LAST BULLET

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 August 1938, Page 9

LAST BULLET

For what, then, should the rising generation fight? asks Mr W. Armstrong, a young Oxford graduate, writing in the “Spectator.” For fear, love, money, for anything, it does not matter what; the result will be the same seachange. It is as if we, with the other nations, were delegates to a conference, each with a switch at his elbow to fire a mine which might blow the whole lot to glory; just how large it is, or under whose chair it is, we do not quite know but we may be certain that if a switch isi touched, none will come out unscathed. In these circumstances we must confer and co-operate as best we may; and if we wish our opinions to carry weight, we must keep our switch in order and our finger on it, so long as we cannot get everyone to dismantle the whole apparatus. Since the whole scheme would collapse if one party thought he had good chances of surviving the explosion, we should give no one cause to think that. Meanwhile we should be prepared to fight to back our views, but only as literally a last resort, remembering that to do so is to admit that discussion, reason and every human hope have failed; what we use now is simply the last bullet in the spy’s revolver, kept for himself.