ANZAC DAY THOUGHTS

Taupo Times, Volume I, Issue 16, 30 April 1952, Page 4

ANZAC DAY THOUGHTS

Ainzaci pay is dedicated to the memory of our war dead. It is also in the larger sense, implicitly dedicated to the cause of peace. In other words, in honouring the memory of those Who paid with their lives an unforgetable contribution to the cost of preserving our free democratic institutions, our right to think and to speak freely and we should be reflecting also upon the immensitjy of the task of placing world peace upon strong and lasting foundations. At the memorial service in Taupo last Friday there was recalled to our minds the expressed determination current at the time that the First World War of 1914-1918 was a war to end all wars. But in the short span of twenty one years only, an emotional paranoic named Hitler was able to confound and frustrate the statemanship of peace — loving countries by belligerent speeches and antics that plunged humanity into another world war. That conflict ended in 1945. Rut there is yet no peace. This country to-day is making its contribution in men and munitions to' a struggle in the far distant peninsular of Korea which is inherent in its implications the possibilities of a third world war. The industrial energies of the free world are being concentrated upon a vast re-armament programme imposed upon it by the lurking threat of Russian ideological fanaticism. Military strategy has been applied to the organisation of a defensive barrier, a European army, against the unmistakable designs of the Kremlin. The burden of armaments is terrific. Progress in the acts of peace is being frustrated Is there no way out? There are hopes in the efforts now being made to induce the nations to agree upon a programme of disarmament. Rut the will to peace must precede the will to disarm. A disarmament programme based on enconomic or political expediency is bound to fail. To succeed it must rest upon sound

moral principle, universally accepted, and safeguarded by the force of a world public opinion dedicated to the establishment and preservation o£ peace on earth, goodwill toward all men, This ideal, expressed as a moral objective of the noblest kind5, was propounded nearly 2000 years ago. We are, practically speakmg; no nearer its attainment to-day.