Timely Topics

Northern Advocate, 15 December 1939, Page 6

Timely Topics

“One can scarcely believe (says the “Glasgow Herald”) that a gambler of such undoubted ability as Hitler

would not realise that the dice were heavily loaded

HOOLIGANISM IN THE AIR.

against him. He must know that hooliganism in the air can be applied with certainty only when the opponent is weak in defence and powerless to retaliate. “Similar tactics applied against the Allies would bring about a defensive action easily capable of destroying | the major part of the striking force land a riposte sufficiently strong and ■ deliberately directed to crush what [was left of a crippled air force. \ “It has been argued that .losses in I the air can be quickly made up and [that machines could be produced to | take the places of thoGe brought idown in the first raids. But the problem of manning the machines could [ not be so readily solved.

“A time would come, and come very quickly, if such drastic methods were adopted, when manpower would fail and the machine would become inoperative. Perhaps that explains Germany’s reluctance to launch her lightning war. One is left to theorise on how long she may care to believe the proverb that ‘ One sword keeps another in its scabbard.’ ” $ * ft # Vernon Bartlett, writing in the London “News Chronicle” under the caption, “What are we Fighting For?” concludes: W e

WHAT ARE• WE FIGHTING FOR?

have to realise that war may be —and I write as

one whose own small efforts since the Versailles Conference have been towards the abolition of war—a method of achieving human progress. It is a wasteful and hurtful method which crowds such an unfair amount of misery into so short a period. But if I believed that no good could come of it I should be admitting defeat at a time when courage and optimism are essential.

Have you forgotten how many peoples gained freedom a? a result of the last war? How many social reforms in this country were accepted almost without protest? Before 1914 women chained themselves to railings or went to gaol in order to achieve a universal suffrage which naturally and inevitably became law before 1918, and which is now so much a normal part of our Government that it is treated almost with contempt. It is a terrible indictment of us that we only demand these changes under the pressure of an outside danger, but let us not forget that the changes are made. Civilisation will not come to a standstill because we have not had the luck or the wisdom to prevent another war. Those of us who were in the last

war feel bitter and ashamed that our sons must now go out to fight. We can no longer prevent that. What we can do is to see that as much good as possible comes to the world from their sacrifice. The peace after this war will resemble the peace before it only in name. Even if it stopped tomorrow it would lead to social changes. The courage with which our young men fight death, with which the rest

of us put up with hardship or suffering, will surely depend on the sincerity of our belief in the ideas we are defending. That .sincerity will depend upon our determination to build a better and a more sensible world than the one we live in today. I, for one, thank God that I am

alive at this moment, although so much that I have believed in and have worked for has been destroyed. I thank God, for man is, opce more on the, march, and I and everyone who reads these words has the possibility, in ever so slight a degree, to influence that march towards better things.