THOUGHTS OF LEADERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18347, 10 September 1921, Page 10

THOUGHTS OF LEADERS

POINTS FROM SPEECHES. THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS. CROSSING THE RUBICON. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, July 6.' The Archbishop of Canterbury, at tne League of Nations’ Hyde Park rally: "We welcome representatives from across the scaa and leaders in our English liie at home. We have a common memory and a common, hope. It has fallen to us ail in the world’s story to pass through the greatest cataclysm in human history. There wore hours of fearful crisis, when the issue seemed doubtful, and we needed every ounce of strength that we could muster. Then, to the world's inexpressible good, we rolled back the danger; we won. It is well now _ and again to pause and think what the issue really was. Had the result been different what would have happened? Unbridled force would have reigned supreme in the world’s life. We believe that we have won for mankind a worthier rule than force. We believe so —but tliat is not enough; we must make it true. We are apt to think of the close of the war as an end to conflict. We must .think of it rather as a beginning— a beginning of a new and better order of things in the world’s life. Wc arc to realise now, on a new and greater scale, not only that no man liveth to himself, but that no nation liveth to itself. Hence the League of Nations, which aims at securing stability and peace on the basis of liberty and justice. It is not a business which we can hand over to statesmen and iioliticians and leave it there; it is the business of us all. The new plan, the new resolve, must be grasped intelligently by ns ail. We firmly believe the League ot Nations is going to be the saving factor in a distracted world. But victory has its cares as well as defeat. The task Si not going to be an easy one. We want to give a higher meaning to patriotism—to make it live and glow not for the nation only, but for mankind. Our vision is world-wide. Wo want to reconcile the difference of history and traditions and race. That is not going to be easy, but it is the beginning that matters. The Rubicon is a very small stream, but men of vision see what the crossing of it means. There is hard work ahead, and we will make mistakes. But with the right vision before us we will win. For the first time in national and international history the civilised nations are pledged, under the covenant of the league, to the care of the weaker races. We have promised to lead them into the brotherhood of peonies. We believe that these things can come true. Standing on the basis it does, the league is going_ to live and grow and tell on human history.” “NO VISION OF DREAMINESS.” Lord Robert Cecil, on the same occasion : “What did we fight for? We fought for peace. Wo fought a war to end war, to make Europe safe for democracy, to destroy the Prussian attempt to dominate the world by force. .We gained a crushing victory, but it is still uncertain whether we have achieved our object. The Covenant of the League of Nations rightly stands in the foretront of the Treaty. It is the chief, if not the only, guarantee in that document of those purposes for the attainment of which our fellow-countrymen suffered and died. It was a solemn engagement entered into by every one of the 48 countries that are members of the League that they would never themselves go to war with one another until every moans for settling a dispute between the nations had been exhausted. It provided that the members of the League would enter into agreements to limit their armaments to the lowest point consistent with national safety, and save the money that would have been wasted on them for other and worthier purposes. —(“Hear, hear.”) People talk, and rightly talk, of economy, hut without some guarantee of peace, and without some international arrangement to limit the burden .of armaments, no serious economy is possible. The members of the League are to take counsel together on all matters of common interest. Here is a. project which surely makes for the closer union of mankind, and for its peaceful development. It is a practical proposal, elaborated and thought out by practical men of affairs, with the advice of experts as to all its branches. It is no mere vision of dreamers or idealists, and yet, if it wore so, do not let us despise idealism. It has been well said that British idealism won the war. It is our task to see that British idealism should keep the peace. The League has many enemies—militarists, bureaucrats, cynics, reactionaries —but its worst foes are apathy and indifference.” “RED” PLOT AGAINST THE EMPIRE: The Lord Chancellor (Lord Birkenhead), at the World Cotton Conference, speaking of the pervasive grounds of anxiety which, rising as from a plague spot in Russia, had spread over the whole civilised world, and of the elaborate organisation apd the skilful manipulation of propaganda, which had been tho-instrument by which desperate and able men had attempted to pull down and destroy the whole edifice of our civilisation: “This propaganda has been very specially directed at the British Empire. It is very credibly reported that for a long period those who conceived and controlled tin's movement saw at once the theatre of its greatest opportunity, and it might be of its ultimate, boasted spectacular triumph, in the British Empire. Tho most subtle form of propaganda, amply reinforced by liberal financal subvention, has been at work here and throughout the Empire to the minds of British Labour from constitutional methods of progress to the doctrine whose full consequences are to be seen in Russia. This conspiracy, wickedly conceived and uncrupulously carried out, has failed. The selected, intercepted documents have made it plain that those who conceived it, and their dupes and creatures in this country a fringe of wild men, —planned to take ad-‘ vantage of what was hoped would be a general strike when the miner* came out, and it was hoped that the traditional common sense, sanity, and sobriety of the British working would be dissipated, and would react into violent courses.” PEACE OF THE WORLD.

Lord Riddell, at a Rotary Club ! banquet to American Rotarians; “All men and women should bend their minds to the great purpose of avoiding international misunderstandings. My experience of peace conferences teaches me that treaties and conventions and conferences ore no good if the hearts of the people are not in touch and in sympathy with the movement for peace. I regard the visiting Rotarians as a thousand missionaries in a great peace movement in Europe, and they will carry back to their fellow-countrymen a. message of peace and goodwill from Great Britain. If there are any misunderstandings between England and America, they are entirely due to our not understanding each other sufficiently well. TJie mere fact that men speak the same language is no proof that they understand each other. One advantage of the Rotary movement is that the business men of the world can rotate round the world, and by so doing bring peace to the world. It is a great movement. Admiral Sims is a. great American. When he first came here wo were rather frightened of him.—(Laughter.) A friend of mine was sitting next to him at the first banquet ho attended, at which there were also numbers of admirals and generals and diplomat, all covered with orders. My friend felt rather nervous at sitting next to the admiral, but he plucked up courage when the admiral, pointing to an old gentleman, remarked, ‘Who is that johnny with the chandelier ninned on his shirt front.’— (Laughter.) I hope that the Rotarians of this country will make up a party to visit America. —(Cheers.) If they do I will become a Rotarian and go with them.” THE HARDEST STRUGGLE Lady Astor, on the same occasion: “I love both countries deeply. The English people need a good deal of interpretation; they have Tiot got the peculiar spirit of outward friendliness that the Americans have. They have got brotherlincss, but they cannot show it. The American slaps, one on the back and begins at once. 'Die Englishman takes a little_ time, but if once you Have got him. you will never lose him. Mr Balfour did very remarkable work in America, because the people realised bo put into practice the Rotarians’ nihtto, ‘Service, not sdlf.’ It is a wonderful thing for women who juive to go into public life to have the colid foundation o( home.—(Cheers.) The toast used to be ‘To the Ladies—God bless them.’ I feel now that, the women have the vote we ought to say ‘To the gentlemen— God help them.’—(Laughter.) One of the things is unselfishness. Peace will never come f>’om men and women until they put the golden rule into practice. Peace is going to be the hardest, struggle in the world, because there is nothing more difficult than the struggle to love one’s neighbour. I have tried it and found it terribly bard,”—(Laughter.) COMMERCIAL EDUCATION.

Lord Burnham, at the London Chamber of Commerce prize distribution: “ The changes and chances of our times, enormous as they have been, have onlv brought out the essential qualities of this Empire city. It may or may not be true

that we have passed the highest point of our manufacturing production, but at least one thing is certain—that the commercial importance of tliis country and of tins city has never been so evident and never so assured as it is to-day. The fact that not only the trend of Empire, but the trend of trade, goes West, only adds to the good fortune we enjoy as the emporium and the clearing-house oi the world s .trade-in stand* ing midway between East and VVest. Nobody can destroy the commercial importance of this country as the great market place of Europe, and nothing can rob us ot the advantages of our geograpnical situation, by which, niter till, the welfare of this countiy has been determined. Therefore, those who are trained lor commerce are the men and women wno w.h cairy on the traditions of the City as tney were established lour or hve centuries ago, in direct and lineal succession to the merchant adventurers ot London who earned, West and East, North and south, all the vast vomine and many varieties of British trade, it must be a source ox pride to see that the University of London has made a new departure in setting up a school and faculty ot commerce, and has recognised exactly those principles and aims tor which this system was inaugurated. I do not deny that our education has been very uncomp*ete in this respect; it has not yet reached 'the stage of final adjustment, ihe teaching of foreign languages nas been sadly neglected; they have been regarded as a by-produot of education, something not seriously to be ranked with the classics, or mathematics, or with the natural sciences. Charles V, a great emperor, is said one 'day to have observed, ‘You are worth as many men as you know languages. That may sound like an exaggeration in British ears, because at home and abroad we expect people of every country to address us in our own tongue. Foreign languages have been regarded by the governing bodies m our schools too much as a -‘practical jokes department.’ During the time 1 have been chairman of the Selective Committee in this part of England for the training and placing of these who served as officers in the army duririg.the war. or men of like qualifications, I have found that if a man had an adequate knowledge of Spanish from the first there was no difficulty in placing him in a post to which a good salary and prospects were attached, and where he had certainty of making a livelihood and hope of good fortune. The certificate of the chamber said in effect to an employer, ‘The person who possesses ,me is fully capable of doing what I declare he can do,’ and the employer aocepts +he declaration unreservedly.”