AFTER THE WAR

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 December 1942, Page 2

AFTER THE WAR

CRITICAL ’WORLD PERIOD LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS OF PEACE. PART FOR ALL NATIONS. A discussion on Russia took place at today’s luncheon of the Masterton Rotary Club, following on a reading from the’“Round Table” by Mr E. G. Coddington of , an article entitled “Twenty Years On.” It was to be hoped, the article stated, that concern for the post-war age was not confined to those planners who had been so long busy alloting the spoils of a war which had not been won and in any case was ’not likely to yield many spoils. Where, it was asked, would they find themselves twenty years after the end of the present war —twenty years it would be remembered representing not only the term of the recent Anglo-Russian Alliance, but also, more ominously, the interval between Versailles and Munich. The twenty years -which followed the last war were years which could not be afforded to be forgotten as one of the most tragic eras of their history It was a period in which men who had evaded the labours and perils of me war did the most writing and talking; a period in which the virtues by which wars were won and civilisations maintained were derided and abandoned bv the vocal; in which Christianity and the British Empire were accorded a consistently bad Press ; by the intellegentsia and it seemed likely that the anchors of civilisation would be parted with. Despite conscription large-scale war killed "off so high a proportion of the more courageous and unselfish that its aftermath was always likely to enthrone timidity and selfishness. It must be expected that powerful currents Would set in the same direction as soon as the last shot was fired. Against moral decadence at home only the lessons of war time if they were learnt could protect them. Against political imcompetence abroad something could be done by reflection now. The article went on to refer to the Atlantic Charter, and the AngloRussian Treaty signed on May 26, 1941, as being landmarks taking shape in the mists of the future. It referred to the need of both the Russians and the British learning from each other. The part to be played by all nations in the world government of the future was dealt with, in which the view was expressed that the Anglo-Soviet alliance was an indispensable instrument for discharging the first practical obligations of the post war period. But within those first twenty years there were not only the first police, salvage, hospital, and rescue operations to be carried out; there were the foundations to be laid of a more permanent structure. that structure without which peace might indeed not outlast the twenty years’ term of the treaty. Were a world organisation to preserve the peace of the world eventually to grow up it would only be because the Um-’ ted States had learnt the hard lesson of the great withdrawal* after the last! war and determined this time to shoulder the inevitable obligation. It was stated that it was possible that the whole of the United. Nations, themselves so immense a majority at mankind might from the first retain, and increase, their working unity m face of the vast problems of the postwar age. But even so it must be believed that the Empire and the U.S.A, would provide the moral and intellectual nucleus which gave coherence to the whole. ■