THE PLIGHT OF ETHIOPIA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22400, 22 April 1936, Page 17

THE PLIGHT OF ETHIOPIA

Sir, —Many readers of the Herald (Saturday, April 18), will bo astonished to learn 'on the impartial authority of your correspondent, Mr. C. W. H. Pickering, that the. Italians and other "lesser breeds without the law" are "purely materialistic." One of those readers humbly begs leave to protest against the perpetuation of this species of "Christian" clap-trap. History, art, science and law combine to refute it. No insular prejudice or national hypocrisy will ever dim the transcendent human that the world owes to Italy a debt of civilisation and culture it can never adequately repay. Was it not from Rome and an Italian Pope that, unless scholarship errs, the "Christianity" to which your correspondent appeals came to Britain? And was it not Lord Bryce who forcefully reminded us that a single Italian city (Genoa) produced in two generations more men of culture and genius than Britain evolved in a thousand years? Some of us are old-fashioned enough to join with the International Red Cross authorities in entertaining a serious doubt that men of the race of Dante and Saint Francis of Assisi have, in the year of grace, 1936, stooped.to the savageries so loudly imputed to them. Your correspondent quotes with satisfaction the parable of the Good Samaritan but, after persusing his letter, many will regret that he (and others) have overlooked a parable much more apt to the Ethiopian affair —the Pharisee and the Publican. Leonardo da Vinci.