INTERNATIONAL MORALITY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9112, 11 June 1908, Page 4

INTERNATIONAL MORALITY.

In a recent issue the London "Spectator" deab with a '"few simple facts" about international relations. The first—and the basis of all arguments for a strong defence—is that international morality is still rudimentary. In the relations of one nation to another the Christian graces of charity/ unselfishness, and longsuffering cannot be said to exist. "If we see a man walking into a bog," remarks the "Spectator," "we think it oar duty to warn him; but if we see a rival Government annexing barren territories in the belief that they will make good colonies, we do not step forward to warn it." The "Spectator" might go further and say that we are sometimes guilty of experiencing an unholy joy at seeing a rival nation in trouble. There is a kind of international morality, but it is a law rather than a gospel; and there is therefore, no mercy fur weakness. A weak State becomes the prey of the stronger, yet because Englishmen and Frenchmen are well disposed towards one another, or German editors talk friendship at a banquet, there are people who believe that defensive preparations can be relaxed. A cripple in the family of nations is a perpetual danger-centre, for he holds out temptations to all the rest. Sir George Goldie tells us in an article in "St. George's Review," the organ of the British National Defence Association, that it was only by a happy accident that England escaped a European war when she was struggling with the Boer 3, and that the success ot bar diplomacy in the last few years is simply due to the respect entertained for the improvement in j her fighting power. He holds, too, that invasion, though happily improbable, is not impossible The moral is that, in spite of better relations with France and Russia, and even with Germany, there is no security that Great Britain may not, any day, have to fight for her life.