GROWING PACIFIC TEMPER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23702, 9 January 1939, Page 8

GROWING PACIFIC TEMPER

The position is not entirely hopeless. says General Smuts in a review of the international outlook published in the Listener. After all. Mr Chamberlain did succeed in averting, disaster last September and this no statesman did or could do in July, 1914; and there has been special progress in one direction of verv profound significance. There has been a far-reaching change in the temper of the nations and in their attitude to war. Everywhere a pacific temper is growing beneath the surface. This is the real advance since 1914. Then nations were keyed up to the war pitch, and the warlike temper among at any rate some of them probably did much to force the hands of their Governments. On the other hand, in the grave crisis through which we passed last September, nothing, was more remarkable, nothing in fact more significant, than the horror of war which suddenly showed itself in all directions and the intense and universal relief when the danger disappeared. The contrast with 1914 was complete and the change is perhaps the greatest advance of all toward world peace during the post-war period.