PESSIMISM TO-DA Y MEANS ECONOMIC LOSS AND DEFEAT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19247, 8 December 1930, Page 8

PESSIMISM TO-DA Y MEANS ECONOMIC LOSS AND DEFEAT.

To-Day’s Signed Article

Specially Written for the “Star.” By Lady Drummond Hay. ________________ Carlo Decroix, blind, armless, leader of Italy’s war invalids, has issued a darning appeal to Italians to rally against the “growing spirit of Defeatism.’’ That this battle cry with its ringing note of defiance and challenge to the insidious, traitor spirit of Pessimism, which acidlike is stealthily eating into the social fabric of to-day, undermining confidence in self, governments, nations and our institutions, is hurled into the world by a man from whom the war took the blessed sunlight and both arms, should shame many of us. Almost the entire Western world is to-day in the grip of Pessimism to a degree unprecedented in known history. A wave of black negation, politically, economically, spiritually, is sweep-

ing over us. T EMPHASISE it is the “ Western World " —the world of modern civilisation and culture—in a golden age of science, material progress and mechanical invention, that is chiefly affected. Asia, the East, cradle of all our great religions, all our great Saviours, despite the seething unrest there, is far from being dominated by the pessimism that is chocking us. Pessimism is “ Defeatism.” The latter word was coined in the World War. People were put in prison for spreading it. Defeatism was stamped as a crime against the nation by public opinion. Yet, to-day, statesmen, governments and Press not only appear to tolerate it, accepting it as a national psychological phase, but in many instances are themselves “ germ-carriers ” of the disease. For defeatism is a disease of the will, of the spirit, of individuals and of nations. Pessimism is the symptom of the disease which has become a world epidemic. There is no quarantine against it. Defeatism Worse than Kismet. Pessimism—defeatism—is a conscious or sub-conscious admission that you are beaten—defeated. It is surrender. It is throwing up the sponge before the fight is over, before the game is played to the end. It is a violation of the western code of manhood and womanhood. Lastly, it is the worst aspect of that exaggerated Pacificism, extended to the life of the individual, and through him or her, to the nation, bequeathed to the West as a reaction of the World War. Pessimism ''is responsible for atrophy of national ambition and ideals, public apathy, and lack of individual enterprise and venture; Defeatism is a thousand times worse that the Kismet—the fatalism of the Orient. That of the East is Passivism, not Pacificism. There is a world of difference. The one is knowing how to wait, patiently but alertly. The other is refusal to grapple with circumstances, or conditions—national drifting. Weakening Leadership. Different nations are differently affected. In Britain it has taken the form of gloomy resignation, a morale as low as ever existed in the worst days of the war. Only then there was fight in us. Now there is none, or little. We suffer ourselves unresistingly to provide a spectacle for a gaping, longenvious world, watching Britannia for the

first time since the beginning of the Empire, succumbing to defeatism—tacit acknowledgment of weakening supremacy and leadership. Pessimism, but not yet defeatism, is sweeping Germany. The Germans are very pessimistic, but even the exhaustion of the long war, and the political chaos of the postwar period, has not made them admit defeat. Excepting for the defeatist Pacificistic elements, there is fight in the Germans. They may, probably will, go through terrible times, but as long as there is fight in them and I do not mean war, there will be hope for the Germans. No country is battling harder with economic defeatism than the United States. In many circles I found pessimism as black as in England, but not so resigned. Argentine, Brazil, Mexico, Chile are gripped hard by it. On Spain, with its naturally easygoing people, economic pessimism rests heavily. France, a fighting nation, the richest people in Europe to-day, no unemployment, Bank of France filled with gold, is nervous about the future, but there is no sign of defeatism there. Switzerland, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden have their share of depression, but their spirit is healthy. Iron Will of Kremlin. Italy, temperamentally given to rising to great heights, but whose spirit is easily dashed to the depths, is having a difficult time of it, despite the incalculable value of such a will as that of Mussolini. The inroads of individual defeatism is best reflected by the appeal of the blind and armless leader of the war invalids. Austria is as deep in economic defeatism as Germany, but not with the latter’s will or fighting spirit. Russia is ruled by an iron will from the Kremlin. Tens of thousands are being sacrificed there in the Communist economic battle. In the war of blood and iron, the ranks of the strongest provide the most victims. In the economic struggle, it is the weakest who fall first. There is no defeatism in the Kremlin. A spirit of ruthless offensive grapples, and fight goes out from it. It may be defeated in the end, but not until that end has come will defeat beadmitted. (Anglo-American N.S.—Copyright.)