SECOND CHANCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 January 1943, Page 6

SECOND CHANCE

FOR WORLD DEMOCRACIES i i ’ TO BUILD BETTER WORLD. >’ ADDRESS BY AMERICAN J AMBASSADOR. ! Speaking at Leeds University not r long ago, on the occasion of his receiv- . ing the honorary degree of Doctor of . Laws, the United States Ambassador to Britain, Mr John G. Winant, dealt with > the problem of re-establishing world r peace and security. ’ “In the years following the last war,” said Mr Winant, “we neither tried to build a kindly world nor did we ap- - portion • a sufficient percentage of i national income to be effectively armed against aggression. We did not give f sufficient attention either to national or . international machinery to allow people effectively to meet social and economic needs within their own. country or to ,- give effective expression to the vast ’ majority of people who wanted peace.” Again, a world which had become increasingly cynical about the promises , which men made to one another and on which any ordered society must rest, was a tempting theatre of operations for the world gangsters. “In the years before this war Jews were hunted like animals in Hitler’s Germany. They were persecuted by the tens of thousands, while the watching world tried to pretend it was a domestic issue within Germany. It was no more a domestic issue than bubonic rats in Luxemburg could be a purely domestic issue for the citizens of that occupied area. NEGLECT AND PENALTY. But our world was losing the sense of solidarity, the sense of certain decencies which dare not be ignored, without which no civilisation can keep up its immunity against the disease of barbarism. What was true of our attitude towards minorities was also reflected in our indifference to the fate of other nations. This slow decay of culture was taking place in a world of declining economic stability. It became especially prominent after the great depression. “I refer to the world-wide phenomenon popularly described as ‘poverty in the midst of plenty.’ Perhaps through no special fault of our own, perhaps an inevitable time-difference between technological change and change of social institutions, man’s power to create goods ran far ahead of its power to make socially desirable use of this new wealth. REVOLUTION INVITED. “In this world of diminished hopes, of increasing nihilism, the Axis leaders found their chance to reintroduce the rule of pure force and cruel anarchy. We do not belittle in any way the sins and outrages of the Axis by admitting to ourselves that we had all helped to build a moral climax favourable to the success of such outrages. If we neglect the moral basis of our life we invite a revolution against the very conception - of moral law. The world-wide war | which has been created by the Axis is, in fact, such a revolution. It is a revolt against a concept of civilisation by peoples who boast that they believe in nothing but force, and who therefore can no more build a ‘New Order’ than the gangster who has murdered all the policemen can build a city government. All that can be won on the field of battle is the chance to make a world fit for men to inhabit. We won that chance in 1918 and failed to take advantage of it. It is not usual in this stern world to be offered, as we are now offered, a second chance. AN ULTIMATE CHALLENGE. “The ultimate challenge has been issued by the forces of history. We in our generation must rise to greatness or we must resign ourselves to the forces of evil. We must attend to the unfinished business which was long ago included in our agenda, or we must permit the barbarian to return again, as he has so often done before, to liquidate a civilisation. which has lost confidence in itself. We may beat our Axis enemy on every continent and every ocean, yet the world revolt against civilisation will begin again unless we destroy the roots of cynicism by proving in conduct that we believe the words for which our world is supposed to stand —words like • justice, freedom-and Christian brotherhood.