Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1939. AMERICA AND DISTURBING REPORTS.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 February 1939, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1939. AMERICA AND DISTURBING REPORTS.

ACCORDING to one of today’s cablegrams, the United States is speculating about the nature of the disturbing reports that, led to President Roosevelt’s hint, in his speech at. Key West, that Europe is moving to an early crisis. There is in fact, however, no mystery about the matter. The President is by no means alone among his countrymen in his uneasy regard of the present European situation. Observing not long ago that a crisis was expected to develop in Europe over the question of Italian withdrawal from Spain, the Washington correspondent of the “Christian Science Monitor ’ added: Liberal' groups in the Administration here have for months been urging on the' White House with increasing insistence the importance of some American initiative to stem the tide of world retreat before the aggressors. They have argued that if the retreat goes on much further it will become a rout beyond the hope of repair and that the world will wake up and find the Rome-Berlin axis in unshakeable control. In the position now reached, Air Roosevelt’s blunt condemnation of “the ugly truculence of autocracy’' and his warning reminder to the totalitarian, dictatorships of America’s interest in the continued political independence of the world democracies must be regarded as eminently timely and to the point. Although the United States is not yet to be counted upon as an ally, the opinions of an overwhelming proportion of her people oii the position that is developing in Europe are already quite clearly defined. There is an increasing perception of the fact that if the European democracies were overthrown, the United States would be involved before long in a life and death struggle. In the matter of the sale of aeroplanes to Britain and France, and in other ways, it has been made fairly clear of late that in the event of the dictatorships plunging Europe into war, the United States may be relied upon to give powerful aid to the democracies. In his speech at Key West, the President spoke of “disturbing information from the international front, which might cut short his fortnight’s cruise.” It may be supposed that in the event of the crisis coming to a head the question of amending the American Neutrality Act, with its all-important bearing on the supply of war material, would at once demand and receive attention. A good deal should be done to clarify the outlook in the debate on defence and foreign policy which is now in progress in the House of Commons. Highly-critical issues seem likely to arise over the question of the withdrawal of Italian and German forces from Spain and the possibility that the dictatorships may seek to use their strategic hold on that country as a means'of extorting further concessions from the democracies. It has been reported only io be denied that Hitler, Mussolini and Franco were to meet in a northern Italian city “in order to establish a common front on the Spanish problem,” but it is certainly not yet to be taken for granted that the totalitarian States are prepared to carry out their undertaking to withdraw from Spain when General Franco’s victory is complete. In that uncertainty and in the indicated determination of Britain and France to 'make no more concessions to the dictatorships and to insist upon a termination of foreign intervention in Spain the elements of an exceedingly grave crisis evidently exist.

MAINTAINING GOOD HEALTH. interestingly and timely suggestion made by the Minister of Internal Affairs (Air Parry) in one of his recent references to the Fitness Campaign teas that an elimination of the causes of disease would be assisted greatly if people, though they might not be feeling unwell, would submit themselves to a periodical examination “which is really necessary lor the safeguarding of health.’’ llightly condemning a. slavish attitude of dependence on doctors as a negative way of living, which usually ends in untimely death, Mr Parry made it clear that he had no thought in mind that people should seek in constant medical attention the means of overcoming'the effects of unhealthy living. ’ His i f ] ea — one that has been acted upon to some extent by health associations in Britain, the United States and elsewhere, though nowhere, as information stands, on a national scale —is that standards of health might be safeguarded and the medical profession assisted in its efforts to eliminate the causes of disease, if people leading healthy lives underwent periodica - ! medical examination. The same policy is advocated by Dr Al. 11. Tweed, former Medical Adviser to the Plunket Society, who returned Io the Dominion yesterday from an extended lour abroad. The only way to prevent disease, Dr Tweed declared, was by a periodical examination of all the people. With a national health service in process of being organised in this country if may appear that the periodical, medical examination of all the people would impose impossible demands upon the services of members of the medical profession. It may be that in the conditions about to be established, all available practitioners will be more than fully occupied for a lime in dealing with those who are more or less urgently in need of t reatimmt. At anything but the most immediate view, however, it evidently must be highly advantageous and profitable, to individuals and to the State, to make the fullest use of medical knowledge in eliminating the causes of disease and in doing everything that is possible to avert, sickness and incapacity. Already, in our Public Health services, 'which extend amongst, other things to the medical inspection of school children, and jn the activities of voluntary organisations of which the Plunket Society is an outstanding example, a great deal is being done to promote and safeguard health. From the standpoint equally of happiness and welfare and of individual and national economy, a very strong case evidently may be made out for extending services of this kind. Offering, as it does, a means of checking and correcting incipient tendencies to ill-health, the periodical medical examination of all members of the population has every claim to consideration. This comprehensive policy may come to be r(‘garded as one indispensable* means, not only of promoting and safeguarding the highest, attainable standards of health, but of setting what limits are possible to the problem of the treatment of the sick in hospital and elsewhere.