URGENT CALL TO CHRISTIAN LEADERS

New Zealand Herald, Volume 81, Issue 25036, 28 October 1944, Page 10

URGENT CALL TO CHRISTIAN LEADERS

The Rev. Dr Albert Peel, editor <of the Congregational Quarterly in Britain, who has paid several visits jto America during the war, contributes a timely article to the Christian Century of Chicago on the relations between America and Great Britain, and the need in particular lor the Churches and peoples of both cations to avoid misrepresentation 'End misunderstanding. He writes: "Sometimes I am inclined to think ,that the major indoor American sport Sn wartime is twisting the lion's tail, while there are many in Britain who dejight.to give a vicious tug to the eagle s feathers. I have heard in American, common rooms and parlour cars, and I have read in American papers, atrocious statements about the British people by 'those who apparently had never known fin Englishman; and I have heard firitish men and women sneer at Americans in the mass in a way that made me, with Americans among my dearest friends, both ashamed and angry. "All will not be well between the two peoples, and that means inevitable global war, unless Christians take steps jto counteract this careless talk and work at mutual interpretation. An Example Heeded « "Once the war is over there will be fruitful cause for disagreement—the settlement of lend-lease, air bases, conflicting claims about who won the war, the struggle for markets and unemployment. Britishers will point to a hoarded newspaper account of hard united fighting in which 'Yanks' are mentioned fifteen times and the British ftot once; Americans will refer to British lack of appreciation of the part played By American men. munitions, mass production. , "There will be need for strenuous effort by all those who desire friendship end co-operation. "I suggest that it is the immediate duty of Christian writers and leaders of thought in the two countries to set an example in all they do and say, and to work out a technique for checking the flood of misrepresentation and misunderstandings which will be let loose once the hazard of war is removed.

"They of all people should remember the injunction: 'He that is without sin among you let him cast the first stone.' It is weft to remember that when all live in glasshouses stone-throwing is dangerous to everybody. "Would it not be sound policy for British Christians to resolve that they will not criticise Americans unless they know well some American, and vice versa? But more than that. I _ suggest that when we want to criticise each other we ask first how far the criticism applies to our own country. As I am writing for American readers I will give American illustrations. I should be much more severe in writing for my own countrymen I Treatment o 1 Indians "If my American hostess had adopted this technique before saying to me, 'I wish the British would admit all the Jews to Palestine,' she would have soliloquised, 'I wonder where the British learned about immigration quotas. Is the United States willing to suspend its immigration laws to enable European Jews to come in? And if so, how many of those Jews would vote for America, and how many for Palestine?' "And if," adds Dr Peel, "recurring American citizens who have in the past four years questioned me about the British treatment of Indians had made this compact, they would have asked questions about the Indians in the United States, gradually deprived of their lands as white men spread across the continent to the west. This does not mean that here and now I am defending British, policy in Palestine or in India. "It means only that I believe American criticism would be remarkably tempered if certain words about motes and beams were always remembered, even as some of our rash statements about the colour question in the United States would never be uttered did we think of South Africa. . . , "Or take the question of imperialism. To most Americans 'British Imperialism' is anathema, the cause of many wars and of much human suffering. To most English Christians imperialism is

ANGLO-AMERICAN FRIENDSHIP PLEA

anathema too, but it seems to us like a dying dinosaur. After all, Britain did give self-government to the conquered South African republics and independence to a cantankerous Ireland. "Has any other land such a record? Has any other mandatory Power trained a nation for freedom? Should not the American critic now sec that one of the hazards of the future lies in the development of American imperialism? "No matter what she desires, America must inevitably take this path. After the war sho will be immensely powerful, with the greatest navy and mercantile marine in the world and vast resources of all kinds, and her people will naturally resolve to make themselves secure so that there may be no more Pearl Harbour surprises. "Bases will be acquired here and there, concessions secured in this place and that, and protectorates established —all for America's own safety. Such a sequence of events is as certain as the sunrise, and America cannot he blamed for it; she will be led by natural and logical steps to what her enemies will call 'imperialism.' Avoiding Conflicts "It may be then that Christians of both countries will have to curb imperialistic tendencies. Is not this a forecast of what may happen? On the one side America, in a position of great military and economic strength, with the problem of finding employment for her returning millions and markets for her streamlined production; on the other Britain, fighting for the export trade which is her life and conscious that her commonwealth may be used to the detriment of her competitors. "Statesmanship of a high order will be required if conflicts are to be avoided. And if there be added continual pin-pricking by the spoken and written word, if both nations are out to see the worst in each other and not the best, what are the prospects that we shall be able to furnish the world with that leadership which will establish righteousness and peace? ♦ "Cannot Christians of the two nations begin now to set an example?"