Politics And Morality
\ X JE do not often print broadcast talks that have been freely reported in the daily newspapers. If we make an exception of C. A. Berendsen’s recent broadcast from 2YA, the reason is that talks of such importance are rare. It is not rare to have public men saying that their policy is justice and truth or statesmen calling themselves ‘the champions of Christianity. It is beginning to be rare to hear them saying less than this. But Mr. Berendsen’s task for 20 years has been the ‘study of Foreign Affairs. Ever since the last war he has been asking himself why there should ever be war again, and the talk reproduced on Page 8 is his answer, We have war again, he went before the microphone to tell us, because we thought it possible to teach conscience international tricks. The League of Nations failed to preserve peace because its members failed to preserve their honesty: They thought they ‘were being clever when they were in fact being selfish and cowardly. They flattered and deceived and sold one another in the name of expediency when the proper name for some of the things they said was lies and for some of the things they did was treachery. Mr. Berendsen said these things "as a practical man," and practical men know that integrity is futile without common sense. They do not get entangled in foolish fanaticisms. They do not suppose that they are bound by every idle or hasty remark they may once have made, or even by considered remarks that time "dates" or proves impracticable. It is not integrity to insist that promises made in one set of circumstances must be carried out in another set of circumstances whatever has _happened in the meantime: for example, that Poland, or Albania, or Yugoslavia must be given the frontiers assigned in 1919 if Britain is not to be made a humbug in 1945. That is just fantastic nonsense. But integrity demands that what can be done should be done if it is still right, and forbids compromises for which the justification is our own advantage,
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 10, Issue 258, 2 June 1944, Page 7
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356Politics And Morality New Zealand Listener, Volume 10, Issue 258, 2 June 1944, Page 7
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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