Timely Topics

Northern Advocate, 11 May 1939, Page 6

Timely Topics

? “Let a few facts and figures speak i for themselves,” says “New RhodesI ian”). “Elephants are being killed

at the rate of 36,500 a year, far in excess of their

THE SLAUGHTER OF BIG GAME.

reproductive capacity. Between 1000 and 2000 hippopotami are killed 'annually in their last remaining haunts, Tanganyika and the papyrus beds of the great Central African lakes. Only 'a few hundred white rhinoceros 'are left in two small areas 2000 miles apart. In considerable number of bl'ack rhinoKenya Colony, the last retreat of any ceros, these animals continue to be poached because of the superstitious medical value attached to their horns. The zebras are practically exterminated; the giraffe is to be found in numbers only in Kenya and Tanganyika, and its other living relation, the | okapi, is to be found only in a re- ■ stricted area in the Belgian Congo. | The Cape buffalo, once extremely common, ,is now rarely found.”

A correspondent, writing to “The Times” on the day following the speech in which Nlr Chamberlain cri-

ticised the want of faith revealed by Herr Hitler after,

MUNICH VINDICATION.

Munich, said; It would be all t oo easy, in the first flush of the freedom of speech which the Prime Minister has given us, to forget ultimate things. Denunciation may be selfishly satisfying to one’s moral sense, but by itself it is useless. The aim remains peace, not war; and, if anyone insists on driving Britain to war, her purpose in fighting will still be the peace of Europe. Those who care for peace are strengthened by the knowledge that even under the most militant Governments the desire for' peace runs through almost every home. There is no quarrel between the people of Britain and any other people. The call for service, to which every able-bodied man or woman in Britain must now respond, is the call to defend an ideal transcending national boundaries. The issue lies not between one country and another. It lies between all those, whatever their race or nationality, who believe in kindness and true speaking and just dealing and in the moral responsibility of men, and those on the other hand who scorn these things and. will readily subordinate any Christian principle to bring racial paganism. Europe has to be rebuilt on one or other of those foundations. Which?