Page 8 Advertisements Column 2

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20639, 30 January 1937, Page 8

What is it that the people want? asks Mr Harold Macmillan, Conservative M.P., writing in the “New Outlook." When one cuts through all the theoretical argument of political leaders, the pathetic truth of the moderation of the people's demands is revealed. They want work and wages. Is that unreasonable? And they want their work to be directed in such a way that we shall begin to tap the abundance which science has brought within our reach. They want an adequate diet for the twenty million people who, Sir John Orr tells us, cannot buy enough of the health'-giving foodstuffs which British farmers could grow. They want us to clean up the disgrace of the depressed areas, and, out of the greater productivity of a fully-employed population, they want a comfortable retirement for the aged. But the question to-day is rot whether we have the wits to know what to do, but whether we have the courage, the patriotism, and the generosity of spirit to combine the strength of the progressive forces to obtain the power to do it. Each one of us must accept our share of responsibility. A progressive alliance would give life and vigour to a forward poucy. Is there in Britain to-day a sufficient number of individuals attached to the great principles of liberty and progress who would give their time and energy to such a task? On that may depend the future progress cf the world.