The Manawatu Daily Times What Is Government?

Manawatu Times, Volume 59, Issue 221, 21 September 1934, Page 6

The Manawatu Daily Times What Is Government?

Questions ol public relief, national planning, taiiff talcs and agricultural prosperity, among others, have concerned many nations in recent years. Often, in the stressful moments of national and international affairs, those who arc responsible for Government —the people—completely forget what Government is. It may seem to them a motley collection of men, with whom they have nothing to do, who are yet settling their affairs for them. They praise it or blame it as individuals, according to their temper at the moment.

It is well to stop and consider that a Government can be no better than the thought of the citizens it represents, for, properly speaking, a, Government is not men but the administraion of the affairs of the State —and those affairs arc the people s affairs, and tho Government is an expression of the thought of the people.

Sometimes when things go wrong, it is said that the voice of the people at large is not much represented by the actions of Government. But if this is so, it is for the people to work out methods which will correct such conditions. In time these methods will be reflected in the administration of the affairs of State.

In no case, however, can a nation rise higher than its conception of God, for that determines its conception of man. Through the ages, nations have risen and fallen as their conceptions of God became clearer or grew dim. When good is a people’s God, and in proportion as good is understood as an unselfish and wholly desirable condition, that people’s Government must necessarily express its nation’s concepts. If good is thought of as an intensely personal affair, a “me and mine” business, Government must reflect this. A perfect Government, satisfactory to all, cannot be achieved until each individual labours for the common good. It would seem, then, that education must bend its efforts more in this direction.

While Governments arc giving much thought to supplying people with the first necessities of existence, food, fuel and clothes, they cannot xvell forget that upon education, or the lack of it, to-day, must depend to-morrow’s conditions. Upon the people, all the people’s understanding of the Golden Rule, must depend to-day’s Government, and to-morrow’s. Better Government will not be attained by partisan polities, with each group attempting to overthrow the other successively by a process of discrediting it, but rather by educating nations to see, intelligently, the practical value of the common weal.

Tlio results of examinations conducted by the Education Department in New Zealand on behalf of the department of the technology of the City and Guilds of London Institute have been received from London. The following are tho names of ',he successful Palmerston North cand:.datos: Typography.— Grade I.: Noel Herbert Wilson. Grade H.: Francis David Price.

When chanjjing a tyre in the garage at his residence at Island Bay, Frederick Stewart was overcome by fumes from, the engine and was found dead. Deceased, who was a builder and contractor, had the engine running apparently to warm it up. He was underneath the car when found an hour after going to start it up on Wednesday afternoon. Be was aged 42 and leaves a wLar.u/ and, three children. -

A satisfactory condition is being maintained in the case of the youth, Robert Tweedale, of Worcester street, who is in hospital as tho result of fulling from Cliff road recently.

Whilst engaged in cutting an old tyre with a very sharp knife on his property situated oil the Foxton-Shannon road, a farmer, Mr. W. F. Botteher, very nearly bled to death on Friday lost, when the instrument slipped and made a deep gash in his groin. Dr. E. M. Wyllie was summoned and but for his prompt attention it is possible that the unt'ortunato man would have bled to death. As it was the doctor had great difficulty in staunching the flow of blood and it was found necessary for him to bo in constant attention on Mr. Botteher during his removal to the Palmerston North Hospital by ambulance. ' --