Momentous Times (continued)
In his
Presidential Address to the Baptist Union Assembly Noel said: “It is indeed a
wonderful age in which to be alive and I am not suggesting that we be
indifferent to the momentous events that are constantly happening about
us. Speed is now measured by thousands
of miles per hour, height in hundreds of thousands of feet. Men have crossed the poles and sailed under
them, have climbed the treacherous heights of Everest, sent not only sounds but
pictures to the other side of the earth in split seconds; have hurled not only
sputniks but humans at unbelievable speeds around our earth; have brought back
pictures from the outer face of the moon and have made weapons capable of
destroying all life itself.”
The
revolution in household equipment was just as great: from coal-range to
gas-stove and electric oven; refrigerators, washing-machines, electric irons
and electric heaters. Best of all these
was electric hot water. Which was not
without its problems. In the early
electric heating systems, such as the one at Ruarangi Road, there were no
thermostats, and Noel regularly had to rush out on Sunday mornings to turn off
the heater, with hot water blowing out the steam vent on the roof like an
old-fashioned Zip heater.
He was
also intensely interested in political change.
His post-graduate studies focussed on Constitutional Law. He always admired the political system of the
USA, and preferred it to the Westminster system of UK and New Zealand. (His
admiration took a dent when he was required to be fingerprinted to get a visa
to travel to the US in 1956.) By the
time of his death New Zealand had shifted from being “The Britain of the South”
to falling much more under the leadership of the United States.
Even
the British system itself underwent massive changes during Noel’s life. Women gained the vote finally in 1921, a
generation after New Zealand. And after
the Second World War the vestiges of the old unreformed democracy were swept
away when the House of Commons seats for Oxford and Cambridge Universities were
abolished. By 1945 the Labour Party in
the UK permanently replaced the Liberal Party as the main opposition to the
Conservatives.
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