MORAL REARMAMENT

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVI, Issue 21380, 24 June 1939, Page 21

MORAL REARMAMENT

DUTCH AND BELGIAN SUPPORT King Leopold of the Belgians and Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, speaking last month at a State banquet in Brussels, agreed that moral rearmament could be the basis of lasting international co-operation between the small nations of Europe. The occasion was the official reception of Queen Wilhelmina on her State visit to Belgium. In his welcoming remarks, King Leopold referred to the strong appeal recently made by the Queen of the Netherlands in relation to moral and spiritual rearmament. “With us, too, these royal words have found a response,” King Leopold continued. “Is it not desirable that your Majesty’s noble initiative should be tried also on the international plane? The small powers in Europe number more than a hundred million inhabitants. Wiry should they not decide to have a lasting common mind in moral and economic spheres? Why should not they, as your Majesty has so wisely said, 'apply this concord to tackling the widespread distress and removing the hindrances which prevent world recons true tion ? ” Queen Wilhelmina, in tier reply, said that the sympathetic words of King Leopold on moral and spiritual rearmament would find a warm response in the hearts of her people. “Moral rearmament.” she said, “need’ not be bound by political frontiers, and I will sincerely rejoice if it would prove to be possible to give moral rearmament concrete form in wider circles. Like your Majesty, I consider tins far from impossible.”