NOW-A-DAYS WORKER.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 18 October 1924, Page 7

NOW-A-DAYS WORKER.

HAPPIER THAN A KING. “Jack Jones, Labour member of Parliament for Silvertown, has more liberty than any Anglo-Saxon, Norman, or Angovin king. Science has given him more power over nature. He can travel faster and farther, makes his influence felt over more human beings, and can gratify a far larger range of personal tastes than was possible for any individual, however happily placed, in that remote age,’’ said Mr. H. A. L. Fisher, member of Lloyd George’s War Cabinet, in an address in New York. To illustrate further his theory, “good old times” really are a long way behind the present in comfort, conveniences, and happiness. Fisher adds : “There is not a single slum family in Glasgow to-day which is subject to such a high rate of infantile mortality as were the families of Anglo-Saxon kings. At every turn the liberty of the mediaeval Englishman was curtailed —by privileged nobles and churches, by poverty, bad roads, and the absence of sanitation, by uncertain food supplies, imperfect medical art, prevalent ignorance, and. not least, by weakness of the central government, which allowed every kind of local oppression to be practised.” Following this speech one newspaper suggested: “If a loud hang is heard in the neighbourhood of Beaconsfield it will be because Gilbert K. Chesterton has blown up with indignation while reading the reports thereof.” But as yet nothing has been heard from this high priest of romantic mediaevalism.