NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23504, 15 November 1939, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS

ENDURING STUFF OF LIFE "Perhaps the greatest service many of us can render our country just .now is merely to pretend that avo aren't feeling uncomfortable even if we are," said Lord Elton in a broadcast talk. "Then even if things look grim at the moment, we all have our memories. Sometimes perhaps the memories will seem almost too poignant to dwell on now —memories of old unshadowed holidays in wind and sun, of games with the children on long summer evenings on the lawn, or peaceful hours by one's own fireside. And yet, be sure, even though we do not know it, those memories will bo strengthening us now. They arc the enduring stuff of life, the deep wellsprings of our being on which we unconsciously draw until the dark days pass;"

UNREST IN THE REICH Discussing the effect of the recent insurrection in Bohemia and Moravia the military correspondent of the Daily Telegraph asks: —Can a rising of this nature be completely suppressed by ruthless punitive measures? A study of insurrectionary movements suggests a negative answer. It is easy enough to eliminate the less courageous and less determined elements of revolt, but successful guerilla warfare does not depend on numbers. A few elusive, determined and well-led bands can cause more damage and require larger forces to hunt them down than when it is a case of suppressing mob violence. What is important to guerillas is that sympathy with their cause should be widespread. They depend on assistance in concealment, provision of food and shelter, and what they chiefly fear is the treacherous communication of information to their enemy. In Czecho-Slovakia and Poland there can bo little doubt where the sympathies of the inactive inhabitants will lie.

WHY THE LEAGUE FAILED Hitlerism stands for the negation of that moral order without which life returns to jungle conditions wheie death lurks at every step and a contagious miasma poisons the air, writes Mr. J. B. Firth in the Daily Telegraph. Yet it would be a mistake to pretend even to ourselves that the moral order was securely established before Hitlerism or the Great War. I should be very well content to see the decent rules and conventions of political and international life decently kept, without insisting on a lofty idealist standard, for no ono can point to any country in any age and say that the moral code was then the unbroken rule of international life. It is pathetic to-day to read President Wilson's bravo words about the new era which he crossed the Atlantic to inaugurate. Wilson was wrong. Things did not turn out that way at all, and it is no good putting the blame on any individual man or country. The principle of collective security, admirable on paper and in theory, broke down because when it came to the supreme test statesmen realised that unless their vital interests were directly .threatened they would not be justified in plunging their countries into a big European war. Moreover, those who wore most zealous for the vindication of the moral principle had been among the most reluctant to provide the standing forces required. To put it bluntly, the world was not morally ready for the League and the Covenant, and the defection of tho United States was a mortal blow.

TO CONQUER HATE As one of the presidents of Toe H 1 want to call attention to its particular functions in the present emergency, writes Lord Halifax in a letter to the Times. An old play upon the letters of its name produced for Toe H the motto "To conquer hate," and it is perhaps the foremost task of all Toe H members to foster this spirit now. If our nation can prosecute and Jinish the work we are in without hatred it will have helped incalculably toward a victory of Christian principle, the only sure basis of eventual peace. The first object of Toe H, as defined by Royal Charter, is "to preserve among men and to transmit to future generations the traditions of fellowship and service manifested by all ranks" during the last war, in which the movement found its origin. This object lias been actively pursued by its members all over the world during the past 20 years in a great variety of ways which are familiar to the public. The spirit of this work does not change, but its methods are now being adapted to war conditions. Toe H is, of course, making its full contribution of men, both to the fighting services and to all forms of civil defence. These men will find supreme opportunities for preserving and transmitting "traditions of fellowship and service." I am confident that Toe II will not fail to make its full contribution, in spirit and in action, in the time of our need.

CHRISTIAN CITIZENS A message to citizens, and especially to Christian citizens, signed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and the Moderator of the federal Council of Evangelical Free Churches, has been issued from Lambeth Palaco. It is headed "Christian Citizenship in Time of War," and reads as follows:—Once again our country is at war. Bitter disappointment and distress must fill our hearts whon we realise the terrible significance of these words. But we have not sought this war. It has been thrust upon lis by the action of one man. On him alone lies the dreadful resonsibility of having inflicted this crime upon humanity. It is needless to enlarge upon the motives and principles of his action. Suffice it to say that if thoy were suffered to prevail all hopes of tho settled peace and freedom from fear for which the peoples of the world are longing, all hopes of any international order based on justice and freedom, would be banished from tho earth. They are an assault upon all that Christianity nieaus, or has meant, in the life of nations. It is therefore a supreme moral And, indeed, spiritual issue which is at stake. At all costs for the sake of tho world's peace and' order the policy proclaimed by the German Fuehrer must bo resisted and overcome. It is based on force. It must be met by counter-force. What this means must bo hateful to any Christian man. But there is no other way—would God there werel