Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, MARCH 15, 1939. SENSATIONALISM AND WAR DANGERS.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 March 1939, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, MARCH 15, 1939. SENSATIONALISM AND WAR DANGERS.

TN appealing to those who write and those who read the news--1 papers to weigh carefully “all reports of the alleged intentions of foreign governments ’ ’ the British Lord Halifax, has contended fairly enough that: Distoited 01 sensational presentation of foreign news is not only dangeious in itself, but tends to defeat the purposes we all haveJ at hea■ Tt must be agreed unreservedly that the presentation of . in such a way as to exaggerate and increase war dangers . criminal.

It is demanded just as imperatively of newspapers, and I o. responsible public men,-however, that they should avoid the equally indefensible practice of inducing and eneouragin people to live in a fool’s paradise—a fault into which they maj easily fall by turning a blind eye on real dangers and pretending that these do not exist. Deception and false leadership are not of necessity confined to any one direction. It they are used basely, at'times, in stirring up war fever, they are capable also of being used .in lulling people into a sense of false, security.

The citizens of .a democracy like the British Empire are entitled to expect and.to .demand from their public men a iranlc and'candid leadership. Applying that standard, it perhaps may be asked whether Lord Halifax did not fall into the error 01: softening facts unduly in his advocacy of a comfortable outlook on existing international relationships. After all, it has to be remembered that Lord Halifax is a member of. a Government which is spending nearly six hundred millions sterling this year upon an expansion of British defence services, and that it is very widely considered that the strides that have been made m British rearmament give better grounds than anything else oi confidence in the immediate outlook.

In some of its details, the speech of the British Foreign Secretary was extremely unconvincing. He contended, for instance,’ that “there had been no occasion during the past few years when British policy on a major international issue could have followed a different line from the one it has followed without grave risk of leading to a major European war.’’ This at best is a matter of opinion.' With Czechoslovakia visibly being torn to pieces in furtherance of German Nazi ambition and aggrandisement, the virtues of the Munich settlement are, to say the least, not emphasised. As to Spain, again, it has yet to be demonstrated that Germany and Italy can be induced by anything short’of a direct threat of war, or even by that, to refrain from turning the Spanish peninsula, into a strategic base for possible attack on the European democracies.

Lord Halifax maintains'that much harm may be done by distorting or misrepresenting the intentions of foreign governments, but is it possible to imagine any sensation-mongering that would exaggerate the spirit, of blustering aggression manifested in words and in. action by the present rulers of Germany and Italy? Sensationalism is condemned by all rightthinking men and women, but a refusal to face facts is equally to be condemned. If Lord Halifax wishes to justify the soothing generalities of his latest speech he must support them with specific evidence. He must show, for example, that Herr Hitler has abjured the opinions and proposals set forth in “Mein Kampf,” and that Signor Mussolini has disowned the speeches and writings in which he has asserted that: “History tells us that war is the phenomenon which accompanies the development of humanity,” and again: “f do not believe in perpetual peace. . 1 consider it depresses and negatives the fundamental virtues of man which only in bloody effort reveal themselves in the full light of the sun.”

However gently they may be spoken about, and however carefully reports of “their alleged intentions” may be weighed, men'of the type of Hitler and Mussolini will never be anything else than ruthless enemies of democracy and of world peace. There is no possible excuse for sensation-mongering in dealing with these men and with the governments they dominate, but neither is there any good purpose to be served by extending to these modern despots a measure of toleration that would amount to a betrayal of democracy and an abandonment of the hope of human progress.