Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, MAY 22, 1944. SHAPING A BETTER WORLD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 May 1944, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, MAY 22, 1944. SHAPING A BETTER WORLD

CONDITIONS in which world peace and order may be estabV lished—indeed, must be established if civilisation is to endure —were stated well and cogently, in a broadcast address last evening, by Mr C. A. Berendsen, who is about to take up the post oTkew Zealand Minister in Washington. It may be hoped that in this country, as in many others, there is a wide acceptance of Mr Berendsen.’s view that, the establishment of a system of collective security, based, on morality, is the only alternative, in all probability, “to the final destruction of civilisation itself and of everything 1 hat man has won for man in his upward struggle from the apes.” The I ruth of Hie deadly danger by which humanity is and will, be laced until collective secuiit} has been made a reality cannot, however, be hammered home too insistently. . . . Some people may be inclined to dissent li'om Mr Bciemlsen’s expressed opinion that “there was no inherent weakness in the structure of the .League of Nations that necessarily led to its failure,” and that, the new international organisation about to be established “cannot differ very materially from that, which was set up at the end of the last war.” A good deal, might be made of the failure to provide, in the League Covenant, a ready and effective means ol: organising prompt, action against an aggressor. With the reservation, however, that the League was ■weakened desperately by the absence Irom its membership of the United States, the essential truth of the position no doubt, is summed up in Mr Churchill’s frequently quoted statement:—“The League did not let its members down—its members let the League down.” Admittedly it was open to the members of the .League to improve or replace whalever was cumbersome or ineffective in its machinery. Looking back on the history of the years between the lasi war and this war, it is hardly possible to question Mr Berendsen’s conclusion that, the reason for the failure of the League was a moral one. In those years law-abiding and peaceful nations not only allowed aggressor nations to arm unchecked, but refrained from any effective attempt- to protect or save the victims of aggression. It is easy to perceive now that a. policy of inaction while weak nations were being murderously outraged and despoiled not only set a very poor standard ol morality, but was fatally imprudent and unwise from the standpoint 01. mere self-interest.

We have been so far educated by experience that in nearly all the countries associated in the grand alliance ol the United Nations there is now a widespread, if .not a predominant recognition that no nation, however great and powerful, can hope henceforth to enjoy security standing alone. 1 f peace and order are to be established in the world, our own nation and others, as Mr Berendsen. rightly contends, must adopt unitedly a policy founded on right and justice, and not on a short-sighted view of self-interest or expediency, and must be determined “in all cases and at all costs, through a system of collective security, to oppose the wrong and resist and punish the wrongdoer, wherever necessary by the use of armed force.” If a better work! is to be shaped after this’war it must be shaped in a spirit of crusading zeal by nations prepared to play their part, not only in policing the world against aggression, but in accommodating and adjusting their individual viewpoints on various economic, social and other questions of a more or less contentious kind. The demands thus made in one way and another even upon a small country like New Zealand will be far from light, but the only alternative to a purposeful effort to meet and satisfy these demands is one that will hardly bear contemplation.