The Bay of Plenty Beacon Published Tuesdays and Fridays. TUESDAY, MAY 8, 1945 SALUTING THE PEACE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 8, Issue 71, 8 May 1945, Page 4

The Bay of Plenty Beacon Published Tuesdays and Fridays. TUESDAY, MAY 8, 1945 SALUTING THE PEACE

WE await the peace. We, who have lived through the past momentous years, when the right to carry out our own mode of life as we thought fit and best, was challenged by the powerful forces of totalitarianism, and when we feared, during those dark days of 1941, that there was every prospect of our being overwhelmed; are listening now for the joybells which will usher in a new page of world history, based on the illustrious Atlantic Charter. We are not a warlike people until war is almost upon us. We love the peace more earnestly than most, and our blundering through to past victories has become the pun of the world. But we are above all else essentially democratic in our institutions, m our code of life, and in our attitude towards the individual. Peace in Europe, although it removes the core of the threat to our civilisation is, we know, but a milestone to the final goal we: have in mind, but upon its declaration, hinge all oui hopes (and fears) of the future. Even with the final elimination of our Asiatic enemies we realise that the peace, we, and all the peoples of the world yearn for must still be striven and sacrificed for. Twenty-five millions of the world's best and finest were destroyed by the war to end war in 1914-18. The second edition of the same universal catastrophe has hurled double that number into the shambles of death. But' the story has not ended there for millions more have perished as a direct result of war, though apart, from actual battle; by torture, starvation, exposuie. Or again to add yet more to the superstructure of misery we have endured; back from the battlefields will hobble the pitiful wrecks of humanity which the Creator once saw fit to create in His own image; mental wrecks; physical apologies; diseased; warped the starved- The question may well arise from the lips of more enlightened generations yet to come, when contemplating the ghastly past—"Were these • indeed our forebears?" The thought is not pleasant. But we can draw some consolation from all this welter of blood, misery, ruthlessnes sand destruction. From out the very shambles of suffering arises the pure white spirit of renewed hope, as mankind learns the self-elected cruel hard way, how to become more tolerant of his fellows. Think it took the brutal sacrifice of tens of thousands of hapless Christian victims in the Roman colloseum to finally sicken the pleasure-loving populace of the world s greatest medievil empire, and turn their thoughts to higher things. So possibly it has been necessary for our world to traverse once more in twenty-five years the cruel pathway of total war in order that we might see more clearly and understand. Now once again we are on the threshold. We stand hopefully in salutation of the dawning of the new peace. The horizon of the prospective 'new order' stretches before us. It is for humanity to make or to mar, for it lies untouched and unspoilt by human waywardness or indiscretion. It rolls on and on into the boundless centuries of the future and like a vision of the New Year, we pause to make afresh our resolutions and our vows. Wars, it has been said, aie like the poor—ever with us;! If that be so let us dedicate ourselves in future to the war against 'self'; to the crusade against 'greed and avarice; to the permanent campaign against 'intolerance' and to an unremitting battle against 'poverty' from whence arises seventy-five per cent, of the world's crime-sheets and international mistakes. We await the peace!

Communication with Rumania The following has been received "rom the Director -General Post and Telegraph Wellington : "Telegraphic communication with Rumania has been restored and telegrams to that country may now be accepted at pre-war rates ax shown in present guide. Messages may be in English, French, Spanish or Portuguese language but code language not allowed. Telegrams of a business nature are restricted to those ascertaining facts or exchanging information."

Jimson or 'Thorn-apple' A species of weed which was get ting a grip on the Rangitaiki Plains, and was introduced at the March meeting of the Whakatane County Council, has been identified by the Department of Agriculture as the 'Jimson Weed' or thorn appletIt is not listed asnnoxiouss s and as it is admitted that the weed is vigorous and could easily develop into a menace the County has decided to take the necessary steps to have it listed in the second schedule up der the Noxious Weeds Act 1928.