Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News THURSDAY, JANUARY 14,1909. THE WORLD’S PEACE.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 4360, 14 January 1909, Page 2

Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News

THURSDAY, JANUARY 14,1909. THE WORLD’S PEACE.

Th%s above all—to thine own telfbe true, And *t must follow a« the night the day Ihou eantt not then be falte to any man Shakeepeare.

The calamity which has befallen Messina has given to the world at large a splendid example of the latent capacity for mutual help and kindliness which exists- in the human heart, collectively considered. We can only contemplate with the warmest and most grateful enthusiasm the splendid fortitude and endurance manifested by our British sailors in subsisting for a week without hot food, while discharging the strenuous task of rescuing the survivors from the appalling surroundings of a city which the journalists present describe as “ a charnel house.” The Russians, we are told, worked magnificently. America has come forward with the proffer of warships, and with a splendid donation of both funds and stores, while France and Japan have subscribed liberally. The Consul-General for Italy in acknowledging the Australian Commonwealth’s contribution has voiced a sentiment which is equally applicable to the general feeling manifested toward the sufferers by their sympathisers of I other nations. He says :—“ The Commonwealth Government has given a most generous sanction to a most noble principle, a principle which ignores time and distance, is above race discrimination and prejudice of every kind, and is the true basis of civilization.” As a matter of fact there is probably no sentiment of the human mind more potent than that of pity, it is more than sentiment in such a situation as the present, it has easily risen to passion, sweeping down all race barriers as easily as a flooded river will carry away a light foot-bridge, and terrible as the visitation has been in itself it has brought with it that touch of the sublime in human nature which redeems such cataclysms from sheer horror. If only under ordinary conditions of Jife, and in' everyday relations with each other, the nations of the world could be induced to cultivate a spirit of justice and of mutual respect and consideration, how much easier it would be to realise something of that “ true basis of civilisation ” to which the Italian Consul-General referred, to realise in it the true basis of international peace. It may be a comparatively easy thing to indulge, for a longer or shorter period, the stronger passions of pity or indignation, when contemplating the state of an afflicted or an oppressed people. But the everyday sentiments of justice and mutual respect are matters which require steady and persistent cultivation, and internationally speaking it is everyday happenings and not terrifying events which decide our relations with each other.

We are so closely neighboured at the present time upon this globe, and with increased cable facilities, and the perfecting of the airships, shall be so much* more closely neighboured, that it behoves us to get to know each other somewhat better. Herein, in fact, lies one of the solutions of the international misunderstandings, which from time to time arise, and though we cannot but distrust at times the protestations of erratic sovereigns or inconsistent rulers, we do most heartily approve of every effort put forward by sincere men to bring the rank and file of the nations into touch with each other. We heartily welcome the formation of the Anglo-German entente committee which has taken shape, with its headquarters at Berlin, representing “ all Germany and all classes of the population,” and we are heaitily in aggreeraent with the agencies at work in both countries, publishing information, and otherwise exerting tfyeir power to bring Englishmen and Germans to a better understanding of each other.