GENERATION ENSNARED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 July 1940, Page 2

GENERATION ENSNARED

GERMANY’S HARNESS OVER YOUTH. Never before have forces assailing the Empire so linked efficiency with ruthlessness, said Mr Vincent Massey, the High Commissioner for Canada, in an address to boys and girls in Westminster Abbey. More than once men of the British race have fought to save human liberty from destruction, but never had cruelty and falsehood been so employed against them as the instruments of government. No department of life had been forgotten in that marshalling of power. Saddest of all to contemplate, Germany had thrown a harness over youth. Indeed she had founded her ambitions on an exploitation of the youthful mind, as skilful as it was unscrupulous. The very virtues of the young had been put to sinister uses. Their natural desire for leadership, for a' programme. for a faith, had been used to make a snare into which a whole generation had fallen. Youth's yearning for corporate life, its love of teamplay, had been corrupted by nationwide regimentation. No more tragic spectacle could have been given than that cynical, misuse of all that was fresh and vital in a once great country.