[Editor: This article, regarding the New Year, was published in The Daily Telegraph (Launceston, Tas.), 1 January 1925.]
A happy and prosperous new year
Is the sincere wish of “The Daily Telegraph” for all Tasmanians.
Ringing out the old and ringing in the new year is a pleasant and time honored custom. An altogether agreeable way of closing another chapter and opening a fresh one in the book of life. Turning over the page one new year’s day an anonymous counsellor wrote as the first entry:
“Whatever the past year may have meant to you, make it dead history. Let the new year be a living issue. With a big, fresh sponge, dripping with the clear water of forgiveness, wipe clean the slate of your heart.
“Enter the year with a kind thought for everyone. You need not kiss the hand that smote you, but grasp it in cordial good feeling, and let the electricity of your own resolve find its connecting current — which very often exists where we think it not.
“Make the new year a happy one in your home; be bright of disposition; carry your cares easy; let your heart be as sunshine — then your life will give warmth to all around you; and thus will you and yours be happy.”
The pity is that while we may, and should, at least try to begin the new year with its seasonable sentiment, and carry it on from January 1 to December 31, we know that we shall find it necessary in 1925, as in past years, to take up and deal with our personal, civic, and national affairs as matters of practical concern to ourselves and other people, and that the affecting circumstances may not always be in harmony with new year thought.
Still there is nothing to prevent us approaching the problems of and our work in the new year in the light of knowledge that what has to be done may be done so much the more easily and agreeably if our thought, speech, and action are leavened throughout the year with the ideas mostly prevalent at its birth.
We cannot say that the economic conditions in Tasmania are as good as we could wish them to be, or as they might and should be. There is need and scope for earnest effort during 1925 to improve them. Facilities for doing this and other work of communal importance and value are available. The responsibility for utilising them effectively is not limited to a few persons — it rests with the whole of the people.
This year the citizens of the Commonwealth will be called on to elect representatives in the two Houses of the Federal Parliament. The people of Tasmania will also have an opportunity to elect 30 members of the House of Assembly and three members of the Legislative Council. Since the general election in 1922 more than enough has occurred in the State sphere to make devotion of serious attention to Tasmania’s affairs of government by every responsible citizen vitally necessary.
The field of Local Government is, all over the State, offering opportunity for civic activities. In Launceston the citizens will be asked to co-operate with the Mayor and aldermen in dealing with the long delayed matter of sewage disposal, and with their own association in the work of foreshore improvement.
There are encouraging indications of probability that some of the additional industries Tasmania needs will be established, more particularly on the North-West Coast. They are wanted in all parts of the State to prevent Tasmania’s loss of population by migration. It is, of course, essential that the interests of the people in the common estate should be adequately safeguarded. This can and should be done without preventing the encouragement of enterprise. Launceston needs some new industries — especially for the employment of men. Its citizens could not promote its progress more surely than by doing whatever may be found necessary to establish and carry them on.
Tasmanians begin the new year as citizens of the smallest, but one of the best, of the States of the Commonwealth, and lack no kind of inducement to aim at making 1925 a year of prosperity and happiness.
Source:
The Daily Telegraph (Launceston, Tas.), 1 January 1925, p. 4
Editor’s notes:
The quotation in this article has been placed within blockquotes, so as to distinguish it from the rest of the text.
alderman = an elected representative on a city council or shire council; a member of the governing body of a local government
aldermen = plural of “alderman” [see: alderman]
Commonwealth = the Commonwealth of Australia; the Australian nation, federated on 1 January 1901
cordial = friendly, affectionate, warm in demeanour; hearty; nice
Federal Parliament = the national parliament of Australia (i.e. the parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia)
Houses = (in the context of politics) houses of parliament (a legislature which has two legislative chambers, or two houses of parliament, is known as a bicameral system); in Australia, at the federal level, the houses of parliament are the House of Representatives (also known as “the lower house”) and the Senate (also known as “the upper house”); at the state level in Australia, the houses of parliament are the Legislative Assembly (also known as “the lower house”) and the Legislative Council (also known as “the upper house”), although the state of Queensland only has a Legislative Assembly, as the Legislative Council voted to abolish itself in 1921
See: 1) “Legislature”, Wikipedia
2) “Bicameralism”, Wikipedia
3) “Legislative Council of Queensland”, Wikipedia
leaven = an element or influence which brings about gradual change, modification, or transformation; an agent or substance which is used as an ingredient in dough (or similar food), in order to make it rise
smote = past tense of “smite”: strike, hit hard; attack; hurt; injure; kill
Leave a Reply