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THE WORLD VIEWED AS A COUNTRY.

NATIONS ON THE WAY TO A BETTER UNDERSTANDING. STEADY CAMPAIGN AGAINST WAR. “We are living in contracted world. For practical purposes, for communication of nation with nation, man with, man, the globe to-day is just one-sixth the size it was 100 years ago. Putting it briefly, it means you can get from any part of the globe to another in one-sixth of the time that it took at the beginning of last century. While the globe has contracted and humanity has been brought so close, man to man and nation to nation, there are influences which are making the whole world one, every day. Our science, our thought, our ininterests, our amusements are all cosmopolitan. The whole world is, in a sense, one in its thought and in its aspirations. What is done in any part of the world to-day affects the whole The War showed the absolute necessity of finding the international basis of humanity, as it also revealed the disastrous effect of nationalisrh. The need of our time is to get men to think and to feel internationally—everything depends upon it.” The above remarks by the Rev. W. Beckett, Levin W.E.A. tutor, form the keynote of his twelfth and final lecture on “International Relations.” The subject was “The New Internationalism,” and it was expounded before a good gathering of the class on Tuesday evening last in the Band Room. A summary of the lecture is given below. . A PURPOSE FOR EVERY RACE. With all the modern miracles of transpbrt of men and their ideas,- of foods and fabrics, every problem becomes not simply a national or even a continental 'but a world problem. The creative Power that made man, made him of different races —though essentially of one blood—for a purpose. There is a work for each • and all to do, and each has his contribution to make, no matter what his colour. The observation of children’s ways sug-, gests that colour prejudice is not instinctive, but acquired. Racial bitterness ; is due partly to political causes, to tradition, customs and social conventions. There .are feelings of superiority on the one hand and inferiority on the other, which are apt to be engendered by the existing political and economic predominance of Western peoples. The promotion of the sporting spirit has been a big factor in the better uhderstanding between nations and people. Sport has always been a groat factor in British life, and Bismarck remarked that, as long the Englishman’s love of sport was maintained, England need never fear a revolution. The ideal of “playing the game,” if properly fostered, cau go a long way towards ensuring and cementing the brotherhood c-f man. The League of Nations stands for the international development of the team, spirit—-the playing not for one’s side only, but. for the good of humanity. The League should therefore have the' support of everyone who has any sporting spirit in him at all. The nations and the races of the world, if civilisation is to come to the world aijd to triumph, have to lose their-'race differences in a real fight. Man has his enemies,-his absolute and final enemies) whom he must fight tooth aiid nail to the last gasp, or 'himself perish. Those enemies are the low civilisations that imperil the high, the greed that exploits weaker people, the diseases ;that threaten ordered life, not to mention the personal sins that threaten man’s soul and wreck his character. FUTILITY OF ARMED STRIFE. The senselessness of war has come home to the people of the earth. It is seen to be a financially ruinous proposition to all engaged in it. A long 1 and bitter experience shows that lasting place can never be ensured either by a preponderance of force or by a balance of power, and it certainly cannot be established on a foundation of jealousy anti hatred. Only by the infusion of a more generous, frank and trustful spirit into the conduct of international affairs will the world be saved from drifting into -another war. Some say that it is impossible to abolish war, because human nature cannot be changed; but human nature has been changed. Man has progressed from the mere animal, fighting for his food, to the self-respecting individual that he is to-day. One of the most significant developments of the decade now closing, has been the remarkable and rapid growth of the peace mind in the civilised world. Greater progress has been made in the years since the War than in the 100 years preceding it. Twenty-five or even fifteen years ago, men who preached outlawry of war would have been laughed out of the world’s courts. To-day the ideii finds a ready response in the heart of a broken world.

TESTING THE PEACE MACHINERY. It is hard to imagine a more severe and crucial test to which the Kellogg Pact can ever be put than that to which it has recently been subjected in the Far East. That nations may be trusted to keep their solemn covenant is the basic pre-supposition of the outlawry of war. If they may not, be trusted, if their plighted word is a mere pious gesture, devoid of honourable purpose, the outlawry of war is impossible. But, by the same token, every kind of treaty designed to prevent war is also futile. They all rest on the plighted word of nations; and their strength, no less than the strength of the Kellogg Pact, is measured by the degree of good faith which exists in international relationships. W'ho would have predicted, on August 27th, 1928, when the Pact of Paris was being signed, that the first test to which it would be subject-

ed would be between “ the world’s mo9t immoral Government’ and ‘the world’s latest-bom Government?” Yet for two months these Governments were kept from going over the brink of war by nothing less than the power of the Pact. The persistence of the dispute, the stubbornness of both Governments in the matter of finding a pacific method of settlement, and the continued provocations aeross the border show that neither was afraid of war. But the fact that they have not gone to w-ar shows that both have some degree of respect for the national honour which they pledged when they signed the Pact to keep the peace. It is interesting to know that official permission has been given to display the text of the Peace Pact on attractive posters in the 50,000 post offices in the United States—surely ■> a splendid way to bring before the people the fact that they are pledged; to peace. . . MENTAL SLAVERY.

As showing how even our scholars err, it is said that a certain Oxford historian wrote a history of the Middle YAges, which was finished just before the War, in which he gave great praise to the German spirit. The War began before the work could be published, so the author aded a preface to indicate that he had been completely misled and that the German spirit was really a very wicked one. The Slavic spirit, on the contrary, the preface said, was admirable, especially in the sturdy Bulgarians. Then the Bulgarians joined the Germans, and the preface had to be re-written again. This incident shows the need for an interna-

tional mind, to form just views. Even the “most righteous war” can only be kept going by falsehood. That alone ought to make it repugnant to us. A new and a better spirit has come, however. Sir Austen Chamberlain has said that nobody would deny, not only that, world peace was more s - cure and (that*, they were discussing their international'difficulties in a new and better spiiit, but that they had turned over a new leaf and closed the chapter of the Grest War and the years that’followed it, and had opened up a brighter chapter. OBSTACLES TO PROGRESS.

There are two alternative dangers that beset the path of international peace. Firstly, we may so over estimate the complete and final truth of our own conceptions (ff life that the only satisfactory unity seems to be in imposing them upon the world. The second danger is the opposite of this. In seeking f,or unity in a too facile manner, we/may fall into the comfortable-idea that one thing may be right and true for us, and that something else quite different and perhaps contradictory may be

right and true for ; someone else. The great thing is to'try, in a humble and tolerant temper, to dis|inguish the essential from the non-essential. BEYOND IMPERIALISM.

One of the greatest problems of our changing world is how to. educate our young people that they may achieve an international fellowship. We nee-1 new thoughts on the rights of others, and on what to do when we dislike them. Any real international partnership will demand from the citizens of all' nations, not less patriotism, but a stronger and loftier patriotism; not a blind and selfish patriotism, which desires cfnly naltional aggrandisement and, national gain, but that far purer love of country which would fain play its part in some real international partnership and make its own - special contribution to the common good of the whole world. The League of Nations, great as it is, is not sufficient. Other reforms are needed, and those referms, to be effective, must be international. Ij peace is to be secure, a measure of disarmament is necessary. So long as the present vast armies and navies exist, no system can prevent the risk of war. But disarmament, if it is to serve its purpose, muse be simultaneous ahd. by mutual agreement among all the Great Powers. It is not likely to be successful so long as batred and suspicidn rule (between nations, for each nation will suspect its neighbour of hot carrying l , out the bargain faii'lly 1 . International co-opera-tion tequfires nuituajlj .goodwill, aaul goodwill is only to be preserved by co-operation. For intellectual co-oper-ation we must begin, with .the young and must look to the schools. The military spirit of pre-War Germany was created amt developed by the schools.

PASSTNG OF ISOLATED COMMUNITIES. The old self-contained and selfsupporting communities of 200 years ago have almost completely disappeared, and in their place has emerged a vast social organism, in which we are, all of us, compelled to find our place. When a man, looking round, sees the millions of which he forms but a fraction, he realises his \ insignificance. It seems impossible that 'anything he can do matters much to the whole. The sense of individual impotence weakens the sense of personal responsibility, but it is good to know, “We arc not bound to make the world go right, , but only that little bit of it entrusted to us.’’ We have our part to play, our influence to exert. Let us, then, in our thinking and speaking, always adopt the more generous and better way.

How the enlightened pan help the unenlightened is illustrated in the following incident: —In Foochow, China, where the people had suffered for years from cholera, r they Were threatened; with an outbreak in 1922. The head cf the medical section of the League of Nations staff was appealed to for help. A procession was organised of carts, each can yin g large figures, representing the wicked Cholera Devil and the Gord Angel of boiled water. Litile boys went round to all the houses and gave out leaflets, telling the people what to do. Speeches were made and

little dramas presented all over the city, for people who could not read. This continued for some weeks, with the result that no cholera appeared in Foochow and the danger passed without a single case. In other cities hnd villages, hundreds died of cholera. A LONG ROAD TO TRAVEL. We are at the beginning, not at the end, of civilisation. There is much yet to be done, and the need of a right understanding of cur relationship with other people is most important. There are more pacifists in the world to-day than ever before, and this avill eohtinjie only as we have a well informed and enlightened people.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/SNEWS19291011.2.21

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Shannon News, 11 October 1929, Page 3

Word count
Tapeke kupu
2,027

THE WORLD VIEWED AS A COUNTRY. Shannon News, 11 October 1929, Page 3

THE WORLD VIEWED AS A COUNTRY. Shannon News, 11 October 1929, Page 3

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