HAWERA SCOTTISH SOCIETY.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 2 August 1924, Page 4

HAWERA SCOTTISH SOCIETY.

Air Wm. Thomson, the editor of the Scottish New Zealander, was the guest of honour at a meeting of the Hawera Scottish Society held last evening. There was a very good attendance in spite of the adverse weather. Mr W. G. Simpson presided. Songs and. recitations were rendered by Mrs Cate and Messrs Moss and McCormick. Air Thomson, in his speech, had the ear of his audience, and in the course of his address evoked great enthusiasm amongst his hearers. Air Thomson began by expressing his prolound pleasure at naving met Air Geo. Syme,. the chief of the Scottish Society, and by coniplimenjting; the society on the two able addresses it had received lately from Air Taylor and Air Smart. Scotland’s efforts were divisible in four parts. The first was her assertion of the right of national independence, which involved the rights of small nations, a claim which had been so awfully vindicated during the late war. This period extended, roughly, from 1250 to 1328, when her leaders showed magnificent generalship and statesmanship of the highest order. Scotland’s second great effort began about 1500, and extended to 1689, and during these long years the endurance and courage of the peopie _ succeeded in establishing freedom of conscience, religious and ecclesiastical freedom, and destroyed absolutism, both in Scotand and England. The leaders during this long period were men of outstanding scholarship and ability, and included men like Knox, Henderson, Alelville, Gillespie, and many others. Air Thomson then proceeded to compare the Scottish and French methods of progress, and the difference in their national spirit. The French practically laid aside the deeper teaching of men like Pascal and Yinet, and took to the more superficial humanism of Rabelais, Diderot, and Aloliere, with the result that we see the volcanic nature of our friends in such dreadful events as those of 1790, 1798, 1848, and 1852. The Scotch, on the other hand, had a far deeper and stronger spirit to guide them, end every reformation they made was never final or absolute, but left the door open for one yet greater which was to come. The last effort of Scotland the speaker referred to was intellectual freedom, which gave the death blow to feudalism, created a wonderfud unity of feeling, and enormously strengthened the national spirit. The men who led in this movement were numerous and distinguished, and included such men as Sir David Lindsay, James Fergusson, Smollet, George Buchanan, the Aytouns, Allan Ramsay, McPherson, Thomas Campbell, Burns and a host of others. He then sketched the Scottish. School of Philosophy under Reid, Dugald Stewart, Hamilton, Macintosh, and Adam Fergusson, which is known as the “common sense school.’’ He compared it with the English school of expert men tali sip, and referred to the idealism of Berkley and others. After having spoken for nearly three-quarters of an hour. Air Thomson drew two lessons from his subject, tlie first was, that Scotland, her poetry and her history, constituted one .of the strongest links of Empire. Shakespeare was no doubt a mighty influence, hut Auld Lang Syne was sung by millions all over the world almost every day. His second lesson was that to belong to the Scottish Society, should be an inspiration to everyone. The study of the past and all our forefathers did sould inspire us to lie noble citizens, and to live to bring in a. better day, for “We live in deeds, not in years, In thoughts, not in figures on a dial, We should count time by heartthrobs. For he lives most, who thinks most, Who acts the noblest and who feels the best.”