The Scheme of Things

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 144, 14 December 1940, Page 17

The Scheme of Things

By M.M.&

With the editorial comment "A Christian Looks at the World," some very wise and beautiful thoughts are put forward by Sir Walter Moberley iv the English "Listener." He touches on the points that are in the minds of a great many people who have thought in the past, or are beginning to think now. The special theme on which the ideas are presented is: "What is to come after the war?" What came after the last war was so desperately disappointing. There was a rush for excitement and pleasure, and a loosening of all the ideas which had kept the world clean and wholesome. This rush was not made either by those who had worked themselves nearly to a standstill, or by those who had suffered terrible personal losses of those they loved best, and had been submerged in the great "River of Death" which overwhelmed so many millions of people in all countries and which left hearths and homes desolate. It was in the main made by those younger ones for whom such terrible sacrifices had been j made. To them the war was "vieux | jeu," and they did not want to be reminded of it. So the rush for pleasure and excitement began, and has practically never ceased,1 while a curious refusal to face.any kind of responsibility either in marriage or any other relation of life was also a feature.

Sir Walter Moberley writes: "The most serious insecurity of today is the insecurity of the individual. There is the insecurity of being able to continue in the former relation of life and business, and the growing political insecurity." He feels that Parliaments have declined in power and prestige, and public opinion has grown more unsteady, and ineffective. Elections take violent swings of the pendulum in this direction or that, and the fact that people have so much forsaken the country and herded up in towns has led to a continual change of mentality, and the part of the propagandist has been made only too easy. The writer feels that while formerly the people congregated in different directions according to their means and the West End of London was patronised by the rich, the poor live mostly in the East End. "Each mixes with his own class." says Sir Walter, "and so each is liable to view the other with suspicion and antagonism as strange and alien. If, as a nation we are much poorer after the war, and there is less to go round, this tension

may be increased. I don't suggest that as yet we have much class bitterness in this country, but. we have its beginnings: All this is to the bad." He urges that people shall consider this point of view seriously. There is a talk of the old "liberty, equality, and fraternity," and he would wish to see some real effort made later on to make this old trinity of words a very real thing. The question is "Can the morale of the peoples be made strong enough to stand the strain?" This view is very interesting, and is one that has occurred to many thinkers.

The suggestion is made that the only way to accomplish anything worth while is to carry the wartime sacrifices and plannings into the peace. The people are sacrificing individual liberr ties, properties, and incomes because of their sense of the common danger and in their strong determination to overcome, it. It is urged that "back to normal" must not, and cannot, be possible. People have had to tighten their belts for the duration, and the writer hopes that it will be realised that people can never loosen them again with a good conscience. As so much of the national life is being carried- on in the public interest it should be realised that it will be wise to carry it on and not to relapse into a sort of "Go-as-you-please"' business, a sort of life which has existed in the past and has produced the present impasse. Nobody wanted slums; nobody wanted poverty; nobody wanted war. Yet we have all three. The question is what is going to be done about it, for there are few people now in the world who dp not realise the deep-seated causes of war —the lack of conscience; greed and the presence of selfishness; and the absence of religion. All these things make a dreadful accusation against the past. It remains to be seen how the new world is going to be planned for the little children being born now, and those who are mere toddlers. Things are not happy and comfortable when money and work are scarce, and the country is only running on half-power. This will prove to be the case unless some very wise and strong heads are put into power to bring the world out of one of the most dreadful messes it has ever been in during its history, so far as is known. The great thing is to start at once and give the young ones some sort •of an ideal to live up to, and some belief in a Power to which they can and should appeal.