Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, THURSDAY, NOV. 25, 1926 DEPENDENCE UPON OTHERS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16200, 25 November 1926, Page 6

Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, THURSDAY, NOV. 25, 1926 DEPENDENCE UPON OTHERS

If President Coolidge is right the mesa production of America, which makes for lowered cost and higher wages, is the result of the recognition of the value of the other fellow. It has come about by personal dependence upon others and the true appreciation and utilisation of others’ work. No man can live altogether to himself. In proportion to his attempt in that direction, so may be his impovishment. A young wan starts

out in life's groat adventure, very confident, in his own powers, and bent, upon his own success in the occupation he has selected. He rather undervalues his immediate competitors: he grudges them their place under the sun. To him they are encumbrances to be pushed on one side. It is not easy for him to see that other persons are really necessary to his advancement; arc additions 10 his strength, and not mere tools, to lie made use of, and after they arc used, to be thrown on one side. The stress of life rather clouds over a rather obvious truth that a man cannot succeed in any path of life without, at every turn finding himself to be dependent upon some one else. Men take the aid they get from those around them very much for granted. Sometimes when that aid is suddenly withdrawn, a truer appreciation of value -,is discovered. The training of youth to be self-dependent and to make personal endeavor the foundation for personal advancement, while admirable in itself, does entail the risk of undervaluing the willing cooperation of others in personal or national advancement. The boy becomes a hero worshipper: he would in his heart like to be a hero himself.

The hero is always depicted as selfsustained. Ho wins through by Iris own merits. It is opposition from others rather than auxiliary aid that he Ims met with in his path. Xo one \would wish lo disparage the hero. By all means let him bo crowned. He is a very wholesome ideal for the boy. But the true hero will be .the first to acknowledge what he owes to others. A great statesman is indebted for his success to thosp who serve him. He can only maintain his position so long as he is upheld by the people of the country which lie governs. A great lawyer, on his way to the Woolsack. does not despise the humble,

but invaluable, aid he receives from the recluse student of law, who devils for him. The merchant is dependent upon his office staff, his buyers, his correspondents, the goodwill of other firms, and even upon the sailors who man the ships that carry his produce to the ends of the earth. Even a great cleric may condescend to make use of the literary wealth which has been stored up for him by the erudition and industry of his predecessors in theological lore. Life in all its walks is like an army on the march. Every unit is dependent upon one or other, or all, of the others. An army

could not continue in the Held without

discipline con.oined with unity of aim and object. It is that unity of I aim that brings victory. What is j obvious in the ease of an army is not so obvious in the ease of the civil ' life of the people of a nation. A ! prosperous nation usually only attains I to the maximum of prosperity for its i people through suffering. It has had j to be driven by adverse results to the ! economic truth that individual success is bound up with, and is dependent ■ upon the best welfare of others. So j long as the employer looks upon his j men as mere tools to be made use of, j and, the employee looks upon the outi plover, as a. monster of greed, by all. ! and every means, legitimate or illegi-

1 timate, to be exploited, there can be j no sound national prosperity, and no I reserves, with which to meet the day i of periodical market slumps. Personal I advancement cannot be assured upon j the wrecks of other persons or of | other interests. The realisation of - the dependence of each upon each, and of each upon all, in the actual lifo of the community is of vital importance. If it were' better under- : stood there would be no industrial strife. Capital would not grudge Labor its full reward, and Labor would not seek wealth by the easy method of contributing to -its destruction. At the root of the oblivion of the national interdependence of all persons in the nation, is public indif- . l’erence in regard to all matters that . do not. appear, directly, to affect per- ; sonnl. or class interests. We take . everything that is, or happens, mak- ■ ing up the ordinary life around us. : for granted. It goes somehow without. our aid and we excuse ourselves

upon the easy assumption that it will continue to go. If New Zealand is to

learn anything from America, her people will have to change that deeply ingrained habit of thought which lays behind the perpetual pinpricking, which is for over going on in industrial life, and is so wasteful of both capital and labor. It has nbt always been fair weather in America. ,She has had industrial troubles, and very severe ones. Her people through turmoil, and a good deal of strife, have been driven into better conditions. Dependence upon each other, rather than independence: Service, rather than seeking to be served, has proved to be as sound in the business life as it is in the moral life. The President sums up the present position ns it is to-day in America very clearh'. He says: "Perhaps the most creditable aspect of our present prosperity is that wages are high while profits have been moderate. That

means that the results of prosperity are going more and more into the homes of the laud and loss into the enrichment of the few, more and more j to the men and women and less and i less to the capital which is engaged in our economic life. If this were not . so, this country could not support 1 20,000,000 automobiles, purchase so ! many radios and install so many tclo- ' phones. Prom a recent fear of being exploited by large aggregations ot i wealth, the people of America are

learning to make such great concerns their most faithful servants. This problem is not entirely solved yet. Hero and there abuses occur, but business is gradually being taught that the only method of permanent success lies in an honest, faithful, conscientious service to the public." Dependence upon each other should stimulate personal effort rather than enervate personal character. Men receive in proportion to what they give. Service comes to be, under modern conditions, nearly, though not quite, the greatest thing in the world. Strangely it receives back all it gives—with additions.