NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23284, 1 March 1939, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS

TRANSATLANTIC AIR LINKS The links between Great Britain and America grow more numerous almost weekly, says the Spectator. The television transmissions from' Alexandra Park (officially .limited to a 30 miles range) which were picked up in New York in January may as yet be only in the nature of a freak, but the event is clearly a portent. In the meantime the Air Ministry has promised a mail service across the Atlantic for the spring which will coincide opportunely with the visit of the King and Queen to America. Anything that links the two principal English-speaking countries more closely is to be cordially welcomed, and the initiation of an air mail service will certainly help to do that. It is premature to prophesy, but when letters can be conveyed across the Atlantic in 24 hours business will be promoted and personal contacts drawn appreciably closer. NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY The importance of regarding the New Testament as history is stressed by Professor C. H. Dodd, Norris Hulse Prolessor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge. "The Gospels are religious documents: granted," ho writes. "But they are Christian documents, and it belongs to the specific character of Christianity that it is an historical religion. Some religions can be indifferent to historical fact, and move entirely upon the plane of timeless truth. Christianity cannot. It rests upon the affirmation that a series of events happened, in which God revealed Himself in action, for the salvation of men. The Gospels profess to tell us what happened. They do not, it is true, set out to gratify a purely historical curiosity about past events, but they do set out to nurture faith upon the testimony to such events. It remains, therefore, a question of acute interest to the Christian theologian, whether their testimony is in fact true. No insistence upon the religious character of the Gospels, or the transcendent nature of the revelation which they contain, can makei that question irrelevant."

REFUGEES IN HISTORY "For anything comparable to the refugee problems that now confront the civilised world we must go back to the end of the seventeenth century, when 'man's inhumanity to man' fell heavily upon the Hugenots," writes Dr. G. F. McClearv in the Spectator. "From 1680 onward their emigration from France was on a very large scale. About 80,000 landed in England, and though many left for Scotland, Ireland, or America, the majority remained. They were welcomed with great generosity. The refugees more than repaid what they received. They included large numbers of hard-work-ing, highly skilled adepts in many trades that had not previously been practised with success in this country. Their coming brought about a muchneeded expansion of British industry. The homeless people who are now seeking a refuge also include large numbers of highly skilled workers. Many have won distinction in science, the arts, the professions, technology, or commerce. Some are of international reputation. Such people would enrich any country in which they settled. To imagine that the refugees are carriers, so to speak, of germs of unemployment is to misconceive the position. Our ancestors fortunately held no such mistaken views about the Hugenots."

EASTERN ROAD BUILDERS The report that America's £5,000,000 credit to China would bo spent on motor lorries, comments the Spectator, has already drawn attention to China's new road from Chungking, on the Yangtse, to the Burmese frontier, 1400 miles away; from the frontier there is road communication with Rangoon and elsewhere. On his arrival in London recently, the United States Ambassador to China described how on December 12 he set out from Chungking on the first journey by private car made along the road. The entire journey to Rangoon, a distance of 2100 miles, was accomplished without accident in 13 days. He described the building of the road as a brilliant achievement, as it was performed entirely by native labour, with no roadbuilding equipment, unless bullock-carts count as such. But China will bo well repaid for her labour. The road offers her safe communication with Rangoon, as a source of supplies from the Western world; it is now said to bo in regular use. The benefit to China should be shared by Britain and other countries whose trade has suffered injury by the Japanese occupation of China's ports. Indeed the road may offer exceptional opportunities for the development of Rangoon as an avenue for British trade with China. For the present at any rate China's purchasing power will be concentrated in her Western provinces, and to them the new highway gives direct access. A GREATER BROTHERHOOD "Perhaps no year since the coming of Christ has loomed so darkly upon its predecessor as 1939 looms above 1938, said the Poet Laureate, Mr. John Masefiekl, in a recent broadcast. "What is to come is still unsure, but all who look out upon 1939 know that it threatens a great blackness and bleakness upon the soul of man, all over the world. Against that darkness wo have little visible comfort. When we come to look for comfort, there is little to be found in guns, or aeroplanes, or a wealth so uncertain that many have none, and few can count on any over to-morrow. Such comfort as these things give exists only by virtue, of that measure of brotherhood enforced by fear. There is another brotherhood. The rallying cry of tho old English sailors as they hove at the bar or on tha tackle was ' One and All.' I do not mean the massing of a flock of sheep round its most dangerous member in some joint imbecility in the presence of supposed danger. I mean the discovery of the importance of each soul among us, by reason of the beauty of her gift, so unlike the gift of any other soul. That discovery leads to the real brotherhood, and to the source whence all brotherhood and power proceed. Nothing so great can be attained without will and effort. Where all are brothers, all are strong and enduring; and therefore mighty. Where all are well-taught, many are wise and some illuminated. Where the soul with her gilts is the standard of riches, a nation i,«a wealthy and her future sure. In all such brotherhood men have within them and about them a power unshnkeable and unbeatable, whoso light may ehine for centuries." „