CHALLENGE ACCEPTED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 July 1941, Page 6

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED

NEW VALUES IN WARTIME. When the gods would destroy, they first render demented: the criminal insanity of Hitler’s Germany in reviving Efernhardi's doctrine of world power left us with no alternative but to' take up the challenge, asserts “A.E.E.R.,” writing in the “News Letter.” If it is the will of fate that we fight almost single-handed, so bo it; but accursed henceforth be those incorrigible little Englanders and bad Europeans who would ever again have us, in the name of nationalism, internationalism or what you will, turn aside from our destiny and shirk the duties of paramount power (in a moral sense) on the Continent of Europe. Equally accursed be those who, going to the opposite extreme, would ever have us misuse, in the old spirit of imperialistic pride or materialistic greed, that mastery which our naval and merchant seamen are fighting to hold for Britain on the seas, and the Royal Air Force is winning for us m the skies. Meanwhile, instead of bemoaning the destruction of material wealth—which can always be made good afterward —or the sacrifice of our title-deeds, which is perhaps the heavier loss (but still as nothing beside the slaughter of innocents), let us rejoice in the opportunity to turn this recasting of ancient values to good account: just as the hardships of war were needed to convince ourselves that we were not the decadent nation imagined by our enemies—so we can bless the simpler tastes and standards which we are now learning as likely to fortify us against the temptations that victory will bring in its train.