NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23616, 28 March 1940, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS

COMMODITY COMMISSARS Nine hundred and nine controllers control the nation's wool, notes tho Evening Standard. London. Five hundred and eighty-three controllers control the nation's timber. Between two and three thousand control the nation's food. Sixty-eight dictate to the paper industry. Sixty-six settle the aluminium business. Fifty-four look after leather. Fifty-four others have become little Hitlers in hemp. There are thirty .into Goerings, and fifty-one cotton Commissars.

THIS KNITTING Apparently difficulties over knitting wool and needles are not peculiar to New Zealand, to judge by the following editorial in the Times: —I he truth about knitting wool seems not wholly free of tangles. Every private knitter agrees that she cannot get the wool she wants, could not afford it if sho could get it, and would not be seen dead with tho wool that she can get. The knitting needle position is scarcely brighter. No one will sell her a pair of knitting needles, and a pair of needles is no use for any of the things she wants to knit for the Forces. And ■\ et unprejudiced observation seems to report that knitting has not been absolutely suspended. At any rate, in trains and omnibuses and other places where they sit. women have been seen going through the motions of knitting, and not with empty hands. Domestic expericnce confirms the suspicion that, no matter the difficulties or the expense. wool is procured, needles are found, or made up. in sets, and knitting is openly practised.

INTANGIBLE BUT REAL "The striking: unity of aim and effort of the whole British Commonwealth of Nations in this hour of common danger is a. landmark in the history of the Empire, and provides an impressive answer to those apostles of brute force and oppression who saw in the, very freedom of the British Dominions to choose their own dostinv such an unmistakable sign of British decadence." said Lord Sneli, the British Labour leader, in a recent address. "What a marvellous justification of the British tradition of freedom the Empire presents at the present time! It seems to possess some strong, yet invisible, quality which always—but especially in the times of danger—binds it together What is the secret of this unique power of cohesion ? We have known other Empires which boasted of their strength. Yet they passed away and are now only tragic memories. Why, since they died, does the British Empire lire? What quality sustains, it that they did not possess? Is ii not the binding, consoling and sustaining spirit of freedom which endows it with an inner strength; which gives to all its members an enduring trust because it is based upon a common purpose and inheritance? There have been many Empires both ancient and modern; but —saving only the British Commonwealth of Nations —there has never been one that had the insight and the courage to stake its life upon such intangible, yet such sure, foundations."

GOD. IN MAN'S IMAGE "We have been allowing ourselves to worship a God made in the image of all the social, cultural, political, ecclesiastical influences and systems which have formed the background of our world." said the I?ev. F. A. Coekin, Canon of St. Paul's, in a recent address. "We have come to identify the maintenance of them with the fulfilment of His will. We have come to think of their possible breakdown as equivalent to the frustration of His whole, plan. And now, when we are faced with the imminent probability of that breakdown, we have nothing left to worship but a God who must he nearly as sceptical and disillusioned as ourselves. Well there is no need to look very far for a more than adequate corrective of all this; for on this issue the Bible is perfectly clear. It is emphatic in its insistence that while there is a close personal relation between God and man, that man is made in the image of God. that does not justify us in what Heine described as 'returning the compliment.' and presuming to interpret the nature of God in terms of our own. 'God is not a man that Ho should lie: or the son of man that He should change His mind.' 'My thoughts are not as your thoughts; neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.' "

MAKING A BETTER PEACE Opinion is never static —it is still, for all our country's stern resolution, sensible,-reasonable and free from hate. But once the war becomes intensified and the real horrors begin our mood will change, writes Mr. Arthur Bryant, tho historian, in his new book, "Unfinished Victory." Civilian opinion will inevitably undergo the same imperceptible but unavoidable mental deterioration that 20 years ago culminated in the Khaki Election and the Treaty of Versailles. Dr. L. P. .Tacks has warned us that "the conditions for a good peace deteriorate with every day tho war is prolonged." And it may be prolonged a very long time. If the peace we hope to make is to be worthy of the men who are fighting to win it, its foundations will have to he laid now. They will have to be laid in our minds and wills. We must prepare for it in advance in the same way as we have prepared for war. Last time as a result of vast efforts and sacrifices we won victory- But wo did not win peace. We failed because we never took enough trou bio to do so. With tho tragic example of 1919 before us, wo cannot afford to wait until the public has become too embittered even to try to think objectively. Because of that failuro mankind has returned for a> second time in a generation to tho shambles. To some of us who fought in tho last war tho events of August, 1939, brought a spasm of torturing bitterness. For it seemed for a moment as though the sacrifice of a million comrades had been in vain. We were again at war with the same defeated enemy, and for the same ends. After tho greatest victory of modern times our elders had lost the peace. This time a younger generation has to bear the brunt of (lie battle. And through their courage and endurance it may be for us' to make the peace. Shall we be able to frame a better and more enduring one, and one worthy ol their sacrifice?.