ROCKS AHEAD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24481, 14 December 1940, Page 10

ROCKS AHEAD

DEMOCRACY IN PERIL INDOLENCE AND COMFORT ✓ THE NEEDS OF TO-DAY HARDNESS AND DISCIPLINE The danger which lay ahead of democracy, because of the desire of human beings for comfort and over-refinement was emphasised by Professor A. G. Strong in an address at the breaking-up ceremony of the Otago Girls’ High School yesterday. Professor Strong expressed the opinion that unless people turned their democratic energies towards strength and away from comfort and indolence they would see far more devastating upheavals than they had yet seen.

Too Ladylike?

“In the first place,” Professor Strong said, addressing the girls, “you are facing danger to democracy and our type of civilisation.

This is even more serious than war. What kind of a world are you going to live in? Is it in your power to do anything about it? I think it is. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin will die and the fabric of their world will crumble, but unless we change our direction, we shall see far more devastating upheavals than we have yet seen. To survive we must turn our democratic energies toward strength and away from comfort and over-refinement. Every civilisation that has avoided this truth has perished.

“The democracies have become too lady-like. Is it not the result of women holding the purse i strings? Industry and » commerce have based their business on feminine wants. Luxury in our homes, our clothes and amusements have controlled manufacture and trade. Children are indulged by their parents.

“We have grown soft. More motor cars, gadgets,, labour-saving devices, silk stockings, movies, radio are the things on which we have based our lives. We must not raise our sons to be plumbers, our daughters to sully their sweet hands with domestic toil. They must go to the university and graduate, if they can. Then we will find them a job or a husband.

Hardening the Children

“No! If our nation is to be safe to face danger and stand against the wind of fate, children must be hardened to meet the storm,” Professor Strong'said. “Give them help, yes. but as an urge, not to make them dependent. What survives between now and the year 2000 must be tough. It would be pleasant to live again in the 1880’s, when all lay ahead—growth, prosperity, mechanical wonders. But ours is a different fate.

“ Upon us has descended a great terror of mechanical force. But it can be fought by democracy if we develop a better purpose and a stronger will. We cannot conquer by blasting Hitler so that he will leave us free to enjoy our comfort, our modern conveniences, movies, etc. It can only be done by a strong resolution to raise up the ablest, hardiest, healthiest, and most intelligent men and women that have ever inhabited the globe. Only through that goal can our democracy survive. Vigour Sapped

“ Our indolent and undisciplined way of life has sapped our vigour and imperilled our democratic form of Government,” Professor Strong said. “ Our, race pitifully needs new supplies of discipline, morality and intelligence. But democracies have made no consistent effort to inculcate these qualities in their citizens. People want something for nothing. If parents cannot give it to us we ask the Government to do it for us. We are becoming pauperised “ If we want freedom just to save our pet luxuries, to indulge our children, to invent social and economic devices by which we can evade the task of finding work for all men and women, then there is no health in us, and democracy will pass into the historic record of another noble experiment defeated by the indulgence of men.”