TOPICS OF THE DAY

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21154, 2 July 1940, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY

Common Goal “It is an excellent, thing to talk about federal union; it took years of talk to accustom men’s minds to something as obviously right as the abolition of slavery. Yet a more international spirit will have to arise if civilisation is to be saved. Isolation in thought and ideals is absurd at the very time when communications have joined the whole world and it has become increasingly clear that even material prosperity depends on commerce being international. Peace must mean more than simply the cessation of war; it must be based on a new spirit of co-operation, and we must hope for its emergence from the refiner’s fire. H. G. Wells has said that the only chance of ever becoming more reasonable is by realising how unreasonable we are; to which one might add—and by trying to understand why we are so unreasonable. Recent events have proved that under the superficial crust of civilisation the age-long forces of savagery and brute instinct are still active.”—Sir Walter Langdon-Brown, Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of Cambridge.