TRADITIONALISM CHALLENGED

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 244, 15 October 1932, Page 1 (Supplement)

TRADITIONALISM CHALLENGED

Professor H. J. Fleure, in his presidential address to the Section of GcoGraphy of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, said that various types of society, the world over, were trying to graft on to their ancient heritage the new scheme of mass-pro-duction. In vastly increased numbers the peoples of the world, touched by lhe idea of mass-production, were jostling one another as never before, and various types of society had become a standing danger to others. Whether bv intention or not, Adam Smith’s plea for specialisation between individuals and between parts o f a nation had become a plea for the specialisation of nations, and the laissez-faire doctrine, | which had followed it, had been an idea that all would be for the best if economic rivalry were unbridled, and the best were allowed to win freely. Recent events had made it necessary to reexamine these conceptions. Concluding, he said: “It is admittedly a most difficult phase of the world’s life that has now been reached. Traditionalism is challenged everywhere in economic, social and religious life as never before. The local group is inevitably part of a great future whole, and yet is beingforced to think more of its roots in its own soil. Each group has its problems and .needs the help of others. England has her population problem, France her need to safeguard her peasant tradition, I Germany her need to develop her schemes of welfare planning, and so on. But development of each without domination by any is a very difficult idea to work out, and in our attempts we are all too likely to try to crystallise out some conditivn of status quo, forgetting that lite has- change as one of its basic characteristics. The study of men and their environments that we geographers pursue is necessarily always relative to a particular time, and must always lie looked at in the broad frame of the life of mankind as a whole.”