TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20276, 19 August 1937, Page 8

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

The Prime Minister. “1 do not think it is the long hours or the hard work that form the must alarming aspect of the duties of a Prime Minister,” said Mr Neville Chamberlain, the new British Prime Minister, iu a recent speech. "It is rather, as it seems to me, the knowledge that in all the perplexities ami the problems which rise up day alter day in r-unt of anv Government in these troublous times, the ultimate responsibility of the filial decision must rest upon the shoulders of the Prime Minister. *• \o major point of policy can he decided, no real fateful stop 1,0 (alien without the assent, either active or passive, of the Prime Minister, unit it' things go wrong he can never escape Hie reflection 'I might have prevented this if 1 hail thought or acted ditYerentlv.’ 1 believe it is that ultimate and ineseapahle responsibility whieh is the real root (if (lie anxieties wliieli have worn down (lie icrcies of our recent Prime Ministers, and it is that responsibility which now lies in front of me. These next two years may well he critical in the history of Europe, and whether they end in chaos or in a gradual appeasement of old enmities, and the restoration of confidence and stability, will depend very likely upon the part played by this country, which is bound to be important, ami may well be decisive.” War Horrors of the h uture. “As Minister for Air, I can perhaps understand better than som e people the horror of what would happen if a world war should come. It is tny duty to study our preparations for drlruer, and to slndv the preparations, too, which are made by other milieus. Ami 1 without irritable agony ot mind, contemplate what would occur It war in the air should break out. I know as a technician !*'7 'if* iTbroke out. would he an abomination which would destroy i'l Uri’vdisnt in which »e live. And 1 say that the moral ruin which it would create would he greater even than tin- material ruin ;; ‘ involve. 1 deny with passion that war can hr a fac tor in \VorlT War from HH I to PUS. Tlm.v killed their fellow-men. lmt Ihev destroyed, too, a whole world of moral and spiritual values, ~,,,1 much that ’was worth-while in our civilisation, and if we cu.m,,l recapture those moral and spiritual values 1 despair of the future ... ~ ukiml."— M. Pun-re Lot, Minister for Air in the french Cloveru-