THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 117, 12 February 1944, Page 6

THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY

Comments —Reflection s

In September the American Institute of Public Opinion (Gallup poll) put the question: ‘‘lf rhe Presidential election were being held today, and Roosevelt wore running to President on the Democratic ticket against MacArthur on the Republican ticket, bow do you think you would vote?” Tire result was: Roosevelt 58 p.e., MacArthur 42 p.e. Similar “trial heats” pitting Roosevelt against Dewey and against Willkie showed: Roosevelt 59 p.e., Willkie 41 p.e.; Roosevelt 55 p.e., Dewey 45 p c. —■Report by Director Dr. George Gallup. * ♦ ♦

“The horror, devastation, destruction and disease which will lie in the wake of Japanese retreat will demand our control whether we like it or not. The minds of men will have been warped grotesquely by years of terror and lies. The native leadership which had developed' under the Western empires will have been either eliminated or defiled. No competent native bureaucracy will survive Japanese rule. One of the tragedies of this war Is that Japan in the name of freeing Asia has not only made it necessary for the West to conquer it again, but has a.so undone the constructive achievements, modest, as they were, of Western imperialism.” — “Atlantic Monthly.”

“There are two conclusions which, it seems to me, must be reached by anyone who examines carefully the mass of available information about the Bal Lans today. One is that the arrival of Anglo-American forces would be welcomed wholeheartedly by a great majority of the people, bot.li in those couh tries officially occupied by the enemy and actively resisting him and in those countries which the Germans call allies and we call satellites. The other conclusion is that, despite all the difficulties with which they are confronted, the Germans intend to defend their Balkan conquest and will contest every bit of this predominantly mountainous terrain.”N.Y. “Tlfcrald Tribune” correspondent in Turkey.

“Information reaching Washington leaves no doubt that Rumania and Hungary and probably Bulgaria want to get out of the war as quickly as possible and that the Finns, who are in the most difficult position of all, yearn for a way out of their dilemma. Turkey naturally is concerned about the future of the Dardanelles and interested in obtaining a wore defensible European boundary. But it is believed in Washington that Turkey will formally enter the war whenever the signal is given from Washington and London. The accession of Portugal is possibly less valuable now than it would base ‘been nine months ago. when the blind spots of the Allied anti-submarine patrol had not been covered by escort air-craft-carriers. Sweden’s future course obviously depends largely on whether Allied forces invade Norway. It is not infrequently predicted in Washington that within a few months there will be no neutrals left, except probably Swit-. zerlaud and possibly Argentina. Switzerland is valuable to all belligerents for the exchange- of information concerning prisoners of war, etc. Argentina has completely ‘missed the boat.’ What she does is no longer of consequence to the Allies and probably cannot retrieve any of the prestige she has lost.”— Washington correspondent of “Free World.”

“The punishment ’of war criminals is one of the declared war aims of the United Nations. . . . There is no crime in being a soldier even in an evil cause. It is not criminal to belong to a political party, however wrong‘toe its ends. Sueh matters are for the conscience of the soldier or party member. But the possession of a uniform or of a coloured shir.t docs not confer a right to rob, torture and murder at will. Some soldiers and some Fascists have acted as though they did; and it is these who have to be discovered and tried. It is not an easy task. We must not only distinguish the goats from the sheep, but prove that they are goats. One of the major crimes of fascism is to use law merely as an instrument for the political ends of State or party. And one of our major aims is to restore law to' its supremacy. To achieve this we must not only exercise justice in trying war criminals but show to the compatriots of the accused that justice is being done and that we are not merely seeking vengeance and the destruction of those who have been our most ruthless and implacable foes. One exception will have to be made. The leaders of . States must be subject to executive action, not to judicial process. Their own public acts and utterances have convicted them; the whole free world has been their judge and their condemner.”— “An International Lawyer” in the London “Observer.'

“The all.-inclui=ive State would make for war. rather than for peace. Economic decisions an'd competition between one country and another would be moved from the realm of private deci sions into the domain of grand strategy between States. Business men of one nation would no longer operate in personal competition with those of another. AU business between people of different nations would be one State against another, with their armies and navies' backing up their arguments. If the case against the all-inclusive Stale is so strong, why have we been moving, however reluctantly, more and more toward it in recent years? . . . The drive toward State action springs from the frustration of powerful innate psychological urges, among them the desire of each normal individual for a reasonable degree of economic security, and the desire to participate or to ‘belong.’ The only democratic solution for this is for business to balance the efforts of government by accepting social responsibilities for the cure of unemployment and for wider dispersion of the benefits of technological advance. If business follows the advice of some of its wisest respresentatives, industrial leadership will by co-opera-tive measures show the way to job security and higher standards of living. Thus it will remove by so much the reasons for State intervention.”—Dr. Harold Willis Dodds, President of Princeton, U.S.A., University.

The Bureaucrat. I know everybody’s business And what everybody earns, And I carefully compare them With the income tax returns. But to benefit humanity However much I plan, Yet everybody says I’m such a disagreeable man —And I can’t think why. —King Gama, in "Princess Ida” (Gilbert and' Sullivan),.