Confidence Is World's Greatest Need Today

Chronicle (Levin), 30 August 1949, Page 4

Confidence Is World's Greatest Need

Today

What the World needed mos't tbday ) was confidence — confiden'ce Of man , m God, confidence between man ! and inan and confidence between \ nation and nation; not the coiifid- j ence that arose 'out of arrogance ■ out a confidence that was born oUt j •of rnan's right relationsliip with - Gbd. i Speaking to the Levin Junior . Chamber of Commerce last night , on "The World's Greatest Need," Gdlonel George H. Marshall, of the Gnited States, present chief secreuafy to the New Zealand Salvation Army, emphasised 'these points. , The world, he said, was oii the brink of another war and was m'erely being saved by the exhau'suion of the major powers. As it was Jthe nations were arming to the 'ceeth. The United States had allowed for an expenditure iri its oudget of between 15 and 1-6 biliidn dollars for miliiary prepaifedness and it had been reliably stat-' ad that Russia had set 1951 as the deadiine for war. That was the unnappy posifion in which th'e world found itself today. After two wars to end wars, and pfeserve peace there was less peace, less security and less hope for the days ahead than eVeif b'eiore. It was time the nations learned that war did not give tlie thihgs that were needed. A way must be found for the peoples of the world to live together in peace and to utilise the findings. of science for the benefit of man srather than for nis destruction. The world's noted prophet, tne late H. G. Wells, had been asked after the dropping of the- atom bbmb what ,-his prophesy was for the futUre in the light of that eVent. He had replied: "I.hav'e no further prophesy to make. This is the end." He thought Mr. Wells had been a little pessimistic, continued the speaker, but the world should take warning and realise that the progress of science had made the world a very small place indeed. Distance na longer provided barriers and nations must recognise the fact that all in this world must be as one family. -They could not live so close to one another without neighbourliness. The seat of the trouble was selfishness. That, might not be a nice word but it was the truth. There was no hope for the world while nations and individuals lived for self alone.

There was no hope for society until it learned that mah was .his br other s keeper. Between nations ahd iiidividUals there hiUst arise a broader aiiti iiiore sympathetic kinship. There ifiust b'e dne great s human society with the governserving the people of the and not the people serving the government. "When that day comes then we can march forward tq a new and better world," he added. ■ • Divided Camps. Today we faced a world divided into two, camps, ohe subsCribing to . the ideoiogy in which men were subservlent to the government and the other in which the government existed to serve men. There could be no dovetpiling of these two ideologies. They must always clash and ahyone who did not realiSe this was'living in a .fooi's paradise. There was no common ground an which it could be said that these : two Could meet. ' He would say let Russia keep her Communism, but within her own boundaries. What was needed was a Correctly. organised world and a federal world government. There was serious talk today of World unity, not only by the serious thinkers but by the ordinary people, ' and that was a seven league boot juinp ahead, continued Colonel Marshall. It had never really been seriously considered before. The United Nations Organisation was doggedly determined that something woUld come out of it's deliberatiohs ahd it had survived crises which in the past would have m'eant the disintegration of any other body. "Nobody wins in modern war," deelared the speaker when drawing attention to the "ridiculous" situation in which Britain, a victor in the last conflict, found herself today. The rriain aim of Britain and America today was to get back into the field of commerce a recently defeated country, "I am not a pacifist, nor do I criticise those who sincerely are, but personally I can never see the logic of just sitting back in the security of home and letting others fight for my country," continued Colonel Marshall. "Not many pacifists, would like to see the United States, for instance, inVaded, hut they cling to the hope that some--thing will intervene to prevent it. The intervention is the broken bodies of those who go out to fight."