THE POST-WAR ORDER

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 24093, 1 November 1943, Page 4

THE POST-WAR ORDER

“ OUR LEADERS STILL ; j GROPING*’ j ADDRESS BV DR. SUTHERLAND 1 “Nations as we now know them and f the sentiment of nationalism are com- i paratively recent things, but they .have £ been so sighifleaht in the growth Of, the modern World that we are inclined to think that thtoe is something final f- -f and eternal about thfem,” said Dr. I. L - ' G. Sutherland, Professor of Philosophy at Canterbury College, in an address bn “The Future of Nations” to the Sd-' ' ciety for Imperial Culture on Saturday " evening. With a few exceptions, said Ur,’ Sutherland, nineteenth century WhteHassured us that the division of ini' World into independent soVereijjfl States was both natural and desirdoli —that they marked the climax of sbtiS development. But it how appeared that just as man spent the nineteenth c&i? . lury in thinking nationally and ih cbifi*' ’ ■ pletihg the pattern of the nation-StSte, SU he must spend the. twentieth cefitury ih thinking in international terftil and in building iip forms of intefnational order. :

“There is no future security for nations but collective security," he de 4 Glared. “New forces have come into being urgently, demanding a further development in human society. Why should they be necessary? It is large 4 ly because the world has been made' pile by scientists and engineers. It hj&.:: been mechanically internationalised; 1 Ih the last century and a half, the human race has attained undreamed 4 - Of heights in all fields but one. that of ; international politics, but this field novr more than any other will decide the fate of humanity.” i_;No one could doubt the common sense of the world situation, namely the need for abandoning the idea of independent national sovereignty and for some degree of international' or, world control of such things as arifted force, of the air and of many economic matters.

“But what are the prospects of achieving common sense in international affairs? They are by no hiCafia clear. There is little indication yet 0f..; anja practical programme for a postwar international order. Our leaders seem still to be groping for the cottltnon denominator on which to estabr lish a new interhational system; BUI there are some hopeful signs.”