PARAPHERNALIA OF UNITY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23663, 22 November 1938, Page 2

PARAPHERNALIA OF UNITY

“In my Connecticut farmhouse I have a radio set which I can tune in to London or Berlin in a twinkling, listen to the British news, or Big Ben, or push a knob and have any number of local programmes, and it is like the plumbing in the house, it is taken for granted,” said Mr Raymond Gram Swing, the American broadcaster, in a talk relayed by the British Broadcasting Corporation. “ The children are not thrilled. They grow up having London and Paris and Berlin coming right into the living room. And that leads me to an observation; though it is true that the world is filled now with sharp conflict, and groups seem to be turning against groups, there is a broad underlying fact that the world, too. is capable of being unified. The paraphernalia of unity is here. We have it. We are seeing it develop. We can watch the annihilation of distance, so that already there is nothing to marvel at when it is gone I don’t know what the process is going to be. but lam sure of the result lam sure that the forces of unity will become stronger than the forces of hostility, and in the end will win out. By unity I don’t mean uniformity I mean really the opposite Unity through the understanding of diversity. the sense that we are valuable to each other because we are different. And I don’t believe that, now distance is being annihilated, we are going to succeed in creating it afresh, and will keep up any artificial barriers permanently.”