ISLAND OF COMMONSENSE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 September 1939, Page 11

ISLAND OF COMMONSENSE

THE CENTRE OF CIVILISATION. “In this turbulent world of today, a world that has seen so many changes both in form and in substance, this London, from which I am speaking, still strikes one as being a centre of constancy, strength and even serenity,” said Senor Salvador de Madariaga in a recent broadcast. “All the efforts that its enemies make to break down its phlegm are themselves destroyed by this very phlegm itself. The sight is so full of interest for anyone given to observing human things that it stimulates one’s curiosity and spurs one on; from the ‘how’ and the ‘why.’ Why,; we ask ourselves, must the Englishmen be —must the Englishman go on being —the centre of Atlantic civilisation'.* Let us leave aside all prejudice for or against, for these are fundamental passions which have nothing to do with: reality. There is no such thing as a ■perfect man, and any human being who can be admired from one side of his nature only is only admirable from that side because he is not so from any other one. Will we ever learn to see things purely from the commonsense point of view, without letting our emotions colour, either sweetly or bitterly, these mental images which our observation creates for us? It is certainly no use dodging the question or fighting our natural preferences. The fact remains that the Englishman, in spite of all the deep transformations, both political and economic, of the last few years, still continues to be the centre of civilisation.”