THE DARK SIDE OF PROGRESS.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 March 1920, Page 12

THE DARK SIDE OF PROGRESS.

IS HUMAN HAPPINESS INCREASED I BY PROGRESS?

THE NEW SENSITIVENESS AND THE PRICE WE PAY.

London, Dee. 12. The Norwegian Minister at a dinner at the House of Commons declared that "England was a land of great moral forces and wasteful fireplaces, of unlimited individual liberty, and afterdinner speeches."

"Since the days of Froude, and long before them, the belief in Progress has suffered assault," says the British Weekly.

"Dean Inge scoffs at the thought. He says: 'The myth of progress is our form of apocalyptism. In i'Yance it began with sentimentalism, developing normally into homicidal mania, in it took the form of a kind of Deuteronomie religion. As> a reward for our national virtues, our population expanaed, our exports and imports went up by leaps and bounds, and our Empire received additions every decade.'

HAS HAPPINESS INCREASED?

"Is human happiness increased by progress? The question still awaits an answer.

"We may best help our readers by presenting first the dark side of Progress and then the bright. This week we will deal with the case against Progress. Next week we hope to furnish some reply.

It is urged in the first place that our increased knowledge of suffering and sorrow in the world has made our hearts heavy. It is a commonplace that during tin Napoleonic wars, as a recent writer says, the life of the people was carried on much as usual, and the daily events of war were not brought home to each household and individual as they have been now.

We become day by day more alive to what is passing in the world. Though suffering is. not the predominant feature of life, it is of its miseries we hear most. Every day we read of wars, epidemics, devastations, droughts, earthquakes, famine. Every year, every day, space tends to vanish and time is disappearing. The horrors of the war, of which a half has not been rold, seem to destroy, or at least impair, the capacity for joy.

A NEW SENSITIVENESS. ''This knowledge goes along with a new sensitiveness. Our ears' seem to hrar the cries and gToans nf anguish, however far away. The sweat of overtoil, the steam of carnage, the bloodguiltiness of aggressive nations; all this we more or less conceive. The skin of the mind seems to be worn away with incessant friction, and serenity vanishes. Our newsmen bring us knowledge of menaces to what comfort and peace are left. Harassing anxieties go on increasing.

"Hov» hard it was to read tiie newspapers in war time! There were editors who broke the news gentlv on their front pages, and they 'had "the thanks of not a few. There were others who did what they could to proclaim our reverses, and no doubt they were conscientious. But there is the anxiety still. We have gone through much, and the thought has overwhelmed us at times that we cannot go through more. But still we hear of the hunger of children in Vienna, and of living skeletons falling dead of hunger.

OUR SLOW MEANS. "Again, our little and slow means of diminishing misery beat upon the brain like an anvil, as Hazlitt ha 3 said. The insufferable supremacy of law bears more and more heavily as the thought of the reign of law and the vastness of the universe takes possession of the human mind. Thjs vastness of the universe is no new difficulty in the way of faith. It was fought by Pascal, and by thinkers before him. They taught 'us that the love and the hope and "the faith in the throbs of a poor heart are "Teatcr then frozen planets. Still, our own insignificance in the face of the indifferent universe is a terrible and ever-recurring weight.- . .

"Yes, ft is the littleness of man, the shortness of his life, the narrow limitations of his energy, his weakness before temptation, his hopeless blundering, his impenetrable obstinacy that sometimes brings night into the soul. This race, what is it? Three score and ten years sum up our days. They tell us that a day will come when our world will cool, and then the human race will end. It is not everyone who can face with faithful and dauntless heart these appearances, and still refuee to be &eparated from the love of Christ.

GROWING DISCONTENT. "The growing discontent of men with their lot, and their inability to make the crooked straight, are also revealed by Progress in an intenser and harder light. There was a time when ignorance prevailed, when the poor man at the gate was in a measure content. There was a time when among the majority there was at least an acquiescense in their earthly allotment. But that time has long passed. It does not seem as if we had come very miich nearer an approximation of the classes and the masses by the undoubted advantages which the poor have won. "There is a great change since the industrial era in England began. Great concessions have been made. Aie people more contented? If we were to ask today a French printer or an American miner what he thinks of it, he would tell you that the gulf between the rich and the poor, between the toiler and the enjoyer, is not closing, but wideningThe nations know what is happening. Workers are more conscious 'han ever of their deprivations. They have a keener sense than ever they had of what wealth brings in the way of luxury, and the demeanour of the rich has forced that knowledse, and is still forcing it on the most unobservant. "The worker's demand for leisure, for position, for food, for security, grows more insistent. He ennnot be satisfiedThat he must have more is true. But Progress shows us that the law is inerrable, and that the vast majority must work if they are to eat. There are other laws that disclose rbemselves, and Utopia recedes. The rebellion may become revolution, but even if it docs the problems remain. The question arises, What are the gains? How far can the amelioration of the worker's lot proceed without destroying the whole structure of society, and bringing about universal misery? FAITH AND PROGRESS. "It is also alleged that faith is decayand that Pfozms is helping to

quicken that decay. There is nothing harder than to gauge the actual spread of unbelief. But wise men in contact with the poor tell us that as knowledge has spread faith has diminished, and that we are only at the beginning of its complete disappearance. Christians, of course, can never accept that prediction. They may and they should acknowledge that Christianity has had, and will have again, periods of obscuration, but there are still seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal."