NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23591, 27 February 1940, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS

ENTERING A NEW DECADE Thirty goes into 40 once in a century. The turn of the year is the turn of a decade, writes the Christian Science Monitor in hailing the new year. There is something epochal aboilt a decade. The character of a year is usually soon forgotten. But decades impress themselves more firmly on our memories. One finds labels lor them without much effort: the Gay Nineties, the Mauve Decade, the sedate hundreds, the trying 'teens, the twinkling twenties, the throbbing .thirties. In retrospect \i!e recognise that the years are what we have made them, having that* character which our behaviour imparted to them. The experience that millions call sheer misfortune while it is upon them they afterwards write off to their, own ignorance, or greed, or negligence: remember 1929?

NEW LAMPS FOR OLD "The 19th-century dream of European civilisation, which we British created, has vanished; a new concept is emerging, in which we have no part," said Mr. J. Middleton Miirry in a recent broadcast talk; "We shall be hiding our heads in the sand if we ignore this new concept because it is alien to us. Totalitarianism has come to stay. The question now at issue between the British genius and its mortal instruments is not, as we tend to imagine, how to resist totalitarianism, but how to accept from it only what is necessary and good, while rejecting all that is retrograde and evil —can we, by holding on to what is -best and only to what is best in our tradition —can wo preserve the idea and establish the reality of man's personal and responsible freedom in a new kind of collectivist society?" ; AMERICA AND THE WAR President Roosevelt addressed notable words to the United States Congress at the opening of the new session, but it is well to observe that, according to the Washington correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, Congressmen sat for the. most part silent and bored during the passages dealing with the foreign situation, and displayed a lively interest only in the President's references to new appropriations for the armed forces and his assurance that they were needed for defensive purposes alone. The burden of the speech, that it was folly for Americans to pretend that Hie war was none of America's business, that at the very' least America must strive to encourage the kind of peace that would lighten the troubles of the world and of America herself, that her lead in the matter of reciprocal trade agreements must be maintained, and that "we must as a united people keep ablaze on this American continent the flames of human liberty, of reason, of democracy, and of fair play"—all this may impress the people of the United' States more deeply than it apparently did their elected representatives. There is to-day, concludes the Spectator, not the smallest prospect of active American participation in the war, but at any moment some new turn of events may confront the United States with the necessity for tfiking a vital decision. DISILLUSIONMENT IN EIRE

The presence of Mr. de Valera at his party's *(Fianna Fail's) Convention proved to be at least as important as was anticipated, writes the Irish correspondent of the Sunday Times. Without him there would have been even more folly and even less enthusiasm, and, as it was, there was too much of the first and too little of the second. The atmosphere of disillusionment could not be mistaken, and one felt that but for the personality of the Premier the whole party might go up in 6moke. It is not that the Government has not carried out as large a proportion of its promises .as most Governments, but that these measures have not produced the results expected. Little impression is being made upon either the problem of partition or the problem of poverty. The rank and file seek to console themselves by beating the anti-British drum as vigorously as ever. English imperialism is blamed for the continuance of the border, and English capitalism, as represented by the Bank of England, for a supposed sinister influence over Eire's system of credit and currency which prevents her from developing her natural wealth. Mr. de Valera's Government, like Mr. Cosgrave's, inevitably loses in enthusiasm in proportion as it gains in understanding. Fundamentally, Irish political and economic interests are bound up with the welfare of Great Britain, and there is nothing at all that Eire can do to change this fact. Yet practically nobody admits this on a public platform, and the conventional ideology conflicts violently with the actualities which necessarily mould Government policy. EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT "The most urgent political post-war task is the settlement of Europe. It is here that the greatest number of powerful nationalisms occur," said Dr. Julian S. Huxley, the eminent British scientist, addressing the joint British and American Association for the Advancement of Science. "A league system will not work because it is a contradiction in terms. The absolute sovereignty of member States is irreconcilable with collective action for the benefit of the whole. Some abrogation of sovereignty—in other words a stop toward federation —is essential." Dr. Huxley suggested an executive organ, an advisory organ, an organ of discussion, a training organ, an organ of opinion, a budget, and in the present state of the world, an armed force. The executive organ he would restrict to a council, in which smaller countries could be represented. The organ of discussion would be some sort of assembly, not necessarily elected by western democratic methods, but representing functions as well as regions. For training he advised some form of international staff college. For moulding opinion back toward unity and away from nationalist separation, a broadcasting service and perhaps a film unit, newspapers and periodicals. The budget might be raised as a percentage levy. "As for armaments," he said, "if the European council alone disposed of military aeroplanes, heavy, tanks and heavy artillery (whose manufacture cannot be kept secret) effective disarmament could be imposed on member nations and yet Europe as a whole would dispose of a powerful force."