CALL TO YOUTH

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 296, 15 December 1939, Page 8

CALL TO YOUTH

Leadership in World Affairs Lies With Them AN OLD BOY’S CONTRIBUTION The problem of how an end could be put to war and the important contribution that it was within the power of youth to make were emphasised by Mr. H. H. Cornish, Solicitor-General, of Wellington, wheu speaking at the annual prize giving of the Palmerston North Boys’ High School last evening. To the boys of to-day, xvho would be no better than their parents but who had wonderful opportunities, he said, the world at the conclusion of the war would look for leaders to carry forward, possibly to conclusion, the progress that had been made towards doing away with lawlessness between nations.

He commenced by saying he was going to speak of the book, ‘‘Man or a Leviathan,” which had aroused great interest in London and elsewhere. Already it was shaping public opinion and public thought on one of the most important questions of the day: How shall mankind put an end to war? —not this particular war but war in general. The ruling note of the volume was one of high idealism. Why could not man live in peace? it asked. It was because the reign of law did not extend widely enough throughout the world. It was not a question of peace or war but of peace or law. It was simply because law stopped at the national frontiers that they had war to-day. The author’s remedy was to extend tho reign of law. There was no power over the nations compelling them to keep the peace. A State which recognised no superior and did what it desired regardless of other nations was a leviathan and that was the condition leading to anarchy. It came to this; That the nations would have voluntarily to surrender part of their sovereignty, leading to the conception of a super State—a leviathan above leviathans.

At first this notion had seemed to him to be repugnant, added Mr. Cornish. The British Commonwealth of Nations showed signs of becoming such a super State. The Dominions more or less pooled their resources and the bond was perhaps more sentimental than compulsory. The Anglo-French alliance had some of the elements of such a conception. Uider the United States the countries of. North and South America were being welded into a whole. The writer expressed the hope that an outcome of the present war would be a United States of Europe. His reasons for referring to the book were that some means should be found for putting an end to war and that it was to boys such as those at school the nations would have to look for leaders and they would be keenly sought after. His generation had carried the problem a little further forward and they would probably be able to make more progress again. The solution to the problems was not going to be found by any single individual, but if one was found it would be because a great many people had been thinking about them together. They might wonder what any person away out in the Antipodes could do to influence world thought but his reply to that was that this book to which he had referred was written by an old boy of the Palmerston North Boys’ High School—one of the foundation scholars, Edward Mousley.