“SACRIFICIAL GOATS”

Greymouth Evening Star, 13 May 1933, Page 9

“SACRIFICIAL GOATS”

ESSENTIALS OF RECOVERY The following address by the late Sir Henry Thornton, K.8.E., formerly president of the Canadian National Railways, is appropriate to the times. He suggests that instead of looking for scapegoats the people should share with those “put in authority” over us the responsibilities and sacrifices demanded by us in order to promote national economy. “While we admit the seriousness of the problem and the difficulty of effective solution,” said Sir Henry Thornton, “it would be both cowardly and wrong to abandon corrective effort and accept fatality. The pages of history reveal occasional and similar catastrophic conditions, but the world has struggled through them just as it will eventually find a solution of the present problem. It seems necessary that in all of the various disasters which have afflicted nations the patient must be threatened with the grave before he awakens to his danger and is brought to that state of mind which accepts the application of essential even if drastic remedies. “Canada as a nation is less responsible for and has certainly, contributed less to provoke the present state of depression than any other nation, but while that is true we cannot escape a situation which has been largely forced upon us. At such times as these many there are who with freedom and confidence criticise Governments, statesmen, industrial leaders, and all who within their prospective spheres of responsibility administer those enterprises which contribute substantially to the welfare of the nation. In short, the king of indoor and outdoor sports seems to he a search for the goat.

“If the truth were stated practically every individual in every country is a goat, for had most of us forseen the events which have happened in the last two years we would unquestionably have pursued quite different courses than those which were followed, and this is only another way of saying that hind-sight is always more accurate than foresight. “I do not in the least pretend to diagnose the causes of the present depression or prophesy either its duration or its remedy ... I must leave analyses and predictions to the economist and the student; but there are two or three simple and somewhat practical points to which I think I may with much humility, and I hope propriety, call attention, remembering that, as someone once remarked, we are confronted by a condition and not theory.

BACK TO HUMAN NATURE. “However little you may suspect familiarity on the part of a railway president with catechism of the Aiiglican Church, I find certain admonitions in that admirable office which we may well take to heart in the present crisis. In searching the corridors of my youthful memory I recall' what is called the duty toward one’s neighbour, in which, among many other admirable commands, there is impressed the duty ‘to honour and obey the King and all that are put in authority under him.’ That, somewhat transposed, means that it is the duty of every patriotic citizen in such times as these to assist and support the Government; and in employing the word government I am not speaking with respect to any particular political and sectional strife, and in whatever differences of opinion there may be, to support those who in the. words of the cathechism are ‘put in authority.’ “Quite irrespective of what political party might happen to hold power, I would equally venture this advice. Wc all have an abiding and unbounded faith in our country. Fundamentally we are perfectly sound and solvent. We are better off than many other countries. We will return to normality quicker than other nations. The great natural resources of Canada are the same as they were three years ago. We have the same courageous, conscientious, and law-abiding people. This is not the time for the display of strife, noi- to seek the sacrificial goat. “As it has been aptly put, unless we hang together we shall hang separately. The part cannot be greater than the whole, and no section of this country prospers. Let us, therefore, resolve unselfishly and co-operatively to dedicate ourselves to the support of our constitutional authority and stand shoulder to shoulder in a time of common but temporary danger. “One of the products of depression is idle and malicious gossip, usually thoughtlessly conceived, but in such times as these highly dangerous. No one extinguishes a fire by pouring' upon it inflammable material. Idle and malicious gossip without knowledge of facts is the inflammable material which keeps alight the fires of depression.

“So let us resolve,” concluded Sir Henry. “ ‘to honour and obey the King, and all that are put in authority under him,’ in order that our problems may be solved hi an orderly, rather than a disorderly, fashion; ‘to hurt nobody by word or deed, and to bear no malice nor hatred in our hearts,’ in order that kindliness and co-opera-tion rule and, what is most important, ‘to keep our tongues from evil speaking, lying, and slander,’ in order that injustice may not be done and no inflammable material be added to the fires of depression.”