BAY OF PLENTY BEACON Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. WEDNESDAY, JULY 20, 1949 WAR SOON?

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 14, Issue 14, 20 July 1949, Page 4

BAY OF PLENTY BEACON Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. WEDNESDAY, JULY 20, 1949 WAR SOON?

Let us be realistic by all means and face the fact that the possibility of war has been by no means banished by the last two costly and bloody attempts to banish it by fighting “for peace.”

But is it wise or necessary for us to pass from one to another dark prophecies as to the identity of the next enemy? Is it necesary, in discussing plans to defend ourselves should the worst come to the worst, to make up our minds it is against a certain power we should be prepared to fight? Is constant reiteration of the assertion that Russia is a potential enemy at all likely to pave the way for peace? Is it likely to help us, as a nation, to see the Russians’ point of view and compose our differences in a spirit of Christian reasonableness ?

Let us be ready to defend ourselves, by all means, so long as there are men in any part of the world foolish enough and in big enough positions to use war as a means of international policy. But let us also realise that there is a lot in the psychologists’ claims that constant affirmations tend to bring the situations they affirm into being. It has been proven that men can think themselves into illhealth, and back to health again. Primitive man, terrified by the witch-doctor’s spell, can and does think himself into the grave. It is just as easy for nations to think themselves into a state of war. There is just a chance that by mass constructive thinking we might forge our way out of the mire of international intrigue that a big percentage of our public men and private citizens seem to think is going to drag us into war again. Though most of it is unintentional, every mention of the need to prepare for a fight with any specific nation is a type of warmongering, an outcome of defeatist thinking. If people will persist in acting and thinking as though we are inevitably to be tangled in a struggle with Russia, that is inevitably where we shall finish up—in obedience to a natural psychological law as infallible as the law of gravity.

Perhaps, without straining his patriotism too much, the average citizen could do a little more constructive thinking along Christian lines, could try to see a better answer to human problems than the age-old jungle system of settlement. Perhaps we could look more to our aims than our potential enemies, perhaps spend more time and energy trying to live Christianity than trying to kill Communism.