EUROPEAN TENSION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23511, 27 May 1938, Page 15

EUROPEAN TENSION

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Sir, —Europe is the alleged centre of civilisation where intertribal antipathy extends to the speaking of many different languages, and she has always been ruled by political charlatans rising on the tide of intertribal clamour and prejudice, few of them causing any greater commotion except on their own dunghills than a packet of crackers would. Certainly not one of them ever did anything of lasting benefit for humanity. If there had been only one man in Europe in 1914 capable of making himself understood, and having the personality and honesty of purpose to command the respect and confidence of the nations, and the force of character to suppress those who were controlling the destinies of the people at that time, there would have been no Great European War. There has been an awful increase in intensity of economic pressure, internal and external, since the war, and to relieve that pressure was the object of the League of Nations. As it was never claimed for the League of Nations that it was anything but a sort of Police Force having no legal power or authority to arrest, perhaps its members cannot be accused of existing under false pretences.—l am. etc., St. Clair May 26. T. J. Butler.