The Bay of Plenty Beacon Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. WEDNESDAY, JAN. 21, 1942 FEAR AND BE SLAIN !

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 6, 21 January 1942, Page 4

The Bay of Plenty Beacon Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. WEDNESDAY, JAN. 21, 1942 FEAR AND BE SLAIN !

SINGAPORE is now the focal point of interest in the warring Far East. The clangour of East versus West throbs about the town built by Sir Stamford Raffles and its echoes are felt throughout a wider sphere than even the titanic struggle in Europe. Upon this pin-point of an island off the foot of Malaya are bent the efforts of the Japanese Empire, the new symbol of force and aggression in Asia, while countering them is the garrison force of the World Empire of Great Britain. The outcome of the struggle will be tremendous, and well the gallery of anxious spectator-nations know it. The Pacific-washed na,tions, white, yellow, brown and black realise to the full the meaning of a Japanese victory. The new theatre of military activity would grow an hundredfold overnight. Repercussions would effect hundreds of millions, and those millions include the million and a half which populates God's Own Country. It will effect just such plain,, ordinary folk as you and I! There is a natural inclination in the face of danger or threat of disaster to give way to concern and alarm —two human features which have played right into the hands of aggressors, since the world began. Fear is the most destructive of all forces which governs impressionable mankind. Born of superstitution, it has the faculty of giving to the strong, imaginary powers that they not only never possessed, but that they can never hope to attain. The 'bully' in the human capacity, is always a coward at heart! We have found* that out from individual experience time and time again. The same law must apply to the 'aggressor nations.' While they are masters of force, they will apply that force to the utmost, well knowing that their survival can only be prolonged by hypnotising their victims into the belief that they are a breed of super beings. We too., and naturally the whole of the peoples of earth, are human beings of the. same make, enjoying our God-given right to live as free men. There is no such thing as a race of supermen, unless perhaps by service they lift themselves to a standard of spirituality unguessed in the world to-day. But, in this sorry school of human progression, it must be patent to all, that because a man has a rifle and, bayonet in his hands,, he is still a human being,, endowed with all the failings and weaknesses of the humblest of his victims. It has been said (and possibly truthfully) that the Japanese are a nation of fatalists, glorying in warring and dying for their Emperor. This is certainly great propaganda for the Japanese. Closer scrutiny however discloses that defeated armies of the Mikado, do not necessarily commit harikari to a man. No, they are human enough to 'flee' (witness the route a,t Changsha) in much the same manner as any other defeated army once its morale has been broken. Our friends the Japanese, know full well the desperate game they are playing. Time is against them, as I it has been against no other nation having the effrontery to start a treacherous war. The soldiers of Nippon know their own shortcomings! They are game, but so are we; strong physically, but so are we; well-armed, —ah, in this they possess a momentary advantage over us. On the other hand they are fighting in strange countries, as a nation they have deteriorated from" decent standards of morality, treating their womenfolk as mere chattels; they are given to over-indulgence in alcohol (sake) and are possessed of a national vanity which exceeds all belief. All these point to the typical attributes of the bully. At heart must run that streak of innate cowardice, born of inflicting suffering on others. The coming battles will provide the test. But in the meantime with a full knowledge of his weaknesses, it would be utter folly to allow the Japanese soldier to become the author of £ear in a country such as ours which is peopled by the progeny of pioneers who knew not the meaning of the word.