NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume 78, Issue 24085, 2 October 1941, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS

DESTINY IN THE BALANCE While we watch the swaying of those ponderous scales in Eastern Europe, I writes Mr. J. L. Garvin, the pulsations I of our own very being are stirred. And why? Because in that balance so much of our own destinies may lie weighed for ever and perhaps our all. What we hope that the Russians by colossal enj durance and sacrifice may do for us ; let ms see that we do for them. On our own side and in our own wav we must match our Allies by throwing everything in. We must lift Britain's human effort to the 100 per cent and bring production to the peak. LIGHT OF THE WORLD "Ilie immediate outcome of the war will not be- for good or ill—final beyond all possibility of change. National characteristics will remain, here and elsewhere." said Bishop Barnes in an address to the Birmingham Diocesan Conference. "National pride and national tenacity will not disappear before the bombing aeroplane, nor will they yield to a bureaucracy, however efficient. A had peace would not be a permanent settlement of Europe. It would more likely be a source of furious discontent, a stage on the road to a lurther conflict, with its attendant evils of iinder-nourishment, national bankruptcy, and bitterness or despair. So we return to the truth that cannot, he too oiteu emphasised. The only way to prevent Western civilisation from destroying itself is to persuade peoples and their leaders to base their conduct upon Christian principles. Friendly cooperation, goodwill and fair dealing could within JO years create for mankind a civilisation marvellously fine and rich. Must we go down to the depths before men see in Christ the light of the world?" GERMAN MORALE While it would be a grave mistake to over-estimate the signs of warweariness in Germany, writes Mr. Peter Matthews in the News-Letter, yet it would not be surprising if, after eight years of Nazi "hustle," there were signs of weariness, apathy and discouragement among the Germans. The great superiority in arms and equipment with which the Third Reich entered the war was bought at a price. The conditions which we are beginning to experience in Great Britain at the present time have been familiar to the Germans for little short of five years. Ever since the Nazis took power, the German people have been urged to "make sacrifices" for the "final victory"; privations and shortages have been a regular feature of German life since 193(3 or 1937. For five years, German factories have been working long hours, without any redeeming increase in pay. It would not he surprising, therefore, if there was in Germany a l.ek of spontaneity and a general weariness and desire for the return of more tranquil times. Indeed, when I visited Germany in the spring of 19:59. there was already evidence of such a tendency. 1 beard many accounts of people who had been obliged, by nervous breakdowns, to give up work at an age when they might have expected to look forward to another 10 years in I harness. There was talk of a drift away j

from politico, of a feeling that the individual had a right to rescue some part of his private existence from th£ all-pervading influence of Nazi ideology and organisation. How all-pervading was the interference of politics in every aspect of life was brought home to me. as long ago as 19.33, by a notice on a Munich hoarding advertising a meeting with the title ' The role of the hairdresser in the Third Reich." And there wa.s the story of the boy of 15 who remarked, when asked if he was an enthusiastic Nazi, "1 used to be when I was 1.3." It would be foolish to over-estimate the significance of these tendencies. Apathy, alone, is certainly not a force which will overthrow the Nazi regime. But it is worth recalling that the German Revolution of 1918 began with a revolt among the "unemployed" sailors at Kiel, whose ships had' lain idle since the Battle of Jutland, and it nay he questioned whether the morale of the vast German army, spread out from Narvik to Biarritz, and from the Baltic to the Black Sea. will survive indefinitely the effects of inactivity in lands where the Germans are exposed to the bitter hatred of the occupied populations INEFFECTUAL REALISTS There are those who claim to be realists. Dr. Leslie l\ Church writes, seeing things as they are. yet wander like Tagore's little child, attracted by the noise particularly the strife and weeping -until they have lost the touch of the hand that guided them. Sometimes they come to so sore a pass that they deny it was ever there. They reject ail .spiritual experiences, and repudiate all spiritual relationships. The strange thing is that they make moan over the evil that they find. In poem and play, in novel and philosophy, they cry out against things as they are and call them evil or ugly. By their outcry they hear witness that, in themselves, there is a vision of better things. They desire truth rather than falsehood; they look wistfully for justice, freedom and the peace in which men would fain live. Some of them sigh, and leave the matter there. They are realists, they say; they have no other duty than' to tell us plainly what they see. When 1 have read these words and looked upon the picture, i find myself alone, and helpless, in the storm! There are others who having seen the present evil disclaim all responsibility. Here is a strange case indeed. That something in a man should tell him of sharp differences between the good and evil, the ugly and the beautiful, and yet should give him liberty to leave the evil as it is. seems incredible. That good exists, yet evil must be allowed to persist while we remain content with looking at it in helplessness' or worse still, in indifference, is a theory unworthy of man. It leaves us helpless in the storm.