TOPICS OF THE DAY

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20493, 9 May 1938, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY

A Word_to America “Memories are short, but greatly as I desire good relations with the United States, I own to some slight feeling of irritation on reading the comments of some American newspapers and the observations of certain American public men on our crisis. Let them say, if they will, that they have chosen the better part in deciding to stand aloof from the wicked and quarrelsome Continent of Europe, but let them spare us their homilies on our supposed lack of spirit. For the League of Nations, which is the centre of this controversy, was their own invention, and they themselves delivered the deadliest of all the blows which it has received when they walked away from it and left Great Britain and France to bear the burden of sustaining it and making it effective. “The original idea of the League was that it would be so overwhelmingly strong against any peace-breakers that it would be able to make its will prevail without danger to peace and, at the very worst, by the application of economic sanctions. With the United States a member, and Italy and Japan remaining loyal, this expectation would probably have been realised even if Germany had withdrawn or refused to come in. This undoubtedly would have been ‘collective security.’ Mr J. A. Spender, in the Yorkshire Observer.