Timely Topics

Northern Advocate, 5 June 1939, Page 4

Timely Topics

I "It would appear U'ays Professor [Tawney) as if sport and the films {we're the sole remaining common con- ! cems of Europe.

? THE FLIGHT • FROM REASON,

Yet, when all is said, we may, per-

I haps, still hope f that in all the European States of tojday there is growing, up a new generation to whom the destiny of this ! old continent may once again be com- | mitted. I Reason lays hold on life. This does {not mean that the life process in Its } social and historical entirety dan be * rationally attenuated, it only means {that reason masters life and can comiprehend all its dynamic' power. This lis the whole meaning of Hegel's freIquently misunderstood dictum that |'the actual is reasonable and that the treasonable is actual.' This ethos of treason is the common European in- • * heritance.

t Our task is to hand it down to the f generations to come, even if we I should have to defend it on the field lof battle. Apart from this spirit the tidea and the fact of Europeanism lose - f their significance :we destroy the f ground on which we have built and I hope to build. Without reason th* I European would sink into barbarism. | Thought and action are as closely rehated as inspiration and expiration." | tea« *» « - | Safety cannot be found by going f back to the ways of our ancestors, or Iby halting where we are (says the I Chicago "Chris-

i THE BACKWARD | MARCH.

ti a n Century," discussing the

f \ problems prefsented by the machine age). | It may be found by going forward. |"We have discovered our mutual dependence in a world of swift and ►•* cheap transportation and mechanised

production. We must develop a corresponding sense of mutual, responsibility. We are already groping in that direction by such experiments as a wages and hours measure and a social security law. These and other pieces of experimental legislation will need correction in the light of experience. Their defects do not discredit their aim. We may learn how to make our amazing mechanical achievements serve the common welfare, and how to distribute the burden or dissolve the bondage which they have imposed upon so large a number both of the unemployed and of the employed. That is, we can if those who are themselves safe and comfortable. do not permit themselves to be cajoled into the belief that there is no bondage.