POINTS FROM SPEECHES

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 40, 16 August 1921, Page 2

POINTS FROM SPEECHES

NEED FpR MORAL COURAGE THE PATH OF MERCY.

( (FROM OUR OWN COKRgSPONDENI.) LONDON, 16th June. Mr. Winston Churchill, to the representative of the Rockefeller Foundation : " A few years ago a company was assembled here with minds concentrated upon improving by every scientific, refined, and hyper-civilised means the methods by which German life could be destroyed. They considered questions connected with high explosives, poison gas, submarines, and many other matters highly technical,- but all very relevant at that time to the business they had in hand. "Now you are gathered oa a very different errand—the cause not of death but of life—not of destruction but of Organisation, and of placing all the animals in their proper spheres and cages, from . the irritating mosquito which flaunted its wings on the banks of the Niger to the objectionable bacillus which infects the milk of the Malta goat, and the detestable tsetse which, on the shores of the Victoria Nyanza, omits to brush its teeth, and so, when it has taken its breakfast from an unhappy sleeping sickness infected native, is bound to transfer that objectionable reminiscence to the next object of its attachment. (Laughter.) It all brings us back to the great saying that dirt is good matter in the wrong place. (Laughter.) We are not against the mosquito, or the tsetse, or the bacillus, but we want them in their proper spheres. In fact, it is no use being against them, because one never knows when they will turn up. . (Laughter.) The achievements which scientific bodies have made in this great sphere are well known. Yellow fever has beep practically stamped out. Malta, fever was wiped out by a- single discovery. Tuberculosis is now being attacked by the Rockefeller Eoundation throughout the length and breadth of France. These are wonderful crusades, and we have this feeling in regard to them, that, as we march forward, we are marching not only on the path of science , but on the path of mercy, along a road which; as we pursue it higher arid highet, stage by stage, will set free the human spirit aVid^every form of spiritual activity. The study of tropical diseases is a work of mercy and urgency similar to that which prompts mei 1 to hurry to the sea,, coast on a stormy night and J.ake the lifeboat out to a ship in distress. It is a line of defence in which all can join hands, friends or foes, wherever they may be found. Science moves forward, and the victory which is gained ir any part of the field is immediately shared in every other part. It is not like the struggles of war, where, when the patrol reaches a point, it might be weeks or months before the army could draw ,up there.. In science the patrol that the truth marks the, point upon which immediately the whole forces of the world can' advance. Let us go forward together. We came out of the war with all kinds of knowledge and . possibilities which we never had before. On the other hand, we have c'bme out greatly weakened in the means of execution—weaker morally, physically, mentally—and we must expect for a few years to be in the trough of the sea., It we can achieve groat results for the .purposes of destruction, surely only half a similar effort would carry us forward intp a brighter and bet-, ter sphere in this work of organisation.' 1" • '-■ ■■..■'"'. •,. „