NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23154, 28 September 1938, Page 14

NOTES AND COMMENTS

ALLIED VICTORY MISUSED The misuse of their victory by the Allies is a heart-breaking "story of lost opportunities, says Dr. G. P. Gooch, the eminent historian, writing in the Contemporary Review. It was a tragic inistako to impose the Treaty of Ver- , sailles on a proud nation, to refuse oral discussion, to keep Germany out of the League, to demand impossible reparations, to invade the Kuhr. The Locarno policy came too late to undo the mischief and it was not followed up. Briand disappeared, and Barthou was as blind as Poincare. We are reaping what we have sown. A WELCOME CONDOMINIUM The agreement reached between the British and American Governments for the joint occupation and use of the Canton and Enderby Islands, situated on the equator in mid-Pacific to the north-east of the Fiji Islands, is not a great matter in itself, but its symbolic value makes it peculiarly welcome, says the Spectator. The islands are important to both countries as an air base, both countries have settlers there and both countries have claimed the islands. Instead of a prolonged wrangle over sovereignty it has been agreed to leave sovereignty in abeyance and share all the facilities of the islands equally. What is concerned is commercial, not military, aviation —which does not alter the fact that an air base is an air base —and it is emphasised that all that has been concluded, and that not in all its details as yet, is a working agreement, not a political settlement. Even so, this example of cordial Anglo-Ameri-can collaboration in the Pacific will not go unmarked by other Pacific Powers, and it is well that it should not. CZECH TRIBUTE TO BRITAIN Wise comment on the European crisis was uttered last month by the Prague newspaper Narodny Listy. The paper said: —We Czechs must begin all over again and try to recapture the atmosphere of 20 years ago, when the German Consul-General in Prague was the first to congratulate the head of the new State. It is clear that without peace in Czechoslovakia there can be no real tranquillity in Europe. This is an axiom which must bo admitted, whether we like it or not. Great Britain's attitude toward us is not only exceedingly gracious, but very honourable. If she did not recognise that our independence was of valuo she would simply allow Germany a free hand; but it is a counterpart that she cannot allow us a free hand either, since the fate of Europe, as well as the fate of the British Empire, is at stake. Britain has the right and the duty to participate in our affairs because we participate in Britain's. We have really a share in those armaments and that giant's strength, but it would be exceedingly naive on our part to imagine that the Powers were concerned only with helping us and nothing else. So long as everybody is on one side or the other of barricades, the Czecho-slovak-German problem is insoluble. We must endeavour to make it clear that we shall not be an impediment to an understanding.

IN PALESTINE TO-DAY "I trod the streets of Bethlehem, and flew north over Galilee and Samaria, looking down in wonder upon Nablus and Nazareth, Tiberias and Safad, and a score of other communities huddled among the wild hills or sprawling on the coast," said Mr. Malcolm Mac Donald, Dominions Secretary, in a broadcast talk on his recent visit to Palestine. "They are names with an eternal power to uplift the heart. They aro places for ever hallowed by the sacred story of 1900 years ago. They aro tormented to-day by strife and brutal violence. To see the Arab peasant riding along the country roads on his little donkey, you would think that no land was more peaceful. In Jerusalem, devout Jews were gathering in the streets for the celebration of one of their fast days, as though there, were no danger within a thousand miles of them. Yet armed soldiers and police patrolled the streets. Every bus in town or country is caged with thick iron bars across its windows, protecting its passengers from bombs. The third party involved in the controversy is Great Britain, the Mandatory Power, working under the authority of the League of Nations, bound by a solemn obligation to facilitate the establishment of the Jewish National Home, while safeguarding the rights and position of the Arab inhabitants of the country. Among our manifold responsibilities wo have no more delicate trust than our government of that tiny country which contains some of the Holy Places of Christians and Jews and Mohammedans alike."

STATE SERVANT, NOT MASTER

A striking denunciation of dictatorships was made by Mr. Joseph E. Da vies, American Ambassador to Belgium, speaking at the Welsh National Eisteddfod'at Cardiff. "Unless the rule of right prevails over the rule of might," he declared, "present day civilisation must disintegrate to the anarchy of the caveman age. Finite man —little man —has sought to substitute for'the living Christ man-made gods. For freedom, liberty, and the dignity of the human spirit, there are those who would substitute autocratic power, regimented subservience, and tyranny which, throughout the ages, men have died to prevent. Governments have been created upon the premise that democracy is a failure and out of joint with the requirements of modern economic and political life. Whole peoples have been indoctrinated by the propaganda of dictatorships into a state of mind which welcomes the thought that men exist only for the uses of Government, and that States do not exist to serve mankind. In the faco of these conditions, to you Welshmen, citizens of the British Empire and one of the world's greatest democracies, I bring a message from men of Welsh blood who are citizens of another and great younger democracy, the United States of America. It is a simple message. We reaffirm the faith of our fathers. From the New World wo bring back to you our belief that, there is a living God. Wo still bclieyo tliat the soul of man was created in the image of his Maker, that things nml institutions are of the earth, but that the spirit of man is immortally a part of God. We believe that Governments are of the earth, and therefore exist to minister to the needs of a mankind which is a part of God. We maintain that the State is not the master, but the servant, of man.