EUROPE’S CALAMITY.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 7721, 18 May 1916, Page 3

EUROPE’S CALAMITY.

REASON IS GONE.”

WASTAGE IN WEALTH AND YOUTH OF NATIONS.

Writing from Stockholm Mr Harold Debbie says:—There is a man in Sweden who desires with all his heart tin. restoration of peace. He is a man a bove party, and so great, so civilised, Ja, earnest a European, that he may almost be said to be above nationalism. This man is Mr Knut Wallenbenr. Sweden’s Minister for Foreign AffairsIt will convince the reader of his disinterestedness if I explain the position occupied by Mr Wallenberg in Swedish politics. He is not a politician. The son of a rich man, and himself the head of a great financial boose, Mr Wallenberg has played in the beautiful city of Stockholm some lueli part as the Medicis played in Florence. He has the qualities of an irtist. To beautify Stockholm, to protect her from the vandalism of utilitarianism, and to keep her a lovely and gracious city has been with him gomething of a passion. And to this end he has not merely given lavishly of liis wealth, but he has served as a joyal member of the City Council.

With the victory of the Conservative party, iu the tempestuous days of this catastrophic war, Mr Wallenberg became by universal consent the Foreign Minister of Sweden. One may say that the Swedish nation, looking B hoiit in a dark hour for a just and powerful man to conduct its relations with the big Powers, bloodily engaged on the fields of war, went outside polities, and chose for that responsible office this renowned and Sagacious citizen, who loves his country, loves art. and is neutral with the neutrality of a really profound and absolute human it arianism. A VOICE FROM OUTSIDE. It is, of course, impossible for Mr Wallenberg to speak in any of the newspapers of the world as Sweden’s Foreign Minister. He said to me, “I am a Swede; therefore, I am neutral.” And when I asked him to speak to me me, not as a statesman, but as a man, he still refused to speak publicly. But when, very persistently, I brought home to him that all the belligerents might be better for a voice from the outside, the authentic voice of a man who loves humanity and desires an end of horrible and wasteful war, he said to me, with a sudden energy and with a momentary gesture which was more eloquent than the words, ‘‘l would strip myself. I would do anything. if I could help to bring this war to an end. ’ ’

A n nilo he appears almost passionless The face is rather Frewh, ivory in tone, with upright, iron-grey hair, ■mustache and imperial, strongly marked eyebrows, and large, dark, rolled ive eyes, which scrutinise you for a considerable time before he makes answer to your questions. The voice i# never loud. He uses scarcely the Inst emphasis. His words come with the quiet earnestness of a mind tht i- thinking deeply, logically, ami. withal, spiritually, as it translat. - itself into speech. ”1 will tell you,” he said to me, •‘how I set- this war ns a private iudb, viilual. I see it ns the most calamitous tiling which has ever struck Km <>e. I keep myself free from the >V I h idea, the Herman idea, the Kir.-'i'di idea, and I see this war as an inevpi-. ssilde calamity for the whole o( Europe.” WASTAGE OF WAR. lie paused for a moment, and then added: ‘ ‘ Kurojx* is blind. Reason is gone. Each nation says, ‘We must tight on.’ Each nation has excellent reasons for saying that it must fight no. None of the nations can wish to be defeated. Defeat must seem as had for the one as for the other. “But while they say, ‘We must Ugh! on,’ and are honestly sure in their own minds that not to fight on will be ruin for them, they do not see, it wcins to me they do not see, that Europe itself is in peril—that great Europe of which each one is only a part, and which is the only safeguard for civilisation against unthinkable barbarism. “Why do they not see this? I must conclude that they are blind. Look at what is happening. With the wealth of Europe is going tlh* youth of Europe—young men in every one of the warring nations who have intellects which they might use for the progress of humanity. “The waste of life is appalling. Homisrn is in vain. Europe itself is bleeding. And if each nation persists in fighting on and on, if there is to he no armistice for the statesmen to reflect. if everything is confined to the •uldirr, it must surely he that Europe will bleed to death.”

A man like Mr Wallenberg, swayed by no emotions, influenced by no nationalism, and using an intellect trained to foresight and exact thinking, when he looks at this war as a European can only see it, as the greatest calamity which has ever afflicted mankind, aud as having no possible issue for the belligerents, if it goes on much longer, except the issue of equal ruin for all. But as a statesman lie cannot interfere.