WORLD ROUND TABLE

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29299, 2 September 1960, Page 13

WORLD ROUND TABLE

President Tells Of Tasks

“As individuals we live in a disintegrated world but there is hope if the youth of the world take the initiative in trying to cure the ills which are besetting the world.” the president of Round Table International (Mr Per Sjogren) told more than 70 members of the Christchurch Round Table last evening. Mr Sjogren, a Swedish businessman, is on a world tour visiting branches of the Round Table. He had made a special trip to Christchurch as it was the first city in New Zealand to form a branch of the Round Table. “Man is the only animal which weeps and shows remorse—and he has good reason to—for all the troubles of the world can be blamed on the narrow ' outlook man has had for his own welfare.” said Mr Sjogren. Personal Interests Racial hatred, national hatred, colour bar and personal enmity, all these problems which were facing civilisation were the result of the individual merely looking after his own personal interests without worrying about his fellows. The interchange of ideas and visits between nations was one answer to the problem. This could best be achieved by youth. More knowledge of how other people existed, thought, and worked was needed.

Round Table had 75.000 members between the ages of 18 and 40 in 22 countries, said Mr Sjogren. If they were all prepared to place their own interests after that of the community, on a national as well as a local scale, then they would have achieved something which could only do untold good. The greatest danger was not a subsistence diet but a subsistence intelligence. Any society that became static would fall and it was in the progression of the individual into community affairs that the groups such as Round Table could make the greatest contribution to world peace, he said.