Collective Gossip and Collective Security

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 196, 16 May 1936, Page 20

Collective Gossip and Collective Security

“There is a great deal to be said for and about collective security, but collective gossip about security, even that superior gossip which might go by the name of good conversation, is apt unless it is held in check to become a little morbid.

“The fact is that during the past ten years we have not always served the cause of peace too well by brooding over it. Many a man has talked the night away in an agitation of peace and brotherhood when he would have been better employed taking the dog for a walk and going early to bed with a light book.

“Even now we might do worse than to leave peace to the angels and to enjoy what we have of it. And oddly enough, that is an aspect of national defence even if it is not mentioned in the White Paper.

“If this country has ever again to fight in defence of agreements to which it is committed it will come to the ordeal the better prepared iu proportion to the refusal of the community to agonise over the emergency in advance.

“There is no escaping rearmament, but for all but the experts the less said about it the better.”—“Glasgow Herald.”