THE EUROPEAN CRISIS

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22518, 28 September 1938, Page 15

THE EUROPEAN CRISIS

*0 THE EDITOR OP THE PRESS. Sir,—ln “The Press” to-day. H. Irwin quotes Kinglake’s words. “When the world believes that England will be firm, there is peace. It is the hope of her proving weak or irresolute which tends to breed war/*. Exactly so. But it is very unfair'of H. Irwin to say, “Mr Chamberlain and his immediate predecessors have brought us to our present perilous position.” The blame lies entirely with the pacifists throughout the Empire. Perhaps H. Irwin is not acquainted with papers and magazines published outside New Zealand. In them it has been shown time and again that the British Cabinet for many months past has been sparring for time, in order to get the nation in a fit state to act in accordance with Kinglake’s words. Never before in past history has England endured so many slaps in the face, so many insults from foreign intrigue. There have been deliberate attempts to provoke her to fire the first shot, thereby hoping that Canada and South Africa might fall out of step, and even the peace at any price Labour members of the British Parliament have changed into the loudest trying to force drastic steps in Spam and elsewhere, which would have involved us in war ere this. The price of this humiliation in letting down Abyssinia, and now. in a partial manner, Czechoslovakia, is because we as God’s servant nation, have not obeyed Gods will. “Ye have not gone up into the gap, neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to ’stand in the battle in the day of the Lord.” For we must never forget that God distinctly laid this burden on this servant nation. “Is not 'this the fast (self-denial or self-sacrifice) that I have chosen? to loose the hands of wickedness,' to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?” But now. through Mr Chamberlain's sincere desire to preserve peace, and the proposed slight alteration in boundaries, that otherwise would have remained a cause of friction, his diplomacy has brought the whole matter to a clear-cut position. Hitler has been sufficiently warned and he cannot now get out of the dilemma he is placed in by Britain and France. He either has to carry on his bluff or else climb down, for the time being. England has proved herself firm. So many who don’t know all the facts have been too precipitate in their judgment. How some like to run down their own nation.—Yours, etc.. P. H. PRITCHETT. September 27, 1938.

IO THE EDITOR OP THE PRESS. Sir, —A good patriot is visible in Mr H. Irwin; but one belonging mentally to Kinglake’s generation, in whose time Britain was the strongest of the nations. She is very far from that now and has enough to do in minding her own business. The continual vilifying of Hitler that our people hear is the work of aliens, who hate him; they have British Labour well deceived. We should be tharlkful for the enlightenment which made the Tories at Home trust our destinies to Chamberlain. Had Baldwin been in power last week we should all have been at war to-day. Hitler is the greatest benefactor Britain ever had; he saved Germany from falling, like Bussia, into the hands of the Communists. Those two great empires, united, could have crushed our island,beginning with an aerial bombing which would have set every important town in it in flames. Mr Irwin might at this moment recall our grandfathers* enthusiasm for Italy’s recovery of Italia irredenta. Why shouldn’t their grandsons sympathise with the desire of Hungary, Poland, and Germany to recover their nationals, unnaturally placed (by the idiotic Treaty of Versailles) under alien domination? Mr Irwin says we should show firmness to Hitler and Mussolini. May 1 add, “Yes. firm support to men whose national blood arid ideals we share.”— Yours, etc., THIS IS 1938. September 27. 1938.