TOPICS OF THE DAY

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20502, 19 May 1938, Page 8

TOPICS OF THE DAY

Masses and Foreign Policy

“The crowd, the masses, the millions, receiving through eyes and ears, by newspaper, radio and cinema a continuous stream of world life, have rushed into foreign policy. There was a day when nations concluded agreements, then kept or broke them according to plan. The chess of diplomacy and its rules; even the breaking of them could be more or less accurately adumbrated and forestalled by an expert player. But nowadays, what a nation thinks and feels at the time a pledge is given is no guarantee of what she will think and feel when the time comes to honour it. “The masses want to know and have a say in all that is done in foreign affairs, a change for the better in many ways, but one which makes world relations unpredictable, and therefore fraught with danger. Diplomatic relations are no longer a game of chess; they are rather like the mighty movements of w’aters, tides, floods, stdrms and cataracts —save that they are made of human waves and are not beyond the influence of magic charmers, dam-breakers and stormraisers. Once the machinery for playing on the millions has been set up by some efficient minister of propaganda, a leader may play with a nation as an organist with an organ and raise w r aves of passion, seas of emotion, cataracts of fury, storms of war.” —Senor Madariaga. Applause Applause as the expression of corporate appreciation or collective praising varies in value, and one of the tests is its measure of appraising, states the Manchester Guardian. It is because it is commonly reduced to a single form —the clapping of hands—-that it is severely limited as a critical index. The Romans were more resourceful. They, too, used handclapping, but that signified no more than one degree of approval. A lesser degree was signified by a cnapping of the finger and thumb, and a greater by a waving of the flap of the toga. But graduation in the clapping of hands is possible only in intensity and duration. And how much does criticism count in collective applause in any ease? Indeed, for one good judge at least, “the unintellectual uproar (rapturous applause J at the end of an opera is one of the best parts of the performance.” It is, of course, the corporate spirit, the sense of listening or looking organically that is for such people the important thing. They think the general applause there makes the ordinary man doubly certain of what he likes, near though that may be to accepting what people tell him he ought to like. It is the great difference between the atmosphere of a theatre or a concert.-haH -»i\d of-g-nioema or an. ait gallery, '