WHITHER?

Radio Record, Volume V, Issue 20, 27 November 1931, Page 7

WHITHER?

"We are bound to recognise that the United States is one of the greatest forces in international politics, and its relative influence must increase. World conditions are pictured in which the Dominions in the Southern Seas would have to turn to U.S.A. for protection or co-operation in defence." A Broadcast Lecture

By

Dr.

Hight

RECTOR CANTERBURY UNIVERSITY COLLEGE

Ov of the objects of these brief Thursday evening addresses is to stimulate goodwill toward other people, an active goodwill issuing from a policy aiming to minimise national misunderstandings and disputes, and to substitute for war‘a peaceful means of settling conflicts whenever thev occur.

if we look back upon the experience of mankind we see that it is possible to do this, witness the passing away of family and inter-tribal feuds, of duelling and private wars from the practice of civilised nations, and the growth of international law and international agreements. If we do not thus stave off war, it threatens to destroy our civilisation, so far has man’s evil genius for the invention of chemicals and machines apt to destroy whole communities, out: run his will and ability to curb his combative instincts and national prejudices and to put his mastery of nature’s secrets to uses serving the good of mankind. What does one of the greatest master hinds of the age say? Einstein, whose {name will live as long as that of any man ‘to-day, wrote from Berlin on September 4 last: "What the inventive genius of mankind has bestowed upon us in the last hundred years could have made human life care-free and happy if the development of the organising power of man had been able to keep step with his technical advances. As it is, the hardly bought achievements of the machine age in the hands of our generation are as dangerous as a razor in the hands of a three-year-old child." We who live in this small, thinlypeopled group of islands, the most remote _of all countries from the heart of the cul"tural world, have great need of constant reminders to develop and maintain an imagination and a* sympathy that shall enable us to respect the ideals of other nations and the knowledge and will neces-

sary to co-operate with them for the good of the world as a whole. We are heirs also to the proverbial aloofness and insularity of our British ancestors, though thanks to the freer social environment of a new courm try, Americans and Canadians find social intercourse easier with New: Zealanders than with English people. o

But the New Zealander who has not. spent some time in the U.S.A. has ofteh violent prejudices against everything Amer: ican. This is a cause of pain to those who know something of the U.S.A,, its people, and institutions, their difficulties, achievements, and history, especially when such hostility is accompanied by the regrettable self-complacency that has drawn the criti+ cism of many visitors from abroad who come to note and study our developing national characteristics. If we do belong to a superior people, it is not through our own merits but by the grace of God, and we should remember that impartiality, tolerance, and the will to see and understand the facts and meaning of life as it actually is, however these may shock our prejudices, are essential elements in any valid claim to superiority. It. is imperative that we should study ‘the U.S.A. with eyes unclouded by preconceived ideas. It is a country with a huge population, English-speaking, comparatively near, and with immense economic resources. Whatever national economists may say to the contrary, circumstances decree that we must have intimate and important relations in trade and finance in the future. Strange as it may seem to us to-day, sixty years ago many in New Zealand desired that New Zealand should be annexed to the U.S.A. But to the historian and the social scientist who must take long views and regard our present position as merely a point in a long changing line of development, there is no _ improbability in supposing that in the

Whither (Continued from page 7.)

future a similar feeling may develop, — abhorrent though it may seem to us | here and now. M, Siegfried, in "America Comes of Age" (214, 335), pictures world conditions in which the Dominions in these southern seas would have to turn to the U.S.A, for protection or co-oper-ation in defence. We are bound to recognise that the U.S.A. is one of the greatest forces in international politics to-day, and that its relative influence must increase. Its development and the policy governing it must vitally affect our own position especially as a Pacific land; we are bound to it by the strong links of a growing commerce; and we are above all conscious of the common heritage of the two countries in the English language and British traditions. We both live for the most part in temperate regions, are largely of the same race, aud of similar social structure. As Bryce has said, ‘the value of experiments varies with the similarity of the conditions under which any given experiment has been tried to those of the country which seeks to profit by the experiment. The more closely the two sets of conditions resemble one another, the better entitled are we to draw conclusions and attempt predictions." New Zealand therefore should feel she can benefit by America’s experience, since the political.and economic institutions and the social life of the two are based on old foundations of similar origin. In many respects a New Zealander can derive more immediate advantage from.a study of American conditions than from one of British, because in America as in New Zealand there is none of that. mingling’ of old religious. social, political and dynastic rivalries and traditions that tend to modify . so much the free play of economic motives in a country like HWngland. with a social structure cemented py the ideals of generations stretching far back in the Middle Ages. ’ Yet, again to quote Bryce: "Not only the institutions and laws. but’ also the conceptions of those things which constitute the values of life are just sufficiently different to make us feel their essential likeness." It is easier for Americans to understand the minds of Englishmen than those of other foreigners ; it is still easier for them to understand the minds and feelings ' of New Zealanders or Australians.

ee ee NS Oo OOS eel eee From the Same Stock. AND because of these considerations we have made provision for a close study of U.S.A. history in our university. These courses are very popular with students, who feel they are all the time in contact with living issues: with problems similar to those in their own country, attended with similar conditions and working out in similar ways. We cannot forget that the U.S.A. is the modern representative of the vldest English colonies, and that in the past it experienced stages of development similar to those in our shorter history. We feel that, in common with the other countries of the British Empire, we must understand its ideals and its ways of life if we are to work in harmony witb

GC eeroror~"~ eww ™ it as members of the great world family of nations. Isolation, even for the smallest and most remote State. is impossible now

and henceforth, and there can be no true permanent co-operation without complete knowledge. The U.S.A. is now definitely in world politics, so. too, is New Zealand in a modest way. The only sane ideal in world politics is freedom for national development tempered by regard for the common good of the world under the sheltering wings of universal peace, Now responsible statesmen of many uations have often said that the fate of the world lies in the hands of the British Empire and the U.S.A. Are they to act in rivalry or in harmony’ How is this harmony to be achieved if the leaders of our two great democracies and the peoples themselves are not familiar with each other as well as with the highest social ideals that human science and philosophy can suggest? Sympathetic Interest. N2w ZWALAND, priding itself on its well-developed democratic Government, should feel an especial and sympathetic interest in the history of the first great republican and democratic state of the modern world which was among the first to experiment with re ligious liberty, manhood suffrage, anc popular education, and the first to break away from the doctrine of the balance of power. The American federal fcrm of Government appeals strongly to us as the first of its kind, as offering some hope of dealing effectively with the problem .of reconciling !oca! and cen tral interests, as resembling a form of government similar to thet which we

tried for nearly a quarter of a century (1858-76), and in some people’s view as a possible model for the future constitution of the British Empire. ; In American history, too, as in our own, we see social life in the making in all its stages. The tracks our two peoples have trod lie fully revealed in historic ‘times. A new country, not yet 100 years old, our problems like theirs have been chiefly economic-questions of land tenure, migration, taxation, control of economic forces, preservation of economie resources, standards of work and life. The exploration of the American continent, the thrilling story of pioneer life, the pushing back of the frontier of civilisation, the dependence of social status or prestige on actual achievement rather than on birth or inheri wealth, have always had a strong fa: cination for the minds of young Nev Zealanders. The American literature of the period of expansion after the Civil War: Mark Twain, Bret Hart, Artemus Ward, Fenimore Cooper, Mary BH. Wilkins, ete., made a strong appeal to our people. Though not directly concerned in the wonderful mingling of races in the U.S.A., we have been attracted by its romantic and unique character and by speculation as to its outcome. And we, just becoming conscious of the first flickerings of national feeling ourselves, should be curious to see how the American national spirit had been kindled, how it was fanned or fed, and the kind of guiding light it provides for our own future path. [Owing to unusual pressure on space , the continuation of this article has had | to be held over till next week.] 4, Ns "