“HIGHLY CONTAGIOUS”

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXI, Issue 14, 30 December 1930, Page 8

“HIGHLY CONTAGIOUS”

DEPRESSION AND GLOOM. PESSIMISAI NOT PRUDENCE. Pessimism has no place in the philosophy of the Inspector-General of Mental Hospitals, Dr. T. G. Gray, judging by some remarks he made when speaking at the formal opening of the radio equipment installed at Porirua Mental Hospital. “It would be mere foolishness,” said Dr. Gray, “to avoid facing the fact that the country is passing through a period of economic depression, but I have no hesitation in asserting that the depression itself is of less moment to this country than is the manner in which the people of the country rise to meet their difficulties Afass psychology is not a negligible factor in time of national stress, whether of war or of peace, and when times are hard our Cassandras, our prophetesses and prophets of woe, our defeatists, have their opportunity, “Depression and gloomy foreboding are highly contagious in a community and are liable to end disastrously to it in the same way as fear in an individual soldier may cause panic and stampede in a company or even an army in war. Appropriate remedies have to be taken for national as well as bodily disorders, but sheer funk, pessimism and alarm should not be allowed to renlace or be mistaken for prudence, for they will get us nowhere except into deeper waters.

"The spirit of a nation Is the sum of the qualities possessed by its Individual citizens, and It is in fostering a prudent restrained optimism, a philosophic readiness to meet reverses w)th a smile and a community spirit of helpfulness, that our best opportunity lies of rendering a real service to the country.”