The World As Soldiers See It

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 364, 14 June 1946, Page 7

The World As Soldiers See It

(Written for "The Listener" by

L. R.

HOBBS

is that many New Zealand- \ important result of the war ers have become ee inter-

nationally-minded. Whereas once they regarded foreign policy as something to be talked about mysteriously by Foreign Secretaries in England, many aspects of it are now as well known to them as the workings of social security or the totalisator tax at home. Thousands of New Zealanders now know as much or more about the problems of Trieste and Venezia Giulia as do the once solely omniscient leader-writers on the newspapers. It may be embarrassing for the leader-writers, but it is good for New Zealand as a whole. Thousands of other former Kiwis are now also perfectly competent to discuss the pros and cons of British policy in Egypt. They know, many of them from costly and painful experience, just what difficulties lie in the successful defence of the Suez Canal. How many Members of both Houses of our Legislature know as much about Middle East problems and politics as do the more studious among former members of 2nd N.Z.E.F.? These young men had the advantage of seeing the situation on the

spot and of listening to experts on the subject, experts talking on their home ground. Many thousands of them have been to Palestine and Syria. They know the implications of French rule in Syria. They have seen for themselves the attempt to build a Jewish National Home in Palestine, and measured for themselves the prospects of Jews and Arabs living together in harmony. They have seen the Palestine Police in action, and they know the meaning of the modern and yet almost medieval police forts which overlook all the countryside froin strategic points. When the cables talk of riots at the Wailing Wall or in Tel Aviy, they can picture what is happening, and know why. They have, in fact, an interest in the future of these countries that is far more than academic, or far more even than the casual curiosity of the tourist as to what happened to some of the countries he visited. Many of their friends died that Egypt (and with it the Empire) might not be overrun by Rommel, and to that extent they have, and know they have, a moral stake in the country. It is the same with Italy. They know some of the ramifications of Italian poli-

tics, the clash between Church and Communism, the difficulty of filling that vacuum in a country’s idealism created by the abolition of Fascism. This Rnowledge has a deep and an important effect in the "deepening stream" of New Zealand’s national consciousness. The important question is whether it is universally realised and appreciated. Before the war New Zealanders in general were satisfied to gaze on the rest of the world thrqugh the barbed wire strands in a high fence of isolationism. Now a bigger proportion of its younger men than of its elders have a keen curiosity in world affairs, and firm opinions on what is and is not the correct line to _ take in foreign affairs. % The results of this are difficult to foresee, but it cannot be gainsaid that they are interesting. It would have been unthinkable before the war to imagine an election in New Zealand in which foreign policy had an important part in anyone’s policy. Now it is quite possible that the candidate for some rural constituency at the end of his pre-election speech on social security and the guaranteed price may have to answer some intelligent questioning on the line Empire policy, and New Zealand Policy in particular, is taking towards events in Egypt or Italy.