NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23574, 7 February 1940, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS

REALITY OF NAZI MENACE Declaring that this was not a war but a crusade for international decency, tho Dominions Secretary, Mr. Anthony Eden, wont on in a recent speech to warn his hearers against belittling tlie present menace. Nothing could be more foolish than to underrate tho magnitude of the task. "The German machine is ruthless." he said. "For years it has had the whole resources of a powerful State at its command. Germany's whole 'economy has been twisted for war purposes. But if the effort called for from us as a united people is very great, the stakes are tremendous also. We want neither territory nor privileges, but we do seek, not only for ourselves, but for all peoples, both small and great, the right to live lives in freedom and at peace.'' OCEAN'S IMMENSITY "I have heard it said that hunting out a raider or a. few submarines across the Seven Seas is like looking for a needle in a haystack. It is worse; it is like looking for an active and disappearing needle in one of the several haystacks," said Major-General Sir Ernest Swinton in a recent broadcast talk, "Now as to some of these 'haystacks': the area of the North Sea is .23 million square miles. The area of the Atlantic is 314 million square miles —that is to say, 138 times as great. As to visibility—visibility from the masthead of a ship on a clear day is 10 miles; visibility from an aeroplane, when the ship carries one, is 50 miles, if you assume the Atlantic to be the top of your writing table, the range of vision from the masthead of a ship would be no more than the space covered by the point of a pencil, while that from an aeroplane woidd be no more than that covered by the butt." OVER-CONFIDENCE WEAKENS The facile assumption that the stringency of the blockade on Germany •will be as effective now as it was 21 years ago would mislead and ensnare the incautious, says the London Observer. In the former case Germany and the territory she controlled was surrounded by enemy territory except for Switzerland, Holland and the Scandinavian countries. To-day, by contrast, except for France, Germany is wholly surrounded by neutral countries. She can trade and obtain foreign exchange from the Scandinavian countries, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Rumania, Russia and the Baltic States. The exports scizable by the British Navy are those only which attempt transit on the high seas. There is a sternly practical difference in the modern instance. It is, therefore, a matter of elementary strategy that wo should scrupulously estimate both our own and the enemy's' potential resources, and act betimes. The fact is that our own resources are not what they were. Our balance of payments in foreign trade is heavily down, our indebtedness swollen, our reserve of purchasing power in American and other securities depleted, the door closed to American credits. The Dominions fill part of the breach. Our object, formidable but achievable, is to make such use of our existing resources that the economic • weapon shall be irresistible. To count upon the enemy's weakness is to be weak oneself.

WHAT HUMANITY MIGHT BE In the New Testament we are given a glimpse of what humanity might be," said Dr. W. R. Matthews, Dean of St. Paul's, in a recent address. "As we all know, the writers of the New Testament believed that Jesus Christ had revealed to us not only what God is but what man is intended to become. There is to be a fuller revelation, or shall we say a more obvious one? This is sometimes called the second coming of Christ. In the Epistle to the Ephesians we are given a wonderful vision of what that may mean. It speaks of the building up of the Body of Christ, and goes on, 'till we all attain unto the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a full-grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. That is what the Christian Gospel means by progress, and that is its interpretation of the meaning of man and his struggle. Mankind will not be mature, will not have grown up and shown all that there is in it to be expressed, until there is an allembracing community in which the spirit of Christ prevails and men live together in mutual trust and love. Wo are far off indeed from any such consummation. llow bitterly exiled we are from that true home of our spirits every morning's news brings liomo to us, but at least we have set before us an intelligible meaning for the vaguo word 'progress,' and one which in our saner moments we can recognise as truly satisfying."

• LIMITING WAR AIMS In his latest book, "Our War Aims " Mr. Wickham Stood argues that from Frederick the Great through Ficlite and Houston Stewart Chamberlain to Hitler, German}' has always followed false prophets, and we are fighting her at least as much because she is wicked as because she is aggressive. When she is conquered, and reduced to the boundaries of 1919, democracy must return to Berlin in the baggage of the Allies, ft makes a well-documented and, needless to say, an eloquent theme, comments Lord Elton. And yet it is impossible to forget that there is an alternative, at least as plausible. It is possible that wo are fighting Germany not because she is wicked but because she is aggressive. In some ways, indeed, this is a more hopeful thesis than Mr. Steed's. Fory although Germany may always have been wicked, it is evident that she has not always been aggressive. From 1795 to 1806, under autocratic government, Prussia was a byword for neutrality in a warring Europe. From 1815 to 1864, also under autocratic government, Prussia was the only great European Power which nevoc wont to war. Clearly it has at least been possible for Germany, however bodevilled by false prophets, and howevor despotically ruled, to live at peace with her neighbours. To-day to make Germany unaggressive is a sufficiently formidable war-aim in itself. To make her virtuous also, to force democracy upon her, upon ' the point of the bayonet, may, it is true, prove to be the only means of rendering her unaggressive. But until it does, Lord Elton concludes, there is something, and more, perhaps, than Mr. Steed would allow, for confining our war-aims for the present to their irreducible [..minimum,