WHAT IS NEW ZEALAND’S PART?

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20768, 1 July 1937, Page 13

WHAT IS NEW ZEALAND’S PART?

To the Editor of "The Timaru Herald.” Sir,—Your leading article “New Zealand must play her part” in to-day's issue should remind us of our duty to the peoples outside the British Commonwealth. Many nations to-day are like boys at a school, who will play the fool and yet afterwards strongly resent the fact that. they, have been allowed to misbehave. 'We like to believe it is Great Britain's desire. to be the “schoolmaster'' that has brought about her . re-armamento-iio Other motive will have been worth while, for force without charity never accomplished anything of lasting value. The British peoples are dally, with bandaged eyes; worshipping Democracy—aS the cure for all Human tils. Parliaments are being discredited all over the world,

mainly because people are demanding the impossible of them. It may be true to say Democracy has made life happier and richer for the bulk of mankind—and as such has surely come to stay—but it cannot solve every problem as things stand. At present to say the least, it is doubtful if its finance is sound. During the last few .days the British Government has been occupied in trying to find a solution to the grave financial problems which are daily revealing the fact, —that apart from a sound financial basis, a country is building its freedom on sand. I cannot but think that Mr Fraser had this in his mind when he emphasised the necessity of giving our children “free access to the fountains of knowledge, so that they could judge the facts and think for themselves," and so to enjoy a real freedom not the pseudo-free-dom of many-headed uneducated democracy in which there is at most the negative freedom by which each one chooses what he individually desires, and the common social life is denied. It is on this basis that our individual difficulties will be solved and our country put forth a united effort with its full weight behind it, not only in the market places but the council chambers of the world.—l am, etc., FAITH IN “ENGLISH TRADITION OF EDUCATION." Timaru, June 30.