“THE STATE IS SICK”

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 13 February 1933, Page 7

“THE STATE IS SICK”

HOMILY ON PRESENT ILLS “The State is sick and the political doctors and doctrinaires have many a nostrum to apply,” observes the. “New Zealand Medical Journal” in editorial comment. “Certainly,” it adds, “preven--1 tioh would have been better than cure, 'but now it might he well to rely on the ‘vis medicalrix naturae’ and quit meddling. There is apparently no cordial orcanninative to stop inflation, nothing vital in the sanctity of a contract, and no patrintDiii to co-ordinate members of the same body politic at variance. It is like a ease of locomotor ataxia. Costs rise and incomes fall, ami there is no certainty in the future for realists, hut only for optimists and pessimists. As lias been well said, ‘Credit is a bubble which hursts every minute, securities become insecurities, and real estate becomes unreal under our feet.’ “It may lie relevant for doctors to inquire how does all this alleet (he physical and mental well-being of the people. Do they sleep o’ nights? Can they masticate their food? Are mortgagees living cj i aspirin? Many people believe that nothing better can he done until this system is swept away in the fullness of time. Of course we might read Jeans and Sir Robert Ball and get oil' the earth in that way as much as possible l , and so perhaps miss a full sight of the denouement here, or end the whole business with a bare bodkin and the deep damnation of our taking oil'. Fortunately eighty-live per cent of the people do not think for themselves, and many who think are impotent, so that apathy and impoteney save the nerves of the people and preserve their self-esteem.

“Let us work as if the sun of prosperity were shining, for work is the greatest anodyne wo can prescribe in the circumstances. We can pass the gross and corrupt elements of living through the alembic of the mind and turn them into new channels of thought and feeling. There are books for the thoughtful and for the thoughtless to take readers out of themselves, and there is Nature still bountiful and beautiful to enjoy, and pleasant thoughts, for those who do not forget the holiday spirit, wafted oh every breeze.”