THOUGHTS OF LEADERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22025, 7 August 1933, Page 9

THOUGHTS OF LEADERS

ADDRESS BY LORD DERBY IRAQ AND BRITAIN «SINCERE CO-OPERATION.” (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, July 23. King Feisal, at Iraq, in an interview with - the Daily Telegraph representative: — The friendly co-operation which had existed since the foundation of Iraq between his Majesty King George and myself, between the Governments of Great Britain and of Iraq, and between the peoples of our two countries, are responsible for the happy results which you see in Iraq to-day. I have regarded it as my duty to seize the first opportunity to visit his Majesty King George, in order to express to him verbally my deep gratitude for the help and support which he has never ceased to give me during the past 12 years. I am convinced that this sincere and friendly co-operation on the part of the King of England has left in the hearts of my people a sentiment of enduring appreciation for Great Britain. Now that Iraq has attained her great aspirations in the matter of her international and her political status, it remains for her to direct all her efforts towards her own financial and economic development. It is my sincere hope that thet AngloIraq co-operation which has existed during the past 12 years will be maintained in the future, and that Iraq will find in the economic sphere the same support from Great Britain as she has received from her in the political sphere, so as to hasten her material development and revive her ancient civilisation and prosperity, which were celebrated in history. In spite of centuries of neglect, Iraq offers boundless opportunities in the matter of economic development. I feel personally justified for many reasons in anticipating the greatest mutual benefit from continued close co-opera-tion between my country and Great

Britain. HALLMARK OF TRUSTWORTHINESS

Lord Derby, inspecting the Corps of Commissionaires at Royal Hospital, Chelsea:—

Your corps is known throughout the length and breadth of the land. General Sir Walter Braithwaite last year said that the uniform of your corps was the hallmark of trustworthiness. That is indeed a proud title, and I can safely say that never was the title “trust-

worthiness ” better deserved than it is

by all of you. We know that at the present time there is a great depression

in the commercial world and that de-

pression must of necessity make itself 1 felt in all directions, so that the number of those of you who can be employed must be less. At the same time I my-

self am quite confident that things are on the up-turn, and with the up-turn I am certain there will be ever-increasing numbers taken from your ranks to occupy positions of trust. You are the guardian angels of a great many places.— (Laughter.) _ I do not say you have got wings, but if one takes instances of social life, most of

the clubs one knows have one of you as

a guardian angel outside the door. People who want a man of trust to whom they can safely confide their property turn at once to you. That is a great privilege, but it also carries a great responsibility. Every one of you lias to remember that not only your own honour, but tiie honour of the corps, rests with you. You have maintained that honour splendidly, and I have not the slightest doubt that you will maintain it in the future. You arc really a national institution, and all who have ever served at any time in the army are proud to be associated with you. (The corps, which was founded by Captain Sir Edward Walter in 1850, has a present strength, including the members of out-quarters divisions, of 4533.) ADVOCATE OE VOLUNTARY HOSPITALS.

Lord Moynihan, of Leeds, late president of the Royal College of Surgeons, preaching on Hospital Sunday at St. Martin s-in-thc-Ficlds: —

The voluntary hospital system is one of the great glories of this country. This system has been in recent years subject to very harsh, and, as I believe, very ignorant criticism. It has been _ said that it is out of date; that it is no longer attuned to the necessities or to the spirit of the time: and that, in fact, it is almost moribund. Yet the voluntary hospital system pays its wa_y although it does so with a diminished margin year by year. One thousand new beds arc opened in the hospitals of this country every year, and yet a claim may safely bo made that the voluntary hospital system, in spite of its contributions, has never yet had a proper organisation attached to it. Not one person in ten who is competent financially to help the work ot the hospitals is really doing so to-day. The burden of supporting the hospitals falls on two different and almost remote classes of the community. They have .large benefactors— -unfortunately they are far too few—whose names will be found recurring in almost every charitable subscription list; and the hospitals owe a great deal to the working people of the country.

“ JAZZ ” MANNERS. Miss E. Strudwick, of St. Paul’s Girls’ School, Hammersmith, in her presidential address to the Association of Headmistress’s Conference at Liverpool:— We see a kind of childishness creeping over our thoughts, our modes of expression, our art, our music, our morals. We talk in words from a very limited vocabulary, we croon nigger songs while we push one another round a room in dances that need no brain, no zest, and no vitality for their successful performance. _ The novels we read, apparently with pleasure —for there are many of them —show men and women as ill-conducted children whose one concern is that which they share with the animal world. ' WORSE THAN NOTHING.

Dr A. D. Lindsay (master of Balibi) at the Conference of Occupational Centres; — _ We are allowing the wealth oi Jineland to rot before our eyes. The wealth of England lies in the organisation, independence, initiative, and skill ot its great working class population. I am appalled by the loss to the organised social structure of working-class lite, which results when unemployed men are unable to retain their membership ot their trade unions. The trade unions are confronted with an entirely new situation, and I do not think they realise it or are grappling with it. . If an unemployment centre is nothing but a recreational centre it is nothing but dope. I visited one centre which has been in existence for two years, and when I asked what the men did there I was told that they played draughts. Fancy playing draughts for two years. Anything more like hell I cannot imagine No decent man wants to play games the whole time. Of course, if you do it professionally it becomes a job, and that is a different matter. But to set unemployed men playing games all the time is rather worse than nothing. “KING OF MY OWN LAND.” Mr Stanley Baldwin, opening the centenary exhibition of paintings and drawings by Sir E. Burne-Jones, at the late Gallery:— In my view, in the art of painting there are many mansions. 1 would never look at a man for what he is not. I would always look at him for what he is. You have to look at Burne-Jones for what he is and you can judge what he is by his work and what he said ot himself. He said “I need nothing but my hands and my brain to fashion myself a world to live in that nothing can disturb. Diiiny own land lam king of it.” And that is what he was. He" was true to his own inner light from the first day of his artistic life to the end. Gentle, and some may have thought yielding, but like iron and granite where the ideals he worked for were concerned. None of the idols of the market place had power to tempt him or, to turn him from the straight path, neither money, popularity, nor position. . ... ~ , It is not without significance that public recognition came to him in France long before it came in England. What was it that his art stood for? I cannot speak the jargon. I cannot even write a Treasury letter. In my view what lie did for ns common people was to open as no man had ever opened before magic casements of a land of faery which he was exploring for us all his life. It always seems to me that poetry and painting, the great creative arts, are but manifestations of one groat and eternal spirit. You may express your own ncrsonality with extreme skill and be popular in the market-place for it and be called clever, or, if yon are lucky, brilliant, but you will never do anything great or be remembered after you are dead. In great work there is no talk about being clever or brilliant. You stand dumb in reverence and in awe before something that seems not cf this world. In the age in which we live there is much that is ugly, much that is vulgar. Many of us quietly and without talking about it fashion for ourselves, in BurneJones’s word, “ a world to live in that nothing can disturb.” It is in that inner world that we cherish in peace (lie beauty which he has left us. In it is pence for our souls. “ IF THE CONFERENCE FAILS. SAY SO.”

Mr Lloyd George, at a peace meeting at Caernarvon:

If the World'Economic Conference succeeds, splendid, IE it fails, then lot the failure bo known, and give the world a chance of saving itself, of which it is fjiiitc capable. Do tot mask failure with a series of resolutions resolving nothing. It is a great temptation for those representatives of GO nations who arc present at the conference to try and make the best show. Nobody likes to go home from the fair with nothing in his pocket. No man likes to go home from a conference and say, “ I have nothing to give yon. It was a groat failure.” It is more than human nature can stand to be able to go home and say that. This time they must consider the world and not themselves. If the thing is a failure give the world the chance of putting it right.