Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1943. TWO APPROACHES TO WORLD ORDER.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 November 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1943. TWO APPROACHES TO WORLD ORDER.

TN an address in Masterton on Friday evening, Dean Warren, of Christchurch, said that men would be unutterable fools if they did not face up to the lessons of history as the}’ bear on world order —particularly the demonstrated failure ofj national isolationism and the balance of power policy. At the same time, he said that the Christian Church was 1 potentially the chief instrument of world peace and that a. large measure of discipline and sacrifice must be achieved by'each community for its own good and as a contribution to» world order. This in effect amounts to a contention that simple selfinterest and the loftiest idealism must equally impel men. to do everything in their power to establish a stable world order and safeguarded peace. That this is true must be apparent, to everyone who looks at the facts. .In order that peace and security may be attained there is need of understanding and agreement on a basis considerably wider even than that of the Christian Church in its various divisions. Every true element of spiritual faith and idealism evidently is bound to be east into the scale for understanding and peace. On the other hand, crude self-interest logically should weigh down the same scale, for the sufficient reason that the alternative to understanding and peace between nations is chaos and destruction. It is always on spiritual faith and idealism that mankind must rely ultimately as a means of lifting life to a nobler plane, but prospects of establishing secure peace in the world of tomorrow are improved not a little by a very general appreciation throughout a great part of the world of the only apparent alternative. Those who, after the la,st world war, derided the League of Nations, or damned it with faint praise, were able in many instances to pose as practical men. Those who seek to take up a corresponding stand in the days on which the world is soon to enter will have to content themselves with maintaining that strife between nations is inevitable, that no nation can henceforth enjoy security and that the world of civilisation is doomed to perish.

' Whether it is possible to create an association of nations capable of establishing and upholding security Jias yet to be put to the test. That all the practical, sense, as well, as the idealism of humanity must combine in supporting the attempt to achieve this new amf high degree of world organisation and order is, however, manifest. A bold experiment and a great adventure are involved. There are far better prospects than there were a quarter of a century ago, however, that the experiment will, be fairly tried out. There is a far clearer perception now than there was then of the dread consequences that must be expected should the experiment fail. Many even of those to whom ideals of a better future for humanity make in themselves little appeal may be expected, if only from a standpoint of self-interest and prudence, to support the aspirations and efforts of the idealists.