NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23008, 8 April 1938, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS

CALL TO NATIONAL SERVICE All social service is national service, whatever form it takes, and none should be averse to it or exempt from it, writes Sir Edward Grigg, M.P., in the London Observer. But youth, when all is said, will bear the brunt of the struggle and its consequences, should it be forced upon us. Many young men may feel with deep conviction, that they would rather train for saving and enriching than for taking life, and I can see no lack of civic spirit in that. But military service is social service, too, and it may call for greater sacrifice. Let, then, the choice between military and non-military service be absolutely free, so long as some form of social service is rendered on the threshold of manhood by the whole of British youth. . NO SETTLEMENT BY FORCE The only way in which we can master the drift of events, says "Scrutator," writing in the Sunday Times, is a conversion of the mind of all countries, including Germany, to the view that war can settle nothing, and that a compromise is possible which reconciles tho legitimate ambition of Germany with the rights of the newer nations. Tho danger to peace is not in a cold calculation of its interest by any Power. The danger is in an outburst of sentiment which overrides calculation —in sympathy with a nation's struggles for its freedom, or in anger at tho oppression of a bully, in the loyalty which bids democratic nations to stand together or in the superstition that violence can cure violence or war erid war. ETERNAL BIBLICAL SPRING "The individual, selfish as he largely is, cannot live unto himself alone," says the Marquess of Lothian, writing on the "Influence of National Sovereignty." He needs some loyalty for the sake of which he will lay down even his own life. For several centuries the national state has been the main object for which in practice the mass of mankind has been willing to surrender their lives. Hence this anarchy, with all its demonic consequences, in which we live to-day. And now new political religions, Fascism and Communism, are claiming a similar dedication for new forms of state. None the less, though Christianity clearly needs to be revitalised and its theology restated, it remains true, as a noted Oriental scholar has ssyd, that .ill the real achievements of Western civilisation, the respect for human personality, the humanitarian movement, the abolition of slavery, individual freedom, the emancipation of women, the ideal of moral purity, the concept of social reform, the rise of democracy, the assault on war, the idea of the League of Nations, have all derived their greatest support and their greatest driving power from those who have drawn their courage and inspiration and devotion to God and man from the eternal springs of the Bible. THE COLONIAL ISSUE

"About two-thirds of the territory of the world is owned by the British nnd French Empires, Russia, the United States, China and Brazil, leaving about one-third to the remaining 60 or so countries, which include Germany, Italy and Japan. Is that fair?" asked Lord Arnold, a Labour peer, speaking in the House of Lords. "The British Empire and the United States own between them about two-thirds of the economic mineral wealth of the wcyld. Is that fair? Of the 25 commodities judged essential for modern life, the British Empire has adequate supplies in no fewer than 18. Germany has adequate supplies in four, Italy in four and Japan in three. Is that fair? It is this gross inequality in the ownership of the wealth and territory of the world which lias more than anything else to do with international unrest. What has the rule of law got to do with this gross inequality? If all the treaties in the world are kept, they will not redress economic grievances. There is still time to negotiate and settle this matter of the German colonies. HenHitler has not yet formally asked for colonies. He may do so, and if they are not conceded we might be precipitated into a war. What will posterity say if we should go to war about the transfer or non-transfer of some unimportant piece of tropical territory which not one i Englishman in ten thousand could accurately locate on the map? Yet that is what may happen unless our statesmen will show more expedition and vigour in getting things done than they have shown in the past."

MOST PRECIOUS HERITAGE "Criticism of the Church is fashionable and widespread in these days, notoriously enough," said the Rev. J. S. Whale in a recent broadcast. "Moreover, we Christians have only ourselves to thank, very often, for the indifference, the suspicion or the open hositility of multitudes. The Church has always been made tip, of course, of fallible, ordinary people; always weak, and never really worthy of their high calling. Yet the Christian Church is still tho most important single phenomenon which human history to show, stretching beyond the sight of any of us, across the continents and across the centuries; transcending ancient differences of blood and soil, speech and culture; failing and falling often enough, yet through faith rising again, to subdue kingdoms and to work righteousness. Centuries ago, in the name of Christ the Redeemer, tho Church of our fathers did battle with the gross materialism, sensuality and violence of barbarian society; it quenched the fires of Europe's savage and licentious paganism in the waters of baptism; indeed, in the name of the Redeemer it laid claim to the whole range of our human life from the cradle to the grave. The Church's faith and life are part of the very substance and structure of life as you and I still know it. We aro the heirs of the Christian ages, wherein that faith has been one of the master-passions of men, a lamp unto their feet and a light unto their path; the presupposition and basis of their civilisation, the driving force of their culture; the expression—in spite of all its tragic inconsistencies, divisions and degradations—of that life in God through Jesus Christ our Lord which is the most precious heritage of tho past to us modern m«u."