NOT DISCREDITABLE DELAY.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 17, 31 October 1940, Page 4

NOT DISCREDITABLE DELAY.

By comparison with the Prussian element in Germany, kindled to fierce enmity by the foul breath of the IS azis, the British are not now a warlike race, writes a correspondent to. the “Children’s Newspaper.” We have been so in the past, but the centuries have been civilising us. It. is true that we can fight under provocation and fight magnificently; but we are not born with the desire for war. We lovo peace and covet the things that belong to peace. If we have been slow in measuring up Hitler and' his Nazis, it is to be deplored, but is scarcely culpable, for the means that somehow we could not believe in the existence of such contemptible things. It means that, having no such cruelty in our hearts, we found it hard to impute it to our enemies. Our slowness in recognising the true colours of the enemy has had disastrous results, yet we need not be ashamed that we have been slow.' No doubt the thief quickly recognises the thief, but a gentleman is often slow to see that a man. is a bully. We know the truth now. W'e are recognising all the Nazi creed implies. We are roused to give battle against this beastly thing which is polluting the earth, and it is doomed.