NOTES AND COMMENTS

Patea Mail, Volume XLVIII, 25 May 1925, Page 3

NOTES AND COMMENTS

(By “ O.S. ”) I was talking to Mr Jonah the other day, and called his attention to the scathing criticism by a Ghristchurcu business man of the present-day youth in New Zealand, and 1 asked him his opinion on the subject. Air Jonah, who is always emphatic in his remarks, declared that the only fault that he found with the criticism was’that it was not scathing enough. “The youths of the

present clay,” he wont on to say, live for pleasure. They have no notion of the meaning of the word “thrill,” and putting by for a rainy day. All the I enjoyment that it is possible for them to obtain, they go for, regardless of the future. Work is regarded as a very secondary consideration —a accessary evil, and as lung as they can scrape through wituout getting “lirecl' ' tiic v > are satislled. They think they have done well if they have done a minimum of work for a maximum of pay, and at the end of the week draw their salaries without any compunction, as it they had put work first and pleasure last all the time. * ■;= * “The trouble,” Mr Jonah went on to say, “lies, to a great extent, with the Labour legislation which compels an employer to pay high wages to the clock-watcher, as if he • were a firstclass worker. The statutory wage is, in fact, far more than many arc worth, and consequently the employer when lu> obtains the services of a good man ha- : to pay him over and above the standand wage to keep him. 'The minimum wage should be lowered, so as to induce the wasters to “buck up” or take the lesser wage. The present state .of affairs is entirely in favour of the thriftless and incompetent man, auu results in a levelling-down instead of a levelling-up. Give me a youth who is ambitious, who is anxious to do whatever lie tackles as well as the next man, and who is not afraid of work. The ideal New Zealander is one who when working docs his bit, and when .off duty looks around for some good, healthy sport and tries to succeed in that. He is the salt of the earth. The youth to be pitied is the one who as soon as his work is over, goes home and changes into elaborate garments and acts the part of lookcr-on at various g'.uncs, instead of taking part in them. He is a ‘ ‘rabbit, ’’ and the country rs not much the better for his presence in it.

■ “What about the girls V’ I asked Mr Jonah. “The educated New Zea-. land girl, country-bred, is my ideal of true womanhood,” was the reply. “1. know girls,” he went on to say, “who can talk well on every present-day topic, who would grace any ballroom in the . land —girls I would be very proud to walk down Bond Street, London, with, and yet who can milk their ten or fifteen cows and think nothing of it. These are the type of girls who have helped to make the Empire. Their thoughts arc concentrated on their home —what they do they do w ell. They milk and cook —and, by Jove, they can cook —and they make all their everyday clothes. When work is done they enjoy themselves in a rational manner, reading good literature and keeping themselves well .informed on the events of the day. Their pleasure is of a- good, healthy kind. They play tennis and golf and dance, but do not put pleasure first and their work last, neither do they look for excitement and pleasure every day of the week. And with regard to dress, they follow Shakespeare’s advice, and dress according to their means —“rich, but not gaudy.” This is the ideal girl, am], if they only knew it, the one the men really admire. Unfortunately, absurd fashions arc set, and womenfolk like to be in the fashion, and things drift from bad to worse.”

Who is to blame for the overdressed boy and girl of the present day? (by the way, some of the girls cannot bo said to be overdressed, and one reporter was not far wrong when he described a bride as being dressed "in a charming gown of ninon over noneon.”) Well, 1 should say the parents, in part, the schools, in part, and the apathy of the public in tolerating the existing state of things, for the rest.

At Home the influence of the public schools is a great factor in moulding the lives of the boys. The authorities knew what they were doing when they made games compulsory and saw to it that, .there was ‘plenty of friendly rivalry and inducement for a boy to take part in them and become proficient. As a mailer of fact, the aim of the school authorities is to keep a boy busy from the time he gets up 1o the time he goes to bed. His mind is kept busy the whole time with his work and his games. If he is not thinking of one he is of the other —there is no time for getting into mischief. And with re-

gard to his dress, woe betide the boy who appears in “gussy” attire. A plain black or white tie must be worn, and dark clothes, so that a boy soon learns to dress neatly and not gaudily. After all, what looks better than a boy in an Eton suit with a white collar and a black tic ? What body of men look neater than the men of the Koyal Navy, with their dark suits and black ties?

Everybody is asking me what is likely to come out of the present jiolitical situation. My reply is that 1 am not omniscient, and 1 cannot tell. J. do not think there will bo a coalition just yet, though it must come, sooner or later, otherwise Communism will be the order of the day. What I anticipate is a ■Stewart-Coatos- Ministry in the near future. If they can submit a good programme. to the electors they will carry

everything before them when the general election conic* round, as there is not a leader on the other side. Sir Joseph Ward has had his chance. He was given charge of the Liberal .Party when it was in the zenith of its power and fame, and under his guidance it dwindled away to almost nothing, Try what they will, his friends cannot disguise this fact any more than they can the fact that he lost his own scat Awarua. With regard to the other aspirant for Premiership honours, the gentleman who loves to keep his, foot on the soft pedal—well, no one takes him seriously. Most people prefer a man who in times. of crisis will act promptly and with decision, instead of marking time with one toot on the soft pedal. Hence I say that a StcwartCoatcs Ministry, with a good fighting platform, acceptable to the people, should sweep everything before it.