REAL CHALLENGE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 July 1938, Page 7

REAL CHALLENGE

THREAT TO DEMOCRACY. “Collective security has many critics and unhappily we have to admit that sadly little of it survives today,” said Mr Anthony Eden in a recent speech. “Yet it remains true that the less there is of collective security the more shall we, as a nation, have to spend on rearmament, and the heavier the tax burden on every citizen. Some (people are still unable to appreciate that the preservation of the rule of law in the world is a British national interest as well as the only lasting guarantee of peace. We cannot expect to approach the organised production and national equipment of the autocratic States unless we can by voluntary effort and close co-operation between all sections of the community realise a measure of national unity comparable with that which they have reached by other methods. This is the real challenge that democracy has to face, and unless it be met with courage and resolution the outlook for the survival of democracy becomes black indeed. We have to show in this .country a measure of enthusiasm for the fundamentals of our national faith which can compare with that now being displayed in the autocratic States. To say that is not to promote divisions in Europe. Each nation is fully entitled to champion its own faith and, so far as concerns the conduct of foreign affairs, it is not the form of Government but the methods a Government employs and the standards i it sets itself which are decisive.”