THE WAIPA POST. Printed on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. TUESDAY, 11th DECEMBER, 1934. ADVENTUROUS PIONEERS.

Waipa Post, Volume 49, Issue 3556, 11 December 1934, Page 4

THE WAIPA POST. Printed on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. TUESDAY, 11th DECEMBER, 1934. ADVENTUROUS PIONEERS.

WHAT the wond of to-day owes to the adventurous pioneers 01 centuries ago is too wen recogiwseu to require more than passing comment, rHut tne thought arises whether the worm can yet be claimed as having emergeu from the pioneering stage. .New fields have yet to oe explored ana conquered. This fact is graphically revealed in the air, our newest transportation agency serving as it does the modern call for speed. Just now we are shocked and dismayed at the disappearance of the trans-Pacihc fliers. A few weeks ago we marvelled at the temerity of the two youths who disobeyed official rulings and braved the Tasman. The great Centenary race took toll of human life; and a score of instances remind us of the hazards of the pioneering services in the air. To some people these things appear mere foolhardiness, but even though they be illtimed and end in disaster they all serve to give to the world a new order and one which means progress. True it may be that the cost on the community is great. At this moment public moneys are expended lavishly but worthily in the quest for the missing airmen of the Pacific. Not for the first time is the public purse called upon to do all that is humanly possible to remove the gravest losses consequent upon the disastrous miscarriage of plans. In the case of the Tasman fliers we were reminded of the cost that might have been the outcome of disobedience and disregard of official sanction; and as the public purse may have been further drained to overtake reckless and foolhardy (action, it is .urged that greater stringency should .be demanded. Some there are who would insist upon the more drastic regulation and \the imposition of severe penalties on those who will not sub•mit to sterner regulatory control. It can be asked, however, whether history is not one long story of risks bravely and cheerfully accepted to improve the lot of man. What would have happened, it can be asked, if Columfbus, Drake, Cook, land other adventurers had been held in the grip of regulation framed within the limits of what the then •civilisation accepted as right ? Why do we, in this age, embody in regulation which We regard as safe what, in those days, would have shocked the most broadened official m'ind? The answer is simple: Our standards today are defined in the knowledge won by adventure along untrodden paths. Just as civilisation to-day must stand ready to blaze new trails, and be ready also to exert every human effort to guard against the perils and risks which pioneers undertake, 'did generations of old strive to endow the future with a, new and better conception of what is possible of accomplishment. Our almost every facility can he traced to some adventurer—infinitely more can this be the case than with those who feared the consequences of risk/ Regulation may be justified as a safeguard against extreme folly, but there is a limit set by reason. Stop the adventurer and you stop progress. That is a consideration that should never be forgotten.