NATIONAL IDEALS

Waikato Independent, Volume XL, Issue 3667, 13 February 1940, Page 2

NATIONAL IDEALS

AUSTRALIA COULD TEACH THREE IMPORTANT THINGS Speaking at the Australia Day celebrations of the Australian Natives’ Association, the Prime Minister (Mr Menzies) declared there were three things Australia could teach the world—to believe in the virtue of a fair deal; to cultivate the habit of looking forward; and to fight without malice. Mr Menzies said Australia had faults which she shared with the rest of humanity, but she also had qualities which should enable her to play a great part in the world. Mr Menzies said that in. the early days it was right that the Australian national mind should be preoccupied with problems at the country’s door, but in recent years the Commonwealth had more and more been looking from its windows on to the rest of the world. The view disclosed a world not so magnificently ordered that Australians, in their time could do nothing to improve it. Australians were a young, intelligent people who wished to work out their destiny in peace, but they found a world in which peace had become a matter for the antiquarians, in which war appeared to be the rule of life. 1 Square Deal as Ideal “I believe Australia can do a great deal to teach other countries a real belief in the virtues of a square deal,” said Mr Menzies. “If every ruler in Europe believed in this ideal there would fie no war today. “It is because in some of the older countries „ notions of power and prestige. Jiaye become so embedded in people's as to amount to a mental disorder, that the virtue of a square deal might be something that we, as a younger people, N will have to teach them.” Mr Menzies said that old nations like old people sometimes reached a stage when they ceased to be active and became reflective. They ceased the habit of going forward and looking forward. It was an Australian characteristic to look forward. Brooding Makes Wars Europe was at war today and the world would be tomorrow because European rulers had cultivated the habit of looking back and talking about things which happened 25 years ago, said My Menzies. Brooding on the past made the present war inevitable. Australia could teach the world something in this respect. People here did not brood over things like the Eureka stockade. They were more concerned about the things of tomorrow. Australians were unanimous that the war must be fought boldly, but without malice. They would have to go through all the disabilities of war to enjoy peace, but who believed a good peace and a good world could be attained by fomenting hate? Australians should hope that when the war ended they could be friendly with Germany.