NEUTRALS AT CROSS ROADS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 1407, 1 June 1916, Page 7

NEUTRALS AT CROSS ROADS.

In an article on America in its relation to the war, (Mr. John Buchan says : — "America to-day stands at tlie cross roads. She has to decide whether she will remain apart in selfish isolation, reaping where she has not sown and gathering where she has not strewed, or whether she will take a share as a Great Power in the police work of the world, it is rjo question of sacrificing American interests. The question is where her €rue interests lie. Each of the Allies to-day is fighting for its own special purposes. Britain, for example, aims ot security and at the maintenance of that free 'Empire, whose ideals will be found in those lines of Claudian, . which have never, yet found an adequate translator. But aU the Allies are fighting for one major cause, and that is the establishment of law as against force on the world's throne. We have to check and punish the law-breaker, and for that purpose the chief instrument is the British Fleet. Can any neutral, small or great, who sees- ip the reign of law his true interest, seriously desire ta weaken the power of the constable against the_ criminal? For, remember the criminal is self-confessed. The case is not sub judice. Germany has proclaimed and gloried in a creed which reposes the conduct bf the world's business on the ethics of the Stone Age. Does a man, when the house next door to him is burgled, try to trip up the p(oliceman, even though in his haste that 'zealous officer may have trodden on his toes?"