THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 82, 31 December 1940, Page 6

THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY

Comments —Reflections

“The habit of viewing things cheerfully and thinking about life hopefully may be made to grow up like any other habit.”—Smiles.

“We are proving on every field of war that democracy . . . can light like a wounded lion. But that is only half of it. The next step, which cannot be postponed till the end of the war, is to show that democracy is a creative principle and that what the world has been suffering from is not too much of it, but too little of it.”—J. B. Priestley.

“Remember always that England though she is bound to Europe by tradition, by affection, by great similarity of habits and all those ties which time alone can create and consecrate, is not a mere Power of the Old World. Her geographical position, her laws, her language, aud her religion, connect ner as much with the New World as with the Old. Still, if ever Europe by tier shortsightedness falls into an inferior and exhausted state, for England there will remain an illustrious future. We are bound to the communities of the New World, and those great Stares which our own planting and colonizing energies have created, by ties and interests which will sustain our power and enable us to play as great a part in the times yet to come as we do in these days, aud as we have done in the past. And, therefore ... I say it is for Europe, not for England, that my heart sinks.”—Disraeli, in 1859.

It is easy in retrospect to denounce American shortsightedness in arming a .potential enemy in Japan. Yet the alternative of wholesale boycott and embargo had and has its risks, aud should certainly be undertaken only if the United States is prepared for war in the Far East. For it is extremely probable that Japan’s military and naval leaders, if denied access to raw materials in America, would endeavour to seize such a storehouse of oil, tin, rubber and tropical raw materials as the Dutch East Indies. The natural wealth of the Philippines mis also not escaped Japan’s attention. The United States in the Far East has been facing much the same dilemma that France and Great Britain faced before the war in regard to Germany’s expansion in Eastern Europe. There has been the same difficulty in making up the national mind whether to stand firm or to yield. With present-day events moving at such a quickened tempo, the hour of inevitable decision is perhaps not very far off.” —A contributor to the “Christian Science Monitor.”

“World opinion about Austria’s annexation by Germany—in March, 1938 —was, and still is, that it was a natural thing. And the argument chiefly used runs: ‘After all, Germans aud Austrians speak the same language.’ f do not think that this argument has much value. In his newspaper, Dor Sturmer, Streicher, editorial mouthpiece of Nazism, uses the same language that Martin Luther did in translating the Bible, that Goethe did in his poems, tragedies, and novels. Could this fact induce any intelligent man to connect names like Luther and Goethe with, that of Streicher? I doubt it. Not the kind of words aud phrases that are at one’s disposal are important, but the spirit behind the words, and. the use one makes of them. The differences between Germans and Austrians are so essential that for the vast majority of Austrians the annexation was either a blow or a disappointment. It did not mean—as the Nazis put it—that there was achieved at last what the Austrians for decades had been longing for. Far from that! It simply meant that by the efficient and unscrupulous German tactics one fourth of Austria’s population got rhe better of the remaining three-fourths.” —A former citizen of Vienna, Mr. Ernst Pisko, in the “Christian Science Monitor.”

“The central idea of the Versailles liea.ee settlement, at any rate in Europe, was national self-determination. Nationalism was one of the great slogans of the nineteenth century, liberating .peoples everywhere from foreign rule aud setting up States on a national basis. In 1919 Woodrow Wilson made himself the champion of this idea. Out of. the ruins of the llapsburg Empire and the Russian Empire a whole lot of small new independent States were built up. The peacemakers went even further than this. Even within these small new States they encouraged the formation of still smaller units by conferring special rights on national minorities. In fact, they pushed self-de-termination to its extreme limit —much further than any nineteenth-century statesman had ever dreamed of. Bur what bad been happening in the meanwhile? Well, by the beginning of the twentieth century, the whole trend of our economic life, our whole economic organization, was moving in the direction of larger aud larger units—big business, big trade unions, cartels covering several countries, international selling agreements and so on. In fact, the economic world was growing more and more impatient of the many national frontiers which already existed.”—Professor E. H. Carr, formerly of the British Foreign Office, in a recent discussion.

For The New Year. New thoughts, if old ones sear and scar, New dreams, where old ones withered lie, New joys, where old ones vanished are, New hopes, should old ones droop and die. New hearts that throb with warmth o’ noon, New songs that bring a sweeter tune, So may be know them—you aud I. New courage for the tasks to be, New lessons from the days gone by. New faith, new love, new charity, New splendour in the blue of sky, New deeds, and better than the old. New tales, by fairer fortune told, So may lie bear them—you and I. New days, when diligent we build New castles of enduring good, New deeds by strength and purpose willed, New hopefulness, new brotherhood, New trust that bides and never ends, New blessings showered on old friends, New failli in heaven, new gratitude. —James W. Foley.