ROTARY CLUB

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 191, 15 July 1941, Page 6

ROTARY CLUB

ADDRESS BY MR G. A. BALL. "Literature and Social Questions was the subject of an address given by Mr G. A. Rail at the weekly luncheon oi tho Palrnerston North Rotary Club yesterday. Mr Ball said that, dav was the anniversary of the Fall of,"the Bastille in 1789. This event had given b'renchmen a feeling of freedom. The deathknell on rule by the rich had been sounded, however, before the Fail of the Bastille, in the French Revolution. The pre-revolution French writers, such as Voltaire, had hated crueltv and corruption. English literature, the speaker proceeucu. was verv old and could be traced back to the 13th century. "During the intervening years literature has undergone many changes and many of the latest forms are popular, he said. ••The most popular lorms are the novels and drama, technical studies and the pamphlet. The influence oi such literature is generally indirect and the speed with which such influence takes place depends on the educational standard of the readers." The poem "The Vision of Piers the Plowman," by William Langland, stood alone among medieval literature. The. 16th century brought Thomas More's "Utopia" as the successor to Langland's contribution "It was in the latter part of the 17th century and the opening of the 18th that national history reached its lowest stage," said Mr Ball. "1 he literature of that day mentioned the corrupt practices carried on, which; included highway robbery. duelling, drunkenness, cruelty, and giTmbling. In the 19th century the masses were poor and miserable following the industrial revolution and the wageearners received only paltry returns for their toil. The novel in some respects was the greatest medium through which writers' conveyed the sufi'ermgs of the masses to the people, and it "also appealed i.o th* lieort as well as the mind. The novelists whose names stand out are Mrs Gaskoll, Charles Kinsslcy. Disraeli, Dickens, and Charles Reade, and the greatest social reformers of the 19th century j were Dickens and Reade. | "Of tho 20th century writers those prominent are John Galsworthy and M G Wells (novels) and jiernarct Shaw and Galsworthy (drama)." I In conclusion Mr Ball said that it 1 was to the writers of the past that we owed much of the social reform that had taken place. • Mr -T C. Whibley proposed a vote of" thanks to the speaker. Mr H. L. Cunninghame was in the chair, and Mr G. T. Griggs was inaugurated as a member. '