The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. MONDAY, MARCH 23rd, 1925. VIRILE CITIZENSHIP.

Hokitika Guardian, 23 March 1925, Page 2

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. MONDAY, MARCH 23rd, 1925. VIRILE CITIZENSHIP.

lx the course of an interesting address on behalf of the English-Speaking Union before a New York audience, Dr Ilutler, whom we have quoted in the “Thoughts for the Times’’ on occa-

sion, spoke, inter alia, on citizenship. Dr Butler is a notable figure, being head of Columbia University whirl, has .‘it,ooo students enrolled, and we find room to-day for an extended section of his remarks which are of special interest at those times, touching as they do cm European politics and the tundamental security for a nation—true citizenship. The sneaker went on to say: If my voice could reach every man in the British Commonwealth of Nations and in the United States who enjoys the rights of Citizenship, I should beg him to take some time every week ol his life to reflect upon the foundations upon which our nations have been built and to study the ways and means of protecting those foundations, ot broadening and strengthening them, that we may build upon them higher, more comfortable, more satisfying institutions for the care and the happiness of men and women under our two great flags. We have been engaged noon this business lor about 12l)l> years, we Knglish-speaking people, l’lease remember that the Roman Umpire. the greatest governmental .structure the world has ever seen, lasted about. lOttt) years and then fell. not. as we arc so often told, because there were external influences powerful enough to overcome it, but because there were internal influences so corroding. so weakening, that they so broke down the walls that any attacking invader might arrive and make that Umpire his own. Nobody can weaken or break down the civilisation of our two nations except ourselves. AVc are now fortunately linked band in hand, and almost for the first time over a large area, with the great Latin peoples. We have sene France come through a tremendous trial. AN e have seen her trv to struggle to her feet after a series of losses, personal, economical and financial, almost unbelievable. AVe have seen Italy, that great Latin people which is about to write it’s name high again—unless I mistake—in the history of the world. AVe have seen Ttaly on the very verge of destruction, and saved apparently by an Oliver Cromwell. For if you want to know what is happening in Italy, read the history of England in the middle of the 17th century. A great personal force, violative of constitutional procedure and rising above those laws that are only imperfectly law, is working to save the nation in spite of itself. As Oliver Cromwell made modern England, my prediction is that so Alussolini will make modern Italy. Rut our way is a different one. AVe are schooled through the centuries to orderly and constitutional procedure. AVe have had our great wars. England came through three of them before she got out on the clear ground of her modern state. AA’e came through our terrible struggle before this nation was really built and unified as the fathers would have had it. Rut may we not hope and believe that our revolutions, our discords, our armed revolutions are behind us and that we have now come to the point where groat questions of policy, important problems of procedure, can he settled in the forum of argument and debate and he submitted to the judgment of an intelligent and patriotic electorate for decision. Have we not come to the point where we can enthrone reason and put force in the background as a police, to see to it that reason’s orderly processes are not interfered with and are, when made known, carried out? If we can do this at home, why can we not do it abroad ? If we can set ourselves an example why can we not help others to gain the benefit of our experience b.v associating them with us in these great forwaid steps away from force and violence and toward those processes of order and reason which are the mark of adult, civilised nations? AN e are agreed upon our fundamental principles. AVhat doubts and difficulties and disputes arise, arise in the field of interest, of conflicting interest, personal, economic, commercial, and financial: hut surely the temper, the reasonableness, the disciplined attitude which has made it possible for ns to build these nations on this firm foundation will enable us to apply these same principles to differences and conflicts of interests as they arise under the shadow of the rooftree which our great body of principles upholds.