TOPICS OF THE DAY

Waikato Times, Volume 126, Issue 21038, 14 February 1940, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY

World Federation “I do not wish to argue the case for and against a World Commonwealth as a political concept,” says Sir Alfred Zimmern. “My point is that it is a political concept and belongs to the domain of political science, not of religion. We realise today that the new international order, which seemed so near to us 20 years ago, is still a very long way off —that a generation or more of education in international relations is required before even the more politically mature peoples will be ready to co-operate in transforming the ideas and principles of the Covenant into practical working policies. Is that a reason for discouragement ? Only for those who allowed themselves to be buoyed up by foolish hopes and for whom those hopes had become associated with their religious beliefs. Ought we indeed to feel depressed by the discovery that large new conceptions of policy cannot be improvised in an emergency but require to be discussed and matured—as all the great changes in recent centuries of European history have been diacuwed and matured—in the world of thought?'*