GOVERNMENTS & PEOPLE

Evening Star, Issue 19617, 25 July 1927, Page 8

GOVERNMENTS & PEOPLE

HO LONQER IN CHARGE SCIENCE. FINANCE, AND THE PRESS ’ ' THE BIG THREE. * . .In connection with the international congress of tho Rotary movement at Ostend m Juno last, ‘Tho Meaning of Rotary,’ by a Rotarian is a timely book, and it is made notable (says Public Opinion ’) by a stirring introduction .by Mr John Galsworthy, the well-known novelist, who deals with the world outlook as ho sees it today. Mr Galsworthy says:—

' Looking the world in the face wc see what may ho called a precious mess. Under a thin veneer—sometimes no veneer —of regard for civilisation, each country, groat and email, is pursuing its own ends, struggling to rebuild its own house m the burnt village. Tho dread of confusion-worse-confounded, of death recrownod, and pestilence revivified, alone keeps the nations to the compromise of peace. What chance has a bette: spirit? “ ‘ The exchange of international thought is the only possible salvation of the world,’ are the words of Thomas Hardy, and so true that it may be well to cast an eye o/or such mediums a* wo have for the exchange of international thought. ‘ The Permanent Court of International Justice ’; ’ Tho League of Nations ’; ‘ Tho Pan-American Congress ’; certain 1 sectional associations of this nation with that nation, tarred somewhat with the brush of selfinterest; sporadic international conferences concerned with sectional interests; the re-cently-founded P.E.N. Club, an international association of writers with friendly aims, hut no political intentions; the Boy Scout movement; and the Rotary international movement. These are about all, and they are taken none too seriously by tho peoples of tho earth.

“ Tho salvation of a world in which we all live, however, would seem to have a certain importance. Why, then, is not more attention paid to the only existing means of salvation? The argument for neglect is much as follows Force has always ruled human dfe—and always will. Competition is basic. Co-operation and justice succeed, indeed, in definite communities, so far as to minimise tho grosser forms of crime, but only because the general opinion within the ring-fence of a definite community gives them an underlying force which tho individual offender cannot withstand.

“There is no such ring-fence round nations, therefore no general opinion and no underlying force which the individual offender cannot withstand. There is no such ring-fence round nations therefore no general opinion and no underlying force to ensure tho abstention of individual nations from crime—if, indeed, transgression of laws which are not fixed can bo called crime.

“ There is the average, hard-headed view at the moment. If it is to remain dominant there is no salvation in store for the world. ‘ Why not?’ replies the hard-head. l lt always has been the view, and the world has gone on.’ Quite true. But the last few years have brought a startling change in the conditions of existence—a change that has not yet been fully realised. Destructive science has gone ahead out of all proportion. • “It is developing so fast that each irresponsible assertion of national rights or interests bring the w jrld appreciably nearer to ruin. Without any doubt whatever, the powers of destruction are gaining fast on the powers of creation and construction. In the old days a thirty years’ war was needed to exhaust a nation f It will soon bo (if it is not already) possible to exhaust a nation in a week by the destruction of its big towns from the air. The conquest of the air, so jubilantly hailed by the unthinking, may turn out the most sinister oven that ever befell us, simply _ because it came before we were (it for it—fit to act reasonably under the temptation of its fearful possibilities. “ The use made of it in the last war showed that; and the sheep-like refusal_ of the startled nations to face the new situations, and unanimously ban chemical warfare and the use of flying for destructive purposes shows it still more clearly. No one denies that the conquest of the air was a great—a wonderful—achievement; no ono denies that it could be a beneficent achievement if the nations would let it be.

“ But mankind has not yet, apparently, reached a pitch of decency sufficient to be trusted with such an inviting and terribly destructive weapon. We are ail familiar with the argument. Make war dreadful enough, and there will be no war. And we none of us believe in it. The last war disproved it utterly. Competition in armaments has already begun, among men who think, to mean competition in the air. “ Nothing else will count in a few years’ time. We have made by our science a monster that will devour us yet, unless by exchanging international thought we can create a general opinion against the new powers of destruction so strong and so unanimous that no nation will care to faco the force which underlies it.

“The answer to the question; Is there to be happiness or misery, growth or ruin for tho human species, does not now lie with government. Governments arc. competitive trustees for competitive sections of mankind. Put destruction in their hands and they will use it to further the interest of those for whom they aro trustees; just as they will use and even inspire the spiritual poison gas of pressmen. The real key to the future is in the hands of those who provide the means of destruction. “ Are scientists (chemists, inventors, engineers) to bo Americans, Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, Japanese, Russians, before they are men, in this matter of tho making of destruction Are they to be more concerned with the interests of their own countries, or with tho interests of tho human species? That has become the question they have to answer now that they have for the first time tho future of tho human race within their grasp. Modern intention has taken such a vast stride forward that the incidence of responsibility is changed. It rests on Science 'as never before. ... “To sum up, Governments and Peoples are no longer in charge. Our fate is really in tho hands of the three great Powers— Science, Finance, and tho Press. Under, neath the whowy political surface of things those three great Powers are secretly determining tho march of the nations; and there is iittlo hope for tho future unless they can mellow and develop on interna, tional lines. In each of these departments of life there must bo men who feel this as strongly as tho writer of these words. “The world’s hope lies with them; in the possibility of their being able to institute a sort of craftsman’s trusteeship for mankind —a new triple alliance of Science, Finance, and tho Press, in service to the good of mankind at large, with tho motto: y Do unto others as ye would they should do unto you.’ Nations, in block, will never join hands, never have much. in common, never be able to sec each other’s point of view, Tho outstanding craftsmen of tho nations have a far better chance of seeing eye to eye; they have the common ground of their craft, and a livelier vision. “ What divides them at present is a too narrow sense of patriotism, and—to speak crudely—money. Inventors must exist; financiers live; and papers pay. And, here, Irony smiles. Science, Finance, and tho Press at present seem to doubt it, but, just as in business there is more money to be made in tho long run out of honesty and fair play than out of a policy of ’ skingame,’ so in life generally there is moro profit in the salvation of mankind than in its destruction.

“ And yet, without tho free exchange of international thought, we may bo fairly certain that the present purely national basis of human existence will persist, and if it does tho human race will not, or at least so meagrely that it will bo true to say of it, as of Anatolo France’s old woman; ‘lt lives, but so little!’” The book contains chapters on ‘The Object of Rotary,’ ‘The Ideal of Service,’ ‘ Service in Vocation,’ ‘ Community Service,’ ‘ Rotary and Industry,’ ‘ Acquaintance and Fellowship,’ etc. Those interested in the Rotary movement and those desirous of learning all that it, stands for should find this volume of service.