; a "novel ‘or two like “Tristram Shandy”; Burns or the Elizabethians ; ;ill honest day’s work behind one ami decent memories around one, with perhaps a youngster sleeping in the corner —what cloud can keep joy out of that? , , ■ , And then, there is the greatest joy of all. the joy of working so that all our people may possess the circumstances ami t.he capacity to be full of joy themselves. Don’t talk to me of a cheerless lite. Mr Ramsay Macdonald expresses sentiments with which everybody will agree, but they offer no real solution Io our problems. We should all like to live the kind of life he describes, which, of course, is a holiday life, but unfortunately it is not practicable every day for everybody. Existence is a more complex thing than Air ATacfl niald seems to realise.