COMMENDATION OR CRITICISM ?

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 124, 28 May 1930, Page 10

COMMENDATION OR CRITICISM ?

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —Your condensed report of the-1 remarks of Mr. Harold Johnston, K.C., at the annual meeting of the League ■■ of Nations' Union reads like a thoughtful, contribution to the subject. It is nevertheless a very disappointing one. Is it fair to say that Mr. Johnston advises concentrating the attack on one front, viz., the combat against the idea of inevitability of war? If so, I .for one do not agree with his; strategy- I do not think that the idea of the inevitability of war is as fundamental and all embracing an issue as Mr. Johnston is reported to have made it. - ■, '

If he had said that most democracies are weak in the face of grave issues, because impotent individually, and supine collectively, they feel that the great things of life are beyond their concern or their j power to influence, then he would have been nearer the truth. But modern democracies feel this in regard to unemployment; in regard to the housing shortage; in regard to speculation, inflation, and depression; in regard to the inevitability of more borrowing- to reinedy_ the . evils of inflation and depression arising out of a borrowing boom; in regard, generally speaking, ton the wisdom of minding 'one's own business in the narrowest sense of the word, and of -treating as things indifferent most matters momentous to the Commonwealth. Meantime small groups; of well-inten-tioned: propagandists; seizing the standards of neglected causes, strive desper-; ately to keep them aloft. They do not fight on Mr. Johnston's one front. They fight on all fronts. They play catch as catch can with the situation as they come up agairisfc.it; they even resort to-propa-ganda slogans; they even appeal to the desire for peace-on'earth, goodwill to men—as powerful an instinct as Mr. Johnston's deep-seated impulse, "When the blast of war blows in men's ears to imitate the action of the tiger." I am sure ( that if Mr. Johnston were more actively connected with the League of Nations' Union he would do as they dograpple with issues. >as they arise ana use what scant means were available to meet the need of the" moment. He would find that the war menace arose not out . of the single obsession in regard to war s inevitability, but out of a plexus of causes running wide and deep into every organ and tissue 'of modern civilisation. He would, too, as the member of a very small band of organised and active workers, feel encouraged -ather than critical to think that its small means had accomplished relatively so. much. Mr Johnston's criticism was constructive, but like most criticism it failed m finding nothing to commend, and tne League of Nations Union movement is far more in need of commendation than of comment, of allies than advisers, of driving power than of .direction. As I have already, said, it fights and has to fight, on nil fronts and its ranks ar_e thin. Ana there to much to commend in the League of Nations Union. It possesses in my opinion one unique asset, a man who through good and evil report (mostly evil report) and regardless of heath, comfort and personal interest has given himself soul and body to the advancement .of - the movement-a man fortunately with far more endowments of mind and charac ter than the rank and file of us. Who' knows—seeing,that the rank and. fib of-us always wait till half a century after their deaths to acclaim our really great, but that ho is a great man. 1 allude to Dr. Gibb. Many a Moses leading a people out of the wilderness has gone, under-not for want of ragacious advisers, but for lack <k adherents to hold up his - hand*. In the moral earnestness and unflinching courage of a true leader there is far more power- of guidance than tho commentaries of the best informed and most sagacious of observers. The League of Nations is not something that will nappen if we "watch our step." It w something that is being made to happen by those whose hearts are in the cause. Ana, as Burns says, ' ■ ■ "The hearts aye tbe part aye ■ . That Biildca us right or, wrong. -lam'etC- F.L. COMBS.,