TOPICS OF THE TIMES

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXII, Issue 4640, 16 May 1938, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE TIMES

The Making of Character. “Something has happened to the family life of this country,” declared Mrs. Burnett Smith (Annie S. Swan) in a recent speech. “Those of us who belong to the older generation sometimes feel that the discipline was a little strong, but there is no doubt that it made splendid men and women. The new idea is that the children should not be disciplined, but should be allowed to express themselves and realise their own individuality. It won’t work. The sooner we get back to that old purity of our homes, the discipline, selfcontrol and all the things that really go to build up character, which have been the very foundation of the splendid Scottish character —the glory of our country for generations —the better. Many people pretend that a cocktail or apertif is very good for digestion. Of course, that’s all nonsense: What is wanted for good digestion is hard work and plenty of it.”

Red Russia.

“As many as 500 people were executed during October of last year,” recalls the “Liverpool Post,” “and during the first fortnight in November 150 were removed. Since then the process of elimination has gone on. There are in Soviet Russia twenty-two ‘autonomous’ and eleven ‘national’ republics, and in these all the leaders have been executed. Most Russian Ambassadors have shared the same fate. What does it all mean? No one seems to be able to tell. But if we are to take it that all this slaughter is justified, we must conclude that the Bolsheviks who surrounded Lenin and set up the Soviet system were a lot of criminals—traitors or murderers. Yet up till recently the world was assured with all the vehemence of which Russian propaganda is capable that the old Bolsheviks were a body of benevolent dictators who were bent upon creating an early paradise for the proletariat.”