The Dominion MONDAY, AUGUST 5, 1929. A CHANGED WORLD

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 265, 5 August 1929, Page 10

The Dominion MONDAY, AUGUST 5, 1929. A CHANGED WORLD

Yesterday, August 4, was the fifteenth anniversary of the British declaration of war on Germany. Humanity since then has experienced the pinch of adversity. Emperors have lost their thrones, nations their wealth. Civilisation has been thrown into a convulsion from which a new but not very satisfying order has emerged. From the crucible of war there came the Russian and German republics, the Irish Free State, a new Italy and a new Spain, while the broken-fragments of the’Austro-Hungarian Empire became the Central European republics. It took Europe over half a century to recover from the effects of the Napoleonic wars. It is likely to take quite as long, if not longer, for the world to recover from the catastrophe which overtook it in 1914, The devastation was not only infinitely greater, but democracy has demanded as part of the price to be paid a general reorientation of social ideals, a levelling of conditions, a reconstruction of economic systems, and a definite attitude-against war as an. IIISt The solution of these questions, with . their innumerable co-ordinated problems, may well occupy, the remainder of the present century. One of the pious hopes expressed by the public s leaders during war time was that the world as a result of the victory over Prussianism would be made safe for democracy. The real problem which has emerged is how to make democracy safe for the world. The immensity of the task which confronts the present and future' generations - can only be realised by recognising that the processes of' civilisation have no fixed objective. Progress is the. march of evolutionary forces, political, industrial, and social. .It continues in an unending procession. The- most that any generation may expect from this constant striving for the millennium is merely the'best that the circumstances of its time and conditions can give it. The perfect state is always round the comer or over the hill. When one reflects that a single, generation is the merest speck m the progress of the universe, the thought comes, is it all worth while? Undoubtedly it is. While striving for the attainment of our own aspirations, we are building for the generations to come, and . incidentally deriving some satisfaction from the small instalment of progress which our own efforts return. ,