PEACE OF THE WORLD

Taranaki Daily News, 15 August 1933, Page 9

PEACE OF THE WORLD

ELOQUENT ROTARIAN SPEECH WORLD CONSTRUCTION PROBLEMS. MR. FRANK MILNER AT BOSTON. AN ENTHUSIASTIC RECEPTION. (Special to United Press Asosciation.) Boston (Mass.), June 30. The 24th annual convention of Rotary International has been marked by some excellent addresses from men of distinction and prominence throughout the world. It has also been characterised by a sincerity and a loyalty seldom seen in such a large gathering. Rotarians have taken their duties seriously, and every session has been attended by large audiences, running up to 9000. Yesterday there was another large attendance to hear the heralded “silver-tongue orator from the southern seas,” Rotarian Frank Milner, C.M.G., of New Zealand, on world reconstruction problems. Much was expected from the reports that had come from New Zealand regarding the ability of the speaker, and that he measured up to expectations was shown at the conclusion of the address, when the vast audience rose as one man and gave him a wonderful ovation. It is unanimously agreed that he was the oratorical success of the whole convention.

The subject of Mri Milner’s address was “The New World Order from a Rotary Standpoint.” The speaker said that he had travelled 10,090 miles from New Zealand to answer the call from International Rotary. He was no stranger to the United States, and he had learned to appreciate and admire its big heart, its generous sympathies and its .great underlying idealism. It was a psychological time to discuss the Various implications of the new world order. America was now throwing her weight into the scales in the-form of world co-operation, and assuming her full share of responsibility in this great duty of stabilising peace and conserving the fundamental principles of equality prevail among the nations of the world. “KALEIDOSCOPIC AGE.” “First of all,” continued Mr. Milner, “I want-• briefly to .characterise this kaleidoscopic .dge’ in 'which we are living. We of the old-generation are perhaps mental traditionalists. We have kept our minds too long in dusty pigeon-holes. It behoves. us, to..realise.. the distinctive fea-. tures of this new time. We are* living in an age that combines the energies of the Reformation, the Renaissance, and the Industrial Revolution. It is electric with change, dynamic with possibilities, provocative with challenge. On all sides we find conventions, creeds, dogmas, and shibboleths, all Aibjected ■to destructive criticism. ' "I want to say a few words about the' relationship of nationalism and internationalism. We know that the world, through the advance of science, is being resolved into' physical unity. We know how the annihilation of space has come about through all the inventive resources of mankind, and we know that we need a moral approximation, an accession of ethical, strength, through the widening of the purview of education. “It was not until the Reformation and Renaissance, with their shattering force, impinged upon the medieval world, that the world saw the emergence of the distinctive nationalities of Europe. That was not practically until the time of the Elizabethan age in English history. Unfortunately, we have seen in. the Balkanisation of Europe an instance of the danger ; into which civilisation is projected by the hectic excesses and ardours of nationalism. The great problem before our statesmen is to reconcile in . a working synthesis the competitive clairAs of nationalism and internationalism. POLICY OF NATIONALISM. “It would be a great mistake to attempt to standardise the world in uniformity, to standardise the various contributions arising out of the distinctive genius of mankind. Nationalism is perhaps the most successful-form of world policy ,that has yet been devised.” The world required each part to produce its own individual accomplishment and contribu-tion,-and the whole-must be marshalled into co-ordinated pageantry, in all its full complexity, but "yef harmonised for the benefit of mankind as a whole. The task was the finding of that via, media, that compromise,'that intermediate stage between the jingoisms of nationalism ahd that excess of - internationalism which ran to sloppy pacifism or vague cosmopolitanism. It was in the devising and ’ finding of that via media that the resources ' of 'statesmanship were concentrated. to-day.. “The sixth object of Rotary had to .do with the advancement of understanding, goodwill and international peace through a world-wide fellowship Of business and professional men united in the ideal of service. They must remember that the very physical unity of the. world, under the instrumentality of science, had ’ brought about its own dangers, First of; all, there was the perversion of science/ especially in the’provinces of. chemistry : and engineering. In'all the leading nations of the world much scientific ability ■, was diabolically perverted to the devising: of lethal instruments of destruction. ■

“Now, many of you are fathers. You have your children who carry on for you, even in this life, some form of immortality. Their mothers went down to the portals of death to give them life. You encompassed them with love and tender nurture. You have fondly imagined lives of honour and usefulness for them. But, again breaks in this ruthless cycle of armaments, of fears, and national hatreds, and shatters your dream, and what do you see? Behold, I show you the nobility of warfare, for warfare is not noble, though it gives rise at times to noble virtue. Its horrors may be concentrated in a picture that sears your consciousness. Here is a noble youth in the express image of his Maker, and in one moment blown into quivering, bloody rags; one moment, a bright youth, with a wonderful career of usefulness before him, dehumanised to a gibbering idiot, the light of reason gone for ever; another youth disembowelled, crawling with trailing entrails, biting the earth in his agony, cursing the mother who bore him, the God who gave him life! “The Psalmist, out of the depth of his woe, lifts up his eyes to the serenity and the fortitude of the hills, to find that peace of soul will transcend all . his sufferings. Will you lift, with me, your eyes to find like inspiration in the snowy solitudes of the Uspallata Andes, where, at an altitude of 12,000 feet, on the boundary between Chile and Argentina, stands an epic statue of Christ, ringed with the majesty of snow-domed peaks? On the base’of the statue we read these words: — “Sooner shall these mountains crumble into dust than that the people of Chile and Argentina shall breaks the peace which here at the feet of Christ the Redeemer they have sworn to maintain.”

Mr. Milner concluded with a reference to the wonderful development in international policy that had accrued to the world through the collaboration of America in the stabilisation of world peace. He sat down amidst prolonged applause, the -audience rising as one man. The address was linked up with 65 broadcasting stations of America.

For the past two days Rotarian Milner

has been flooded with invitations to speak at Rotary Clubs. Rotary International is arranging an itinerary, and it is likely he will address tire American public through the Rotary Clubs of the chief towns of the States. He has also been asked to give an address at the Pacific Relations Conference at Banff, Canada, in August.