GOOD CITIZENSHIP

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 86, 12 April 1938, Page 6

GOOD CITIZENSHIP

ROTARY CLUB ADDRESS

MR W. A. VEITCH'S VIEWS

The rights and importance of true citizenship were the subject of an address to yesterday's luncheon of the Wanganui Rotary Club by Mr W. A. Veitch, a former member of Parliament for Wanganui.

Mr Veitch said that people when they had no democracy would give their lives to get it but when they had democracy they failed to appreciate its value. The public man who bribed an individual was sent to gaol if he was caught, but the public man who could successfully bribe the multitude was called a statesman. In France, democracy was making the last struggle for its life and with its end would follow either a civil war or a brutal dictatorship. Unless democracy was sustained the end was near. As the nations were going on increasing the privileges of democracy they were forgetting the duties to the only really true form of government. Not until freedom was in danger was the duty of democracy realised. The leaders of the British nation had a great deal more sense of the duties of statesmanship than any other country in the world and that was why the British nation was so well governed. Every Individual had a grave responsibility to the State in himself and his life; if he was sound in body and mind it was his duty l<. retain these conditions and to direct his every endeavour toward the improvement of conditions for himself, his neighbour and the country. No matter what sphere of activity a man was in the responsibility was equally as great. There were just as many good citizens in the lower rungs of the ladder as on the topmost rungs and at times, he thought, more. Democracy, said Mr Veitch, was the government of the people by the people and for the people meant ajl the people and not the section which could muster the most votes at election time. At the present time all over the world there was a tendency to adopt an iconoclastic outlook; every change was regarded as something for the better. The word orthodox, which was once one of the most highly respected words in the language, had passed away and iconoclast. No changes should be accepted in this spirit until every avenue of investigation had been made.

At the conclusion of his address, the speaker was accorded a hearty vote of thanks on the motion of Rotarian E. Walpole.