WORLD'S PROBLEM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 207, 2 September 1938, Page 7

WORLD'S PROBLEM.

JUSTICE AND PEACE. ARE BOTH POSSIBLE? CASE OP SUDETEN GERMANS. Can we have justice and peace at the same time in the world to-day? It | seems to me that peace can only be purchased at the expense of justice; but I am not sure that we want justice." • Tl ! ese J" e, ? arks were made this morning by Professor S. Ralph Harlow, who arrived by the Monterey to spend a Tnontli in Xew Zealand lecturing under the auspices of the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace. He will rive talks to the Xew Zealand University, to schools, and to the Teachers' Training Collcfre; and his principal theme is the problem of preserving peace in the world under the democracies. He illustrated the remarks quoted above by reference to the position in Czechoslovakia, with which country he is familiar, having visited it a few years ago and frequently before the war.* The Sudeten Germans, he said, did not want o be linked with the Germany under Hitler, or perhaps with anv Germany whatsoever. But they were beincoerced, and a few hotheads among them were being backed by the whole weight of Hitler s influence. Further, he emphasised that thev had a just grievance. Thev were a ' highspirited people, a cultured people, industrious and capable. Yet under the Chechoslovakian regime their economic life had been undermined, their culture had been frowned on. and their industry had been to a considerable extent set at nought. They had been made to feel a j • Wer ® alie,ls and foreigners. And. all the time, what they wanted was to live at peace. Where Justice For Them? Where, then, was justice for them? And could justice be given and peace preserved? Another question was whether Hitler wanted to give tliem justice. >ow it was rather him demanding than the Sudeten Germans asking for themselves. Those who sought a way to peace to-day were sorely perplexed. On the one hand' there were those who thought that war was best averted bv collective security and great armaments; on the other, those who believed in a reduction of armaments. Personally, he believed that the fallacy of the former argument was shown in 1914; but how was the other line of thought to be made more than mere thought? v ' ew - there was closer co-opera-tion and understanding between America and Britain to-day than almost ever before. Americans, he thought, were eeling that they must move closer to [Britain. Proof of that was contained in the recent speech of President Roosevelt in Canada, when he said that America would not stand by and see Canada over-run. So frank a "speech had been greeted with amazement in the ted States, he said. So clear an enunciation of a policy was wondered Professor Harlow has peculiarly intiv long-standing associations with New Zealand. He was with the -New Zealand Division in France durine the war, while he met some of the Australians and the Xew Zealanders, wounded at Gallipoli. His brother-in-law was the director of the hospital in Constantinople. It was while working there tha t "he met them. | v^rr.T aS a , re ? ional director of the ] Y.M.C.A.. and went to France with the! American Expeditionary Force. When' [lie arrived in France the request was made that he should be transferred to the New* Zealand troops. He was, and was with them when the Armistice was called. He paid a high tribute to them. he said. neVer With a finer grou P of men '"