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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 8, Issue 10 (February 1, 1934)

Compensation

page 5

Compensation

There is probably more comprehensive comfort to be derived from a reading of Emerson's essay on “Compensation” than from any other single piece of secular writing, for it summarises the salient points in this beneficient law of Nature, and assures by proof of its inevitability.

The habit of looking all round a subject is well worth cultivating, and although difficult to do, particularly when self-interest is involved, repays handsomely in securing a well-poised outlook on life. Emerson's essay is a thought-starter with applications to the affairs of every day. It helps to reveal those “blessings in disguise” which so often break the back of disappointment ultimately.

Reference to the Treaty of Waitangi is timely in this connection, in view of the celebrations taking place at that historic spot this month. The compensation to the Maoris from the entry to their country of a strange race was the treatment of equality which that agreement secured.

Life consists of an endless series of bargainings, and each person chooses the side of the bargain he prefers, except when he is given no choice. In the latter case he must make the best of his bargain, and in doing so in the right spirit often scores more than had the scales not been weighted against him.

The keen competition in transport which recent years have witnessed was certainly not welcomed by those who had to stand up against it, but there is little doubt that every transport organisation which has come through that fire is giving better service than would have been tendered had no competition existed.

Most records are made against individuals rather than against the clock. So a standard of service is more easily attained if there is a competitive human element of emulation to reach it.

The most gloomy anticipations are seldom realised because the adaptable human is quickly acclimatised to new conditions, and what was feared in prospect is often enjoyed in retrospect. Translated from the French, the idea rhymes something like this:

“One half of your ills have been cured
And the others you still have survived;
But what terrors you all have endured
From the evils that never arrived.”

It is not long since it was freely said that railways everywhere had seen their day and would have to give place to something else. Now railways in most places are making a remarkable recovery, notably in Great Britain and to a marked extent in New Zealand.

The slump has had its compensations in the resultant better understanding of mutual interest between various sections of the community, and the better days ahead will be sweetened by memory of past trials.