TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Waikato Times, Volume 120, Issue 19946, 24 July 1936, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Private and Civic Morality “ To acknowledge responsibility as a. private individual means moral obligation. To acknowledge responsibility as a. citizen means political obligation. The second of these two things is an extension of the first; an outcrop of the first: a, building erected on the founda—tion of the first. I shall make the point clearer if I add a further remark. We are apt to think that political obligation—that is to say, responsibility for fulfilling legal duty—is an obligation to the State, to the law of the State, to the Government of the State, which declares and enforces law. So, immediately, it is; but ultimately it is something more. It is an obligation to my fellow-citizens, an obligation to behave to them as they have a legal right that I should. The State is really a mediator. Fundamentally, I do not so much owe obligation to it as I owe obligation through it; and my ultimate obligation is always an obligation to my fellowcitizens. If I pay taxes to the State which the State expends on social services for the benefit of my less fortunate fellow~ citizens, I am really paying to them, and us a matter of duty to them.”—Professor Ernest Barker, in the Hibbert Journal. iSupport for League. ‘ That the League of Nations, though it had suffered some severe setbacks was still capable of accomplishing great things for the general betterment of international ufifairs, was the opinion expressed by speakers at a meeting of the council of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday. The chamber unanimously carried a resolution alfirming its belief in the need for Whole-hearted support for the League in order to assist the vital. and diflicult task of promoting and preserving world peace, and expressing pleasI nre that the Government was taking steps to strengthen the representation of New Zeulund in the work of the League. “We know the League is passing through u trying period; it has been shaken to its foundations,” commented the president, Mr C. J. B. Norwuod. “Even now, however, it has done more than some people realise. It has brought nations together, and it has done a marvellous work for the good of humanity. It. would be a most serious matter if the League was to be entirely abandoned. I can. not think that even the intellects of Germany would feel that that was in the best interests of international relations." Mr Norwood hoped (hut all nations would give their support to the Imperial Government. They were indeed pleased that the New anland Govcrm nu‘nt luul not neglected this problem. The League knew no colour, I and it was to be hopml that by some reconstruction all nations outside t of the League would be brought into it.