OVERSEAS OPINIONS

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 66, 10 December 1938, Page 1 (Supplement)

OVERSEAS OPINIONS

The Students’ Duty.

• Catastrophic conditions in other parts of the world might cause America to .become the “conservator of the cultural attainments of the human race.” said Dr. Harold W. Dodds; president of Princeton University, in addressing undergraduates. “Colleges and universities were never more important than at this very moment,” lie declared. • “No matter what catastrophes the world may be facing, the values of the liberal arts which men have treasured through the ages must not be lost from the earth. In today’s atmosphere of world trouble and strain no Princeton student can do better than to do well what he came here to do. It is the part of wisdom for all of us at this point to continue the work w e have laid out for ourselves, which is to increase the sum of knowledge in our possession and with knowledge to gain understanding.”

Conventional America. Government machinery in the United States is like the humorist’s description of the weather, to the effect that everybody complains about it. but nobody does anything about it. writes Dr. W. Y. Elliot, head of the Department of Government, Harvard University. To many Americans the defects and cumbrous complexities of their government system seem as inevitable as the weather. It is a curious anomaly that the most mechanically inventive of all nations should be so resistant to changes in the mechanics of government. Naturally, party machines and exploiting groups will batHe to the last iitch to prevent a change in what they are pleased to call “our American institutions.” They will represent any efforts to simplify machinery as “an attack on the constitution." and often accuse the most genuinely liberal reformers of being radicals or worse — even of being traitors. Defining Democracy.

“Here is an authentic definition of democracy made the other day by M. Stauning, the broad-shouldered, fullbearded Danish Prime Minister, to a Nazi propagandist who tried to wean him from his democratic faith,” says the “Evening Standard” (London). “Asked by the Nazi what he found in social-democracy that could not be provided by National-Socialism. • M. Stauning said ‘Well, when Igo home, at night I like to buy my own choice of an evening paper and to read what I want. I like to turn on the radio and listen to what I want to hear. and. when I go to church, 1 like to attend the particular form of service which appeals to me. But if you want to know what 1 really prize in democracy. it’s this: When I’m wakened up by a'tumbril rattle in the streets in the early hours of the morning, I know it’s only the milkman.’.” Disorderly World.

"The first requirement of a civilised Christian society is order, the rule of law which promotes the common good and keeps under control the selfish instincts and desires of men,” said the Dean of Chichester, in preaching the League of Nations Assembly sermon in St. Peter’s Cathedral. Geneva. “If this be true of States in their interior organization, it is even more true of the relations of nations with one another. because men in the mass are swayed by lower ideals than those which control tlie actions of the better sort of individual men and w'omen. If Christian charity is to achieve its aim in the world at large, the nations must be able to defend themselves against the would-be peace-breaker in the same way as tlie individual citizen is defended against the murderer and bandit.” Modern Mastcdon.

A great city has become a great peril, says the London "Observer.” It is a commonplace that London is the most vulnerable area upon the whole earth, it would sometimes look as if such aggregations of mankind had attained a bulk fatal to themselves—as if, like •the monsters of the prime, they were doomed bv their own dimensions. There have been abstract 'discussions of this menacing situation in which a country imay Lave its most valuable eggs all in one basket —‘Government centres, shipping, commercial depots, leading industries and millions of people all, crowded ou a few’ square miles to make a target that no aerial enemy couid miss- To the common mind of London it had scarcely been brought home until the shadow of imminent danger emphasised in a 'dozen ways the nakedness of the land.

Self-Righteous Britons, “Herr Hitler will strike. a sympathetic chord in some of the free as well as the totalitarian countries when he speaks of the ‘nursery governess’ attitude of Great Britain. This is flu old cause of irritation in Europe,” writes Mr. J. A. Spender, in the “Yorkshire Observer.” “Tn the old days I have listened respectfully while Clemenceau discoursed on this theme in almost exactly the same language as Herr Hitler used recently. Who were we, he wanted to know, to lecture France on her duties, we who had always the safe retreat of our island sanctuary. Air Power has somewhat equalized the conditions, but we had better bear in mind that Europe is still sensitive ou the subject of British rebukes. The stream of condemnatory resolutions about the behaviour of other people in all parts of the world, which goes out from our political parties and great philanthropic and peace organizations, falls on the ears even of our friends in Europe with an accent of selfrighteousness.”

The Genius of Christ. “He was born poor, lived poor, and died penniless. . Like all great men He loved humanity with a deep love. Especially, He loved the poor, the weak, the oppressed and the sinful, and He passed the few years of His life among them with a tenderness of sympathy for their' sufferings which it is often difficult to think of without tears. He became a Man of great wisdom, perhaps of great learning, certainly of great genius. As far as we can see, He was a prophet taught by God, yet He preached no doctrine that was new to the world: He promulgated no new creed: He founded no new faith; He established no new church; Heinade m> religious organization: lie authorized no sacraments or sacred writings, He recognized no mysteries; and He ordered no rites or ceremonies. On the con trary He protested from first to hist against most or all of these, -Jhe late Sir Hull Caine’s summing up of the Ute and teaching of Jesus Christ.

| Diplomatic Jargon. It may be largely a matter of personal taste, but some of us are beginning to wish that there could be a compulsory clo>se season for ’unilateral and its allied formations, writes “Lucio” in the Manchester Guardian. Strictly speaking, a unilateral agreement is one that is binding on only one party, which would make it an, instrument very much to the liking of any dictator. * But in what respect does it differ from what the plain man might call a one-sided arrangement? But the lateralists now win all along the line; and the infinity end of the scale is already staked out. for in a London newspaper there has been a reference to “the time, which has certainly not come yet, when an effective multilateral agreement can be made to check the growth of armaments everywhere.” But what on earth is wrong with a general agreement toward the same admirable end? "Multilateral” is there just a piece of pompous jargon Democracy’s Dangers. “We agree that in England the democratic ideal is best and most suited to our native character, but democracy has many dangers and diliieulties. One of the ' greatest is indifference or apathy,” said Lord Leverbulme in a recent speech. “The totalitarian ideal gives people ready-made ideas, and spares them the trouble of making up their minds. Another danger is that democracy may degenerate into a kind of periodic auction in which people give their votes to the highest bidder. The greatest safeguard against these dangers is an educated electorate, capable of judging for itself what in the long run will be best for the community as a whole.”

An Employment Guarantee? “If every employer took on sufficient additional workpeople tomorrow to absorb all the unemployed in their own trades, very few would fail to dispose of their products at profitable prices,” said Mr. A. 8. Cornyns Carr, K.C., speaking in Yorkshire recently. "They do not do it because the latent demand would not, materialize unless all or most of them did it at the same time. How can they be induced to take the risk? Only by Government guarantee that none of them should lose by it. This guarantee could become operative only in a small proportion of cases, particularly. perhaps. in the export trades. It could not, in its until exceed, and might in terms be limited to, the amount now spent on unemployment.”-

This Vicious Circle. Mr. Kennedy, the American Ambassador,to Britain, in a speech delivered recently in London, said: —“The armaments . burden is approaching a point, it seems to me, where it threatens, sooner-or later, to engulf nsal! in a major disaster. The world situation today presents the leaders of all nations with a’ terrible dilemma. Failure to arm may mean domination by a stronger Power or group _of Powers. Further, rapid rearming will eventually bring severe economic difficulties to all concerned as surely as would a world war. I know that no one nation can stop this vicious circle of misdirected energy, but we are going to have to get together if we are to maintain a standard of living anything like that which we now enjoy. The arms burden, in the final analysis, comes out of the livelihood of the workers of the world. It falls with equal weight on the people of every land, regardless of the form of government.’’ Peace From the Air.

“It was the aeroplane, after all, which brought statesmen together, when the slower, older methods of international discussion had obviously failed. It was by the instrumentality of the aeroplane that some measure of humanization was introduced into international polities. Further, the accompaniments of the use of the aeroplane in warfare have made warfare seem to ordinary men and women, so frightful and intolerable that they have turned away in revulsion at the thought of war. War may yet, simply by becoming so horrible, have outdated itself; and it will be the common people of the earth who. showing greater wisdom and courage than their leaders, will have brought that about. Man may yet rejoice in the happy and peaceful fulfilment of his long-held drama of flying; and the nightmare of death and extinction which lias haunted tills generation pass away.”—"The Evening News,” London. France’s Emergency.

The Peace of Munich has at length aroused France to a realization of her weakness in the air, says the “Spectator.” The immediate objective is the construction of -1000 aeroplanes, which would give France a first-line strength of 2(100, with the necessary reserves. The cost is estimated at £50.000.000; but an essential preliminary is to modify the 40-hour week so that France may have some chance of competing with a Germany whose workers in some cases work as much as 60 hours a week. In France the working class is still so far from realizing the necessities of the emergency that it still refuses to accept the 45-hour week decree applied by M. Daladier to the aircraft industry. It is unfortunate M. Dttladier has not attempted to conciliate the workers by demanding sacrifices from all classes. France’s crisis is financial as well as military.

From Crisis to Crisis. “You must hope for something better in your lives than a progress from crisis to crisis such as we are experiencing at present.” said Dr. Raymond Priestley, Vice-Chancellor of Birmingham University, in a recent address to •students. “Whether you get that something better will depend .very much upon yourselves. We have just been through-a .crisis of unpar:tHelv'd gravity. No one who has sat, as I have sat, in traffic jams at night, on the Flanders roads, under Ihe glare of parachute lights, with the crash of bombs in our ears, waiting for the next bomb to fall, can view with equanimity the prospect of a war in winch the whole population will lie at the front. Most of us would. 1 think, go through the ordeal steadfastly enough if war came. But I doubt if there are many soldiers of (lie last war who are not profoundly grateful for the present respite. Our job today is a constructive one. We must study so to shape our lives that we can each of us make a notable contribution toward a more peaceful world.”