LEAGUE OF NATIONS

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 14, 9 May 1933, Page 9

LEAGUE OF NATIONS

WHAT IS WRONG WITH IT?

THE ROOT EVIL

"What has been wrong with all the conferences, held in the interests of peace since the close of the war?" asked Bishop Sprott in an address at the opening of the Anglican Synod today. "Has it not been just this, that all the * nations concerned have approached the question' chiefly, if not exclusively, from the point of view of their own self-interest? This has inevitably aroused suspicion, distrust, and fear. .The result is that increasing numbers of people have become con-' vinccd that nationalism ,is the enemy, and that there can be no lasting peace till national sentiment has been eradicated. But can national sentiment boeradicated? Is it desirable that it should be? With what better thing can it be replaced?" To answer that question, said the speaker, we must ask another, namely, what is a nation? Ho then dealt with the distinction between' a nation and a state", and referred to suggested substitutes for nationality—cosmopolitanism and class consciousness. He said that'as it was iii the form of patriotism that national sentiment might be provocative of war, we needed to revise our conception of patriotism: This noble word had been "soiled by all ignoble use." We might say of it what, on a famous occasion, was said of liberty: "Oh patriotism, what things have been done in thy name!" " liv the truest definition of patriotism, probably few of us would claim .to possess it in any high degree. J> . . ROOT EVIL AND ITS REMEDY. 7 "As we reflect upon the present conditions of the world, I think we all feel that the root evil is an excessive individualism," ' said Bishop Sprott. "Many schemes are being propounded for idealing. With it. / These- schemes may contain valuable elements, which ought to receive full recognition; but so far as I am acquainted with them, they are marked by a serious, perhaps fatal, defect. They seem, to be relying upon organisation and government, which ultimately means coercion, to regenerate human society. So far as this is so, I believe they are doomed to disappointment. Ido not mean that organisation and government have no' function in human society. Of course, they have; all common action demands them, and, as they are good or bad, they influence human character for better pr for worse. But they do not go deep enough. The true antithesis to an evil individualism—the true remedy for it—is not organisation, not government, but brotherhood. Brotherhood is a spirit, and to imagine that it can bo produced by: machinery, however perfect, is to imagine a vain thing; is indeed, to use a common saying, to put |he cart before the horse. _ Our Christian faith traces the spirit of brotherhood to a quite other source— the source from which, I am convinced, such measure of brotherhood, as already exists and works in. human society, proceeds. I think we are far too pessimistic in this matter. So keenly do we feel tho evils of human society, that we forget what it is that makes us feel, thorn so keenly. There was a time when evils as great or greater existed, and were not felt to be wrong. It is the Very spirit of brotherhood already working that is awakening us to the wrong." i. .Whence came this spirit1? asked the speaker. Our Christian faith asserted that its source was, in •man's, common relationship to God. One relationship was dependent upon'the other—thebrotherhood and.,fatherhood. "Here, and only here, we find "the source and vitalising power of .that..brotherhood, which at last must overcome, that excessive and false individualism, which is the ultimate cause of all our -woe," he concluded. Thought, reflection upon the two foundation principles of our Christian faith, which we have known since childhood, is the imperative' need of the Church today—the imperative need of you and me."