Timely Topics

Northern Advocate, 29 July 1938, Page 4

Timely Topics

“With v/ar blazing in the Far East nd Spain, with Europe once more n armed camp, with fear of war obsessing the public mind everywhere, all thoughts and plans of social proress may well seem mere approprite to some other planet,” says Mr larold Butler, late director of the ntcrnational Office, Geneva. “No secret of intense warlike prejaratiens is made in a large number if countries. Progressively, the whole laticnal life and the activity of every individual is being subordinated to he requirements of the State in the went cf conflict. A country which feels 'self menaced and insecure is perorce driven along the same road. Individual freedom, and economic exjansicn are more and more cramped md distorted by the over-riding ne;essity of national preparedness. What vas last year a darkening shadow, new threatens to blot out the light irom the whole earth. War is al-. ready invading the social field. It has already blocked some of the main avenues cf advance, and may soon begin to sap the social edifice which this generation has raised. Should another general war break out, a total collapse is certain.” HSUS!

DARKENING SHADOW.

Lord Halifax, speaking on Italy and Abyssinia, says: “My conclusion is that refusal to recognise a situation

brought about in spite of the League may, of course, keep our principles intact on paper. If that were all that mattered, we might be well content with that Satisfaction. But when we find that refusal to face facts does in fact, keep resentment and antagonisms alive, and threaten understanding, then we have to consider whether it is right to abandon the substances for the shadow. I well recognise that that may be held to be a cynical confession of failure. “I think confession of failure is often the first step, and the best step, to better things. After all, most things produced by men throughout history have been evolved from a succession of failures —failures that have broken the hearts of men who have laboured in advance of their generation. But if the doctrine of non-re-cognition of failure had been adopted by our thinkers, or odr inventors, or our reformers, or, I would add, by our statesmen and politicians, the advance of civilisation would not have been made so smooth, and, indeed, I doubt whether it would, in fact, have been secured 'at all.”

CONFESSION OF FAILURE.