INTERNATIONAL FEELING

Waikato Times, Volume 100, Issue 16712, 30 January 1926, Page 3

INTERNATIONAL FEELING

THE PUBLIC INSTINCT. "The public instinct, as Lord Balfour has lately said, is not deceived when it regards the work of Locarno as the symbol of a great amelioration of international feeling in Europe, as the end of an old evil state of things," remarks the Daily Telegraph. "It is an instinct that is moved by large essential facts rather than by volumes of discussion and exhortation; and it is felt in the heart of the people that if the chief statesmen of France, and Belgium, and Germany are present together as equals and friends to set their names to an instrument of peace in London, things are not as they were in Europe, and that we have travelled far beyond the condition of affairs in which the possibility of such a meeting, for this or indeed for any purpose, could enter into no man's mind. "Yet it is not a twelvemonth since the atmosphere of bitterness and suspicion still lay heavy over Western Europe, and the touch of inspiration was still wanting that should bring the policy of Governments into line with the need and hope of peoples weary of war and the spirit of war. "A new departure has been made, a new international idea clothed with reality and invested with the force of example. That is far 'from being the fulClment of the world's desire for established peace; but who. recalling the conditions still fresh in the memory of all of us, will deny that it is much?" .iJs.".al