NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23618, 30 March 1940, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS

PEACE TERMS FOR GERMANY "When Germany is ready to return to civilisation she must be embraced on terms of partnership, not of servitude," said Sir William Beveridge, Master of University College, Oxford, speaking in London. "Unilateral disarmament of Germany has already been tried and failed. This time such a policy is impracticable in face of the growth of aggressive Communism in Russia. Germany cannot be forcibly divided, or made impotent and bo kept so. except by permanent military occupation in force sufficient both to keep her down and keep Russia out. We should avoid saying anything which may strengthen the Germans in desperate support of their present leaders. We should propose peace terms for tliem such as wo would be ready to accept for ourselves."

DISCIPLINING PEDESTRIANS The British .Minister of Transport wants to help pedestrians. He will do so most effectively if he will ensure that the individual can be seen and that his movement can be foreseen, writes Lieutenant-Colonel Mervyn O'Gorman in a letter to the Times. Instead of advising that something white ho worn he must ordain it. Instead of suggesting that they keep to the left of the footway he must require it. He must also say: "Cross the carriageway at a right angle or at a pedestrian crossing," not "1 would prefer you to do so." Ho must build up a habit, not a sense of option. When a habit is general it can be foreseen and acted on. Sea traffic would be in a permanent fog if it were optional "to show your helm" or to observe the rule of the lights in passing. ATHENS AND SPARTA AGAIN

The Frenchman wants to win the war. and the Englishman to make the war worth winning, writes Mr. Vernon Bartlett, M.P., in the News Chronicle. Although they both ask above all that they shall bo allowed to live their little lives undisturbed by clashes of arms, their methods of assuring that security differ so much that constant and closer contact between them is essential. But in tbe last resort in both countries the State exists for the welfare of the individual, and in Germany the individual exists for the welfare of the State. It is the same old struggle between Athens and Sparta all over again. And, much as one may admire the subservience of the Spartan individual to his State, it is the Athenian individualist whose contributions to his State and to civilisation in general are still gratefully remembered to-day. To that extent, at least, time is on our side.