OVERSEAS OPINIONS

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 256, 25 July 1936, Page 18

OVERSEAS OPINIONS

Arabs v. Jews. The primary cause of the outbreak, which began with the Jaffa riots of April 19 .and 20, is the Arabs’ fear that they will be swamped by the increasing influx of Jewish immigrants, and that the Jewish National Home will become a Jewish Republic in which there will be no room for the Arab but in a menial capacity, says “The Times.” There have been subsidiary causes. Among them may be mentioned the expenditure of relatively large sums by Italian agents last winter; the activities of Pan-Arab agitators, which are aimed as much against the British mandate as against the Jews and have been stimulated by the opposition to the French mandate in Syria; the eternal rivalry of the Husseini and Nashashibi families of Jerusalem, which has led to a competition in extreme nationalism between their chiefs. But fear is the chief motive force of the outbreak. Since 1919 the Jewish population of Palestine has increased from under 60,000 to nearly 400,000, over 60,000 of ■whom entered the country last year. The Jews, who formed less than a tenth of the population at the time of the Balfour Declaration, now constitute almost a third of its inhabitants —perhaps more if clandestine immigrants are taken into account. Large purchases of Arab rural properties and the refusal of Zionist organisations to employ Arab workmen have increased the alarm. Arab landlords jealous for their influence. Arab professional men who fear Jewish competition, Arab employers of labour who affect to see Communism in Jewish trade unionism, and are infuriated when Arab workmen attempt to imitate the Jewish example of organisation, have their own reasons for exciting the fears and fanning the discontents of the masses into flame.

“The Ideal Remains.” The League of Nations had suffered a setback, and whenever respect for law and order was weakened, at once a number of new anxieties arose to confuse the present and to perplex the future, said Mr. Anthony Eden recently. That was as true of international as of national affairs. The very fact that the League found its authority weakened placed an obligation on all its members to examine recent events and to attempt to remedy, in a spirit of candid realism, the defects which those events had laid bare. “That is the task,” he continued, “to ■which the Government in this country is now addressing itself. Let me, however, at once make it plain that His Majesty’s Government still maintains its confidence in the League as the best instrument available to mankind for the preservation of international peace. It is its hope and it will be its endeavour to ensure that the experience of the past few months is turned to good purpose for the future. In the meantime let us not, on account of the present setback, allow ourselves to give way to despair. That would be the worst spirit in which to face our difficulties. I agree emphatically with the recent statement of the Archbishop of Canterbury that ‘we could not abandon or even whittle down the ideal for which the League of Nations stood. The actual circumstances of the time may seem to have discredited it, but the ideal remains.' That is profoundly true.”

“Not Enough.” Following a semi-official report from Rome that the lifting of sanctions would not he enough to allow Italy again to collaborate in European affairs and that only a reversal of the League verdict that Italy was the aggressor in Abyssinia would really meet the case. Mr. A. P. Herbert has made a little poem:— Let us be realist and face the facts, For peace, at any price, is more than pacts. The house is broke; the burglar keeps the cruet; Wbv not be wise, and say he didn’t do ‘it? It may be awkward to condone a crime, But not if it was lawful all the time. If humble pie be what the nations wish, Let them have plenty, let them lick the dish, Singing “The meek Italian left his home To drive the Abyssinian brute from Rome.” Maybe that mustard on the mountaintops Was loosed by Englishmen disguised as Wops? The League Defended. General Hertzog, Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, affirmed in a speech recently that if the League had not existed there would not have been one war but a dozen wars. If it succeeded in getting over the present troubles it would ensure peace for another fifty or a hundred years. Failure would mean that the big nations would become the masters and the small nations the servants, and would lead to the destruction of civilisation. He considered it was the mentality of the world which was wrong. There was not enough moral force to-day. General Hertzog deprecated the suggestion of a world conference because the League itself was a supreme body and with each year came nearer to achieving the ideals suggested. What must be revised, in his opinion, was the Versailles Treaty, which was the world’s greatest source of friction and driving force toward war. Fortunately the world so far had not come to that last eventuality, but if war did come it would be through this accursed Treaty of Versailles.

Little Entente Policy. King Carol of Rumania in a speech said that the primary interests of the Little Entente lay in maintaining the present frontiers and peace treaties. Its policy was based on respect for international engagements, and its force was its indestructible unity. It was in the interests of the Little Entente to remain Joyal to the League of Nations. If a modification of the Covenant were found necessary the Little Entente would not accept it if it endangered the principle of equality of States or tended to weaken the Covenant itself. The policy of the States of the Little Entente toward all Powers without exception was that of friendship. -The importance of the work accomplished by the Little Entente wasi due to the frequent contact between its represenlatives, and the time had arrived for the heads of the three States to arrange to meet regularly once a_yeaj>

“Lot of Silly Boys.” There were so many false ideas abroad in this country and throughout the world, so many false doctrines were being preached, and so many false assumptions were being made, especially abroad, said Mr. Duff Cooper, Secretary of State for War, in an address. They knew when the Oxford Union passed a resolution that they would not fight for their country that it was merely a foolish action by a lot of silly boys. When the Cambridge Union sought to go a bit better by saying that a strong Britain was not a good thing for the world they knew Cambridge were only trying, as they always did, to beat Oxford. But abroad those things were taken as important facts proving that the youth of England had lost its character, that it was decadent and was not prepared to defend its country. He was able to make a more satisfactory statement which showed how unrepresentative those college debating societies were. In the past month 6142 men had joined the Territorial Army, which was a record for any month. Speeches of those who boasted they had persuaded thousands of young men to swear that they would never defend their country brought the next, war a little nearer, whereas every statement he had made about the renewed strength of the _ Territorial Army put the next war a little farther away. To-day the situation in Europa was far worse than in 1914. To-day we were allowing people to preach the doctrine that it was wicked to defend women and children from air attacks by poison gas. .Speeches of that sort were more poisonous than gas itself. The strength of this country was the greatest asset of peace in the world today, and only by convincing the world that the British people not only loved peace but were also prepared to defend it could we hope to preserve it in the days to come. “Not for Sale.”

“There has been a lot of wholly unnecessary talk about Tanganyika Territory. I have no intention of adding to or subtracting from the —to me very clear statements of my predecessors and of the Prime Minister on thi* subject,” Mr. Ormsby Gore, Secretary of State for Colonies, said recently. “Nor will I be induced to put any glosses or Talmudical interpretations on them. People, whether here or in East Africa, who seek to cast doubts or spread suspicion on this matter, are not serving the cause which they seek r>, uphold. True, we live once again in an unsettled and dangerous world, where power, politics and great new armaments again threaten the peace and order of civilisation in more than one continent of the world. No nation has worked harder than ours for a better and wiser order. But, with the facts of the world as we see it to-day, let there be no mistake. We at home mast press rapidly forward the expansion' of our defence forces by air, sea, and land. Imperial defence has become once again a first concern of my colleagues in the Cabinet. We have the will, and are determined to have the means, to stand up for our Imperial rights, our freedom, and our civilisation. In this duty of Imperial defence, the Colonial Empire has always loyally been ready to play its part, and, when right rev. bishops of the Church of England say we should give up. colonies, I ask them which. British subjects are not for sale, and British subjects in the colonies overseas do not want their flag taken from them. . No part of the territories under British rule would willingly exchange that rule Empire Unity.

How is th e British Commonwealth of Nations to .maintain unity of purpose and harmony of action now that each of its six Member .States has legal sovereignty and a. completely autonomous Government? asks the ’“Daily Telegraph” (London). In the circumstances of the time it .is of urgent importance to every subject of the British Crown. To unite selfgoverning States in common policy and action is. as regards constitutional machinery, not an easy task. It must be remarked that the period since the war, in which the Dominions have, as he put it, “gained their national freedom,” has also seen the building up of much closer economic co-opera-tion. The change which was made by the Statute of Westminster was the legal recognition of a status which had long existed in fact. Before it, as well as after it, unity of Imperial action was only possible by the free will of unity of spirit. In the economic field forms and practices have grown up under that impulse. The same force will operate to give the Empire political machinery. The Game’s The Thing.

The« man to whom victory means more than the game is morally in a state of unstable equilibrium, says “The Times.” So long as he is obviously winning he can play fair. There is no point in doing anything else. But, if the issue is in doubt, still more if he feels that the tide is running against him, the master passion takes control, lie becomes blind to the larger duty and concentrates on success- at any cost and by any means. The only safeguard against that uprush of selfcentredness is insistence, in season and out of season, that the game’s the thing, and not the issue of it. That by no means implies indifference to the result or lukewarmness in striving for victory. Without keenness to win games would be perfunctory performances based on routine or flaccid rounds of physical exercise. But the keenness must be within the four corners of the rules.

“The Great Sculptor.” The superiority in young Germans’ physique which strikes the visiting Briton so forcibly—and painfully when he returns to England—seems to be more than is caused by muscular development or superior feeding writes G. E Copeman. It is seen in their vigour, vitality, and wholesomeness. And it is noticeable in both sexes. Part, of the cause seems to lie in their mode of life, which is far less sophisticated and artificial than ours. They seem less urbanised. They .sit in motors and cinemas less; they smoke and use cosmetics less; they walk, cycle, swim, and canoe far more; and they e'pend much more of their time in exploring their own country on foot and bicycle. These points seem at least as important as exorcises in school in developing physique,: “the sun fe the great