POST-WAR REACTIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20011, 30 July 1928, Page 10

POST-WAR REACTIONS.

EVOLVING NEW REGIME. TURNING FROM LOOSENESS. PROBLEM OF MATERIALISM. The materialism which followed the Great War was not deliberate; people wore confused and could not seo what else there was in the scheme of things. A tendency to eschew religion as an ingredient of tho pre-war regime which it was desired to forget, did appear, but now, in England, there is u real reaction away from such mere looseness as had begun to prevail. The distinguished Roman Catholic priest, Oxford scholar, and author, Father Cyril Martiudale, who is now visiting Auckland, expressed this view yesterday in a discussion of post-war conditions and problems. "People are not deliberately materialistic siuco tho war," ho said. "They are confused and do not see what else to be. "Along with a lot of horrors and crimo the actual war produced an amount of unselfish heroism •• which, when remembered, brings tears to the eyes." Out of the war had been borne a lot of fine phrases about the New World that was to be, yet no one tried to formulate thought-out principles or clear convictions. Surging scntimcntalism had soon simmered down and one perceived tho "game oi graft and grab." Post-war Unsettlement. Older folk were unable to hand on anything definite to tho younger generation when peace had been restored. Old ideas, conventions and customs had been displaced but not replaced with anything new or better. Moreover, it was tho older peoples' ways which had caused tho war. fho young folk, therefore, did not see why they should worry about tho old regime sinco its disastrous consequences were fresh in their memory. This revolution in thought against old ideas had been gathering before tho war, but tho smash up of conventions during tho war had enormously accelerated and intensified the movement. Speaking particularly of this trend as it touched the English people, Father Martindalo said that, without realising it, they had lived very largely on sentiment, not thought; and by convention, not conviction. There had come about, then, a tendency to deny anything that had hitherto been asserted. Particularly was this evident in religion, in sex and in art. For girls, the simplest thing becaino to say and do just what hitherto they had not been permitted to do. Danger of Narrow Views. Boys began to appreciate machinery above everything else. Father Martindalo remarked that he had no lack of appreciation for mechanical advances, but ho desired to seo machinery included not substituted, in our lives. Substituted, it made a clean sweep of history. It narrowed a lad's outlook down to a tiny patch of human experience: that was to say, his own, and that of men exactly like himself. It tended to make him perfectly unable to follow an abstract argument. It was a weakening of the human mind. Surveying present day conditions in England, Father Martindalo said that regarding sex he had noticed a real reaction away from mere looseness such as had begun to prevail. Post-war religious conditions opened up a subject too large to be effectively dealt with in a few remarks. It was enough to say that vague generalities satisfied no one now. The whole of so-called undenominational Christianity had come down with a run. That indifference toward real spiritual life would have done more to de-Chris-tianise England than even Russian antiChrist ianism. The latter at least provoked resistance: the former merely sponged religious convictions out of the mind. Eettering International Relations. As a member of the committee of the British Catholic Council for International Relations, Father Martindale said the inspiration of the movement was obviously good, but (he machinery was obviously and necessarily imperfect, and the difficulty of obtaining governmental sanction for many of its best agreements was, perhaps, insuperable. "Personally, "I think it suffers from not having a philosophy of right and wrong as between nations, in which all its members are agreed," ho said. " It suffers, too, from having been at first thought by idealists to be a sort of sublime super-State. It also ran the risk of being fastened on to by all sorts of faddists. However, tho League of Nations had done a great deal of unsensational work of which* little was heard, connected with health, women, children and even departmental peace—work which would have justified the existence of tho League even if it disappeared tomorrow. I hope the United States' anti-war pact will not be merely parallel to the League, so lo speak, and that the latter will not ever look like a "League of Some European Nations," he said. " I hope that really intelligent attention will be paid by it, and everyone else to the East, Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan and, of course, to Russia, China and India." lie said ho desired to make it clear, however, that he was expressing no detailed opinion as to dun behaviour toward the religions of any of theso countries.