Timely Topics

Northern Advocate, 4 September 1939, Page 4

Timely Topics

Speaking at a reception given in his honour by his constituents, Mr. Neville Chamberlain recently said that

his purpose MR. CHAMBERLAIN’S in entering MISSION. politics some 20 years ago was concerned with home affairs, but his policy had been mostly concerned with foreign affairs. I wanted to do something that would make things a bit better for the nation, but in recent years, I have had to recognise that none of these things are possible if the national safety is in danger. So I have been devoting myself to try to ensure the safety of the nation. I have been trying to find out the causes of war and how to remove them.

The second was to build up the strength of this country so that, if it ever came to discussing terms of settlement, no country would be able to force us, out of our weakness, to accept terms that would be dishonourable or disastrous to our vital interests.

As to the first part of that double policy, I have had many disappointments and setbacks and very little help from the countries with which I was hoping to come to an understanding. On the other hand, the progress in the building up of our national defence has been so extensive and so rapid that I can say now with confidence that no country, however strong, would lightly undertake a conflict with this country. All the world knows that we would never use these mighty forces to begin an unprovoked war upon anybody else and, although from time to time I see allegations to the contrary made for purposes of propaganda, I hope that no people would be deceived by such an obvious distortion of the truth. S OS - S 3 * / Few houses in America are more mellowed in the literary tradition than the Old Manse in Concord. News that the THE OLD MANSE. M a ssachusetts

Public , Reservations Trustees have taken an option on the quaint old clapboard house will,be received with pleasure. The Rev. William Emerson had scarcely moved into his new home before its windows rattled to the musketry on the nearbv battlefield, and it was on its walls that a tiny Ralph Waldo Emerson scratched hia first poem; and looked out up n that “rude bridge” and dreamed his majestic lines of the “shot heard ’round the world.”

Nathaniel Hawt'.io-ne followed '.he Emersons in occupancy of the house, giving it its familiar name with his “Mosses From an Old Manse.” How important a period his residence there was, particularly in his literary development, is hinted at in his own works in the introduction to “The Scarlet Letter,” and is proved in later chapters by the style that flowed from his pen so short a time after his removal. , For three centuries America has been such a bustling place it has had scant time to look to its l traditions, but, certainly, such a charming place —and such a notable one in the cavalcade of America—should be spared demolishment.