NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume 78, Issue 24133, 27 November 1941, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS

WORDS GONE WRONG Those who have a poor opinion of human nature can point to the tendency of words in common use to go to the bad, comments the Birmingham Post. The tendency can be observed at work in all ages. In early English "silly" meant "blessed"; then it came to mean "innocent," and at last "foolish" and even "imbecile." "Lewd" was once simply "rustic." "Villain" and "churl" were low only in the social scale, 111 colloquial speech, if neutral words are given a positive significance, it is almost always to an opprobious one: thus "a smell" means "a bad smell," and "language" stands for "bad language." A very recent example of an innocent word's ruin is furnished by "appeasement," which, because of its association with a muchcriticised policy, has been turned into a term of political abuse. AT ROOT A MORAL PROBLEM "There cannot be an economic solution of what is at root a moral problem, and in their hearts most ordinary people know it," said Canon S._ J. Marriott, of Westminster Abbey, in a speech to the Trades Union Club. "They are fighting for man's right to bo man —not a mere cog in the State machinery, or an 'habitue' of the cinema and the greyhound track; but a man for whom the making of a human world would mean more than tho mere making of money for himself. Already this war has proved that in the younger generation of England there is a capacity for adventure, sacrifice and heroism which can transform the life of the nation in the right direction as surely as Hitler has transformed the life of Germany in the wrong. Already there are signs of a turning to religion, a vague yearning for spiritual values. If it can become articulate, the soul of Britain will become flooded with new life." WHAT WE SEEK TO-DAY t "Much is being said about a new world order to take the place of the old world order when the war is at an end, ' said the Prime Minister of Canada, Mr. Mackenzie King, in a speech at the Mansion House, London. "If that new order is not already on its way before the war is over, we may look tor it ill vain. A new world order cannot be worked out at some given moment and reduced to writing at a conference table. It is not a matter of parchments and of seals. That was one of the mistaken beliefs at the end of the last Avar. A new world order to be worthy of the name is something that is born, not made. It is something that lives and breathes; something that needs to be developed in the minds and the hearts of men; something that touches the human soul. It expresses itself in goodwill and in, mutual aid. It is the application, Tn all human relations, of the principle, of helpfulness and of sendee. It is based not on fear, on greed and 011 hate, but on mutual trust and the noblest qualities of the human heart and mind. It seeks neither to divide nor to destroy. Its aim is brotherhood, its method co-operation. While the old order is destroying itself, this new relationship of. men and nations has al-

ready begun its slow but sure evolution. It found expression when Britain determined to put an end to aggression in Europe; when other nations of the British Commonwealth took their place at the side of Britain, and when the United States resolved to lend its powerful aid to the nations which are fighting for freedom. It has found its latest expression in the Atlantic Charter. On such a foundation of unity .of purpose and effort, all free peoples may well hope to build an enduring new world order. A new heaven and a new earth —are not these, in * very truth, what wc seek to-day? A heaven to which men and women and little children no longer will look in fear, but where they may gaze again in silent worship and in thankfulness for the benediction of the sun and the rain; an earth 110 longer scarred bv warfare and torn by greed, but where the lowly and tlie humble of all races may work in ways of pleasantness and walk in paths of peace." CONSTITUTIONAL POINT A nice constitutional point is raised in a. Times leader, in which Mr. Churchill is encouraged virtually to select a successor to himself and to indicate to the Bang in advance that successor's name. It has been sug- » gested, writes "Janus" in the Spectator, that this is rather like the method adopted by Hitler, who nominated Goering to succeed him and (a little unfortunately), failing him, Rudolf Hess. But I think it is sound constitutional procedure. When a Government is defeated and resigns, the obvious course is to invite the Opposition leader to form a Ministry. But to-day there is 110 real Opposition, and no such contingency as the defeat of the Prime Minister in the House is contemplated. But the perils of this mortal life in wartime are not to be ignored, and if ever —which God forbid —Mr. Churchill had to be replaced, the King ought not to be faced with the immense responsibility of deciding whom to send for. As; the Times puts it, with considerable delicacy, "He (the Prime Minister) can do much, while he is still at the head of affairs, to guide the choice which it will fall to others finally to make." That se«ms good sense. Mr. Churchill himself, of course, is where he is because his predecessor advised the King to send for him.