LOOKING FORWARD FROM 1937.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 83, 31 December 1937, Page 4

LOOKING FORWARD FROM 1937.

Some great fnen ceased their labours in the year that ends to-day and great hopes have perished. But we live in a world of living men and living hopes, and as one year slips into history we turn eagerly to the bright new page of the future where new names are taldng the place of those who have ceased to play their part, and with new and reviving hopes forget failures and boldly set down the thoughts and words that are the heginning of new action. The retirement from active politics of the man who will he remembered as Stanley Baldwin and not as Earl Baldwin, and the death of snch famous political leaders as Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, Sir Austen Chamberlain, and Yisconnt Snowden in a nLanner writes "finis" to a long and important chapter in British history. These were the men who laboured to build a national security based upon international good faith. These also were the men who saw their works being engulfed in the world economic depression. On tlie other side of the Atlantic another great worker for honourahle dealing between nations, Mr. F. B. Kellogg, framer of the Kellogg Pact, lived only long 1 enough to see his country embark upon a record naval huilding programme, a cynical reflection on his hopes. Also gone from the seene is President Masaryk of Czeeho-Slovakia, who for fifty years fought for the freedom of his ancient country. General Ludendoff also passes into the dust, his name remaining as a reminder that military might is not enougli. In the theatre of science two mighty personalities have disappeared in the past year. Rutherford and Marconi added to mankind's store of knowledge thought-shaking secrets patiently won by years of experimentation and research. Marconi has altered the daily lives of the earth inhabitants and made it literally possible to change men's minds and emotions in the twinkling of an eye. Rutherford, probing the recesses of the atom, has bfought new and simplified concepts of the unity of the universe, eoncepts that make it possible to remould our pliilosophies in line with the timeless Truths and to recover ourselves from the materialism of nineteenth-century scientific thought. The year 1937 was a year of political uncertainty • and j philosophic doubt. It was a year that marked the end of much brilliant individual endeavour, but in the relations between man and man, and between nation and nation, it was a year of fnmbling. Equipped with new instruments of power and disregarding or unaware of the responsibilities for toleranee and mutual trust implicit in the potency of these instruments, arrogant leaders have made a bid to reimpose the doctrine of force upon a world that h.ad renounced war as an instrument of policy. Against this return to power diplomacy, hesitation and vacillation proved not only ineffective but highly dangerous. Against toleranee and patience Germany, Italy and Japan have matched action and force. The clear-cut simplicity of a policy of power has an appeal to simpler minds but the world is too complex to be delivered into tlie hands of a dozen dictators who With eontrolled radio, muzzled press, and instruments of war might hope to bend men's minds for ever to their will. The response to this implied challenge has been swift and effective. The British Commonwealth of Nations - stands as a model for international good faith. If tliere are men who believed early in 1937 that this union of mutual trust eould be hroken, or that the principles , of democracy upon which it rested, were frail things to be destroyed, the year 1938 will bring a realisation that human progress is a fight for ever ' greater freedom not a sealiiig of minds and bodies in armourplated self-sufficiency. Against the hands of the war-makers of Japan is the ageold wisdom of China, which like China's own millions cannot be destroyed by guns and tanks.- Against the threats to British lines of communication we have tlie assuring words of the Flrst Lord of the Admiralty: '\We can say with certaiiuy that there will be no more piracy in the Mediterranean." Against the fear of the Pacific Ocean falling under hostile domination we have President Roosevelt's message that the United States is building a bigger navy that is not intended to match Britain 's hut to take an effective part in checking the forces that threaten the world's peace.

The year of fumbling is at an end. The New Year comes ;in with a new assurance. The Irish Free State can proclaim a new constitution but the British people throughout the world will not accept an Irishman as a foreigner and Irish freedom simply becomes part of the greater freedom with which every British citizen looks forward to 1938. The presence in New Zealand at the New Year of f lying sliips from America and from the heart of the Empire is a sign of the ties that hold two great democracies together. Hopes that perished in 1937 are being replaced with new liopes. The ideals of democracy which express themselves in freedom, mutual trust, and human dignity have not perished. There is a new determination that they shall not perish and new resolves that if war cannot he outlawed by one method then other means will have to be found. New Zealand 's destiny is so inextricably linked with the affairs of the world that we must be prepared to make the sacrifices that are necessary to preserve intact the things upon which the Empire rests, for the Empire is a fortress in a sea of international anarchy. There are clouds on the economic horizon that show that prosperity cannot remain in an everascending scale, and the coming year will call for wisdom as well as courage in our personal and national affairs. Still the future is bright for us who are so favourably placed amid nature's bounties and the Herald-Tribune ean with confidence wish its readers A HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR