A NEW WAY OF LIFE.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LV, Issue 13928, 11 June 1909, Page 4

A NEW WAY OF LIFE.

(Spectator.) In a brilliant summary of the events of the past month to be found in U:<. April Fortnightly, the writer, while dealing with the naval crisis, ust.these words: — "The problem will not depart. We shall have to meet it no: by battletships alone but by a new wa\ or life." We are profoundly convincrd of the truth of this statement. We have got as a nation to face a situation which can only be adequately met by "a new way of life." "When wo sa\ this we must not be thought to Ik> yielding to the pessimism which hus affected a certain section of tho popvilation, or to give enoouragement to tlunotion that we have become decadent as a people, or that we have in am way begun to decline as ono of tli< Great Powers of the world. Wo ar> not among those who think that tin nation has suffered in its moral health or that we are worse from that jx>nit of view than our forefathers. On tlu contrary, we believe that tho nation was never better in this respect, and that there never was a larger propoition of the population anxious to do right, and to act in accordance with what it believes to be the will of Go'!. Again, we doubt whether there ever was a time when men were more sincerely patriotic, and more anxious t-> maintain the Empire "in health and wealth long to lue.'' It is true, no doubt, that now, us when Wordsworth wrote his famous sonnet, there is nmcli to deplore in the national character, and much that needs change. We ai" far too much given to luxury and softness. If our richer classes are loss drunken, they are more gluttonous and more extravaga»t and effeminate in their personal habits. Our life is still too often the "mean handiwork <>i craftsman, cook, or groom." Hut though these are evils that cry aloud for remedy, and though we do no I forget them, they are not tho eviK on which we want to ein ell at tho pro sent moment. While we do not dem the continuous need for higher moral ideals, what wo specially desire to emphasise is the need for a greater seriousness, or, if you will, hardness, t f outlook. What we have got to change is a certain light-heartedness, on c<->m-plaoency of temper, that has latoh marked our people, — the easy belief that every one must admire and respect our good intentions and pur noble and humanitarian point of view. Wo have got in future to face the woik' not as we should like it to be, but ■- it is, — the world of blood and iron controlled by men who are not humanitarians and philanthropists, but persons intensely human on the other sidi' of man's nature, persons who do not take what they would call a Sunda\ school view of the world, but rather thn view that man is still a wild beast, that tho race is to the strong and not to the well-intentioned, that victory belongs to the big battalions, not to those who say that they envy no man anything, and who cannot understand why notions should hate or be jealous of each other.