NO ROOM FOR PESSIMISM

Evening Star, Issue 25678, 29 December 1945, Page 9

NO ROOM FOR PESSIMISM

(Written by Mary Scott for the ' Evening Star.') New Year, 191 G, and peace on earth at last. This is what we have longed for and waited for and prayed for—and what are wo doing about it? Surely everyone is full of joy, of thankfulness, of gratitude, of hope and optimism? Strange to say, it is not so; instead, one hears too many groans and grumbles, too many complaints 'and fears. " Really, one hardly likes to listen to the news." "The world is in the most frightful mess." "It seems as though we're out of the frying pan and into the fire." What nonsense it all is. and how little Tight we have to victory and peace if that is how we mean to take it. Of course the world is full of difficulties, problems, disappointments; when was a post-war world anything else? Nations that have been united in a new and at times uneasy alliance *are certain to react against that unity when its dire need lias passed. People >vorn 6ut by years of strain and struggle grow quarrelsome and petty when at last the danger is removed. Politicians who have borne' an inordinate weight for many years find opposition in peace time the last straw. When even Mr Churchill conies down from his pedestal and grows a trifle peevish and querulous—and who has more right to such a lapse?—then it is not to be expected but that we lesser mortals should suffer badly from reaction. Let us, however, make up our minds not to exaggerate bur troubles. Perhaps the best way to get them in .perspective is siihply to look back oh the New Years of the last six years and to compare them with this, .which we find so full of problems ahd difficulties. There was 1939, with its hesitation, its vacillating, and its perplexity, its dreadful anxiety to know who was on our side and who against usj there was 1940, when we stood magnificently and perilously alone, facing the worst; there followed years of a desperate struggle for existence, of frantic effort, of tho forging of new alliances, of increasing hope, and dawning triumph. But still there were loss ahd fear, incredible difficulty, desperate heroism. And now, in 1946, there are success and peace—and we are grumbling because all the problems have hot been solved at once.

Faith and 6ptimism Were never more essential, more vital, than in this year that is dawning. •. To sigh and groan Over the immense difficulties that face mankind is to rank oneself with the defeatists. The world is always full of problems, and the crop is unusually heavy after a world war. That we can recognise their existence, can appreciate the urgent necessity for their solution, that we—the ordinary men and women in the street^— are no longer content to let things slide, to muddle along towards another war—all this is surely a sign of regeneration. The world has at last awakened to its responsibilities. The mass of the people are willing to take a share in bearing them; they are determined not to_ leave their fate in the hands of the politician and the big business man. The people as a whole are alive at last. " All Christian nations are now. ready to work together for peace and concord," wrote a religious critic the other day. <" All Christian nations"—the phrase gave me pause. Who, exactly, are the Christian nations? I do not mean by this the nations made up of individual Christians; these are to be found in all nations of the world. I mean'rather the nations who have conducted their national lives on Christian principles—and, more important still, have so approached their international relationships. " All Christian nations '' is a phrase that means to many of us, in our smugness, the British people, as a matter of course; after them—well after them—come the Americans; then possibly, the French, the Dutch, and various European nations. These we call the Christian peoples. I cannot help thinking that we flatter ourselves and the rest. Have the people of the world ever given'Christianity a real chance? Have they tried to conduct their affairs by the principles of the Sermon on the Mount? It seems as if there has been little enough attempt to follow Christ's teaching in the realms of industry, of international trade, of we love our neighbours as ourselves in our private lives,-we have certainly not carried the law into our international connections. In our business dealings, bot;h at home and abroad, we have put our own interests a great deal above those of any neighbour, whether individual or national. We have been unwilling to share our success with him, our scientific gains, our knowledge of good and evil. But if Christianity has not been given a fair trial as yet by the peoples of the world, surely that is not a cause for pessimism. Rather is it a sign that we may still hope for improvement, that the greatest experiment of all still remains untested. It brings an opportunity to every one of us, a pressing need for new effort, for fresh ideals, for more consistent practice of our beliefs. Wiry be content to say "Christianity is a failure"? Why not decicle to try it out? Here, possibly, lies our ultimate hope, the salvation from the destruction that is threatening every country in the world to-day. The failure of the past should serve merely as a clarion call to the new generation. But that generation, you say, is very tired. It has borne tile burden and heat of the day; ft has fought and conquered; now it has come home and wishes for rest. They have dono their bit; let them alone; it is for someone else to sort out the muddle. How natural that feeling of lassitude after severe strain, of depression when they take up once more a life that seems so insecure. But, because they have seen war and death close quarters, they must now gird on their armour once more and fight for peace. They must slay the enemy at home, in their midst, the pessimist who is shaking his head and moaning about the fear of another war. Let us remember those oft-quoted words of Clough's, which nevpr held a more pointed lesson than to-day:—

If hopes were dupes, fears may be flyers, It may be, in yon smoke conceal'd, Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers, And, but for you, possess the field. But for the pessimist, the doubter, the defeatist—there is no room for him in 1946.