The Manawatu Daily Times Forward!

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 7037, 22 December 1932, Page 6

The Manawatu Daily Times Forward!

Mr. Downie Stewart has said that the changes taking place in our economic life are so profound that it may be impossible for us to get back to the way of living to which we have been accustomed. This is a timely though far from novel statement. It is well for us to realise that there may be no returning to a past condition of affairs. It would be better if we were certain that we would reach quite a new condition of affairs. What after all is involved in a return to “normal”? Stable, calculable prosperity has never been normal. In averting our eyes from present distresses we look back upon selected pleasant phases of our experience and ignore the unsightly. We let the dead past bury only its nasty dead. The “good old times” may often have been genuinely good old times. But often they may appear good only by contrast with present realities, or by the romance with which we have crowned them, or by the negative promise of the near future. For men who have nothing to hope from the future, and for nations whose greatness has clearly gone, history is more consoling than prophecy. But for others—for old soldiers who never die, and for the young who have not yet learned to sense the past and who know the present only as a bridge to the future, the vision looks forward, not back. For youth, if it could formulate its longings, its impatience and its exasperation, the “normal” is a something which lies ahead, an ideal towards which time can surely carry them. It is this view which should dominate the world at present. What would we gain by going back to the “normal” for which the unthinking sigh? We would return to an order which produced the present chaos. Happily the Avorld cannot go back entirely. Happily it does move on to something new. But we need to urge it on and help it on. The real job of mature men can never be the futility of walking backwards. Their real job is to offer their experience as a gift of service to the ideal of youth. They have to look back clearly, lay aside false doctrines, admit the folly they have nurtured and use the wisdom they have gained. The world has to go ahead, not blindly, but experimentally and in command of all its tesources of knowledge, courage and faith. The ideal of youth has the logic of time on its side.

With the advent of the busy period, largo seasonal increases have been recorded at Palmerston North in railway traffic, and much rolling stock is on the move. Over 6000 tons of goods traffic, including the weight of tho wagons, were handled at Palmerston North railway station on ! Tuesday. Through traffic to Wellington accounted for 2700 tons of this quantity. Twentyeight goods trains are at present passing through Palmerston North daily. Saturday last was a heavy day for pas--songcr expresses, 14 being handled besides eight other passenger trams. Holiday travel has commenced in earnest, and extra carriages are frequently being attached to trains at this centre. Coincident with this, the staff have to cope with tho heavier goods traffic, to facilitate which two special trains arc proceeding through to Wellington daily, and one coming North to Mart.Qft-