Timely Topics

Northern Advocate, 26 January 1939, Page 6

Timely Topics

“In all that has to be said on the crisis of the moment,' it is easy to let some of the simplest things re-

“WAR SETTLES NOTHING,’'

main unspoken,” writes- the Bishop of Chichester in

“The Times,” London. “In the last 19 years grievous mistakes liavo been made by us, and expectations on which the defeated had a right to rely have not been fulfilled.

“There is a nemesis in these. things. For what we haye left ; undone, .we are bound to suffer. We ought not therefore to become, so absorbed in the shock of immediate events that we forget how much our own action ; and inaction are to blame for present conditions. Nor should we concentrate all our,.language 11 abput honour upon one vitally important .link in a chain of vitally important decisions. How often has It. been said that war- settles nothing?' And the tragedy is that the decision to go to war, made by the older citizens, has in the main to be carried out by the younger generation of men, who Wave had no say, nor responsibility of any kind, for the conditions behind the decision.”

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While the nations of the world outside Europe watched with, absorbed and sympathetic interest—-but at a

„ DEMOCRACY ON TRIAL.

distance—the xunfolding o f the grim drama of

Czecho Slovakia, the people of Britain witnessed and mdured the spectacle from the frontline trenches,” stated “Bound Table,” London.

The democratic system is oh atrial for its life, and the average citizen knows it. He has watched'with ad-miration-the fervent readiness of the German people to sacrifice individual comfort for the benefit of the community, and he has noted with envy the physical fitness and discipline of the German youth. He recognises the dynamic power thus engendered; and at the same time he is profoundly convinced that a ' democrady—once it is roused land inspired by; quality' bf leadership—can reach /"higher levels of attainment by the resilient individualism' contributes.

Democracy—in Britain, as in France —is waiting * Qr a lead. . Whether or not it is forthcoming is more important for the future pf < civilisation than even the production of Bren guns and fighting planes.