1941-01-23 — Page 7

Days

tion is an enormous leap forward in the progress of the human race, comparable only to what occurred when fire, the wheel and agricul- ture were invented. The business began with the Greeks, when, for

Нето example,

of Alexandria made a steam-engine--which was, by the way, a turbine, a way of until long after steam-power had using steam-power not used again become a commonplace.

There are still people who sneer at rapidity of movement. I cannot help liking it when it means that supplies can be taken quickly 40 the scene of a famine or help to the scene of earthquake, fire, or I think that the first plague. achievement at which mankind must aim is to keep all its mem-

bers alive and well. It has al- ready the machinery for doing this, and has mastered a good deal, if not all, of the method of using

Now let me repeat and cm- phasise my confession that I very much relish many of the luxuries which modern science has brought within the reach of persons of no great wealth. I like avocado pears, as great an addition to our gastronomic resources as, in their time, were tomatoes. I like the refrigerator which keeps the but-

As for the obscuration of spiri- ter cool and hard and the lettuces tual values, are they really $0 crisp.

I like motor-cars, which

much obscured? You must not enable me to see so much of my compare the saints of the

thir- own country, and the telephon! teenth and fourteenth centuries and the wireless and the grame-with the industrial magnates phone.

the machinery.

of

to charge Germany with could be. But Talleyrand belong- such intentions is to uttered to the social class which

all the fun in the eighteenth een- "a dumb and infamous tury. For innumerable people life after 1789 lie." Germany, he insist- was for pleusan er ed, wants only a just

So far as 1 am concerned peace and her own place should be well content to be

great Whig nobleman at any time in the sun.

between, say 1760 and 1840 or This was plainly an as-later--for example, that Lord

But, were this all I had to say. 1 the nineteenth and twentieth, You them with the But it is not so with surance intended to bring og because he was once happen to like the good things ly in the year 1940, like a pinch-

should simply be talking, especial- must compare

land-grabbing, tax-extorting prin- aid and comfort to the ad- heard to remark that he "suppos with which material civilisation

ces, of their own time. With the beck, middle-class Talleyrand

you vocates of "appeasement", ed that a man might jog along provides us, and there have been what I do mean is that on balance industrial magnates of ours

{} But here we few, if any, periods in the world's the world has become better must compare the selfless, unde- and the opponents of have a transposition not only of history when a reasonably suc-

and manding workers of science, who place for the common man

lives in tho greater aid to Britain. But period but also of

and, cessful author and journalist could

woman to live in than ever behave spent their

amelioratè, This assertion based effort, not merely to social status. Assuming that, in hope to obtain as many of them fore. before they put too much some other period, I had pre-as now. I make the confession strictly on a comparative, even if but to remove the causes of, hu- faith in it they will do cisely the same origins and talents because it is always as well to we except from it those regions man suffering.

Consider Pasteur, Ronald Ross, well to remember some of, as in this life, the chances would bring any prejudice of which one of the world where there has been

the Curies. Pastour staked Iris be much against my having the is conscious into the open. and a definite lowering of standards. the earlier assurances; good time that I now enjoy. this, it is obvious, would prejudice It is necessary to insist on this, reputation, and, with it, his mo- which have also come This, to be sure, is not true of ine pretty powerfully in favour because if I do not (and probably dest livelihood, on a theory which As it happens, I am of my own times. However, I even though I have done), when ran counter to the orthodox opiti- ion of his time. Ross found the to be made for conditions of the people, well key to malaria, celebrated it in

oh £30,000 a year."

everyone.

wealth

is

from Adolf Hitler, and writing this is the garden of a do believe that there is a stronger I speak of the improved housing

compare the pledge with house built by a man who would and befter cage the performance. To re- call a few instances:

have been most fervently grate- ful if he could have been trans- lated, origins and talents and all,

to another century--probably the

thirteen h or the fourteenth.

Nor,

The pledge: "After the solution of the Saar ques- do I believe, would he have suf- tion the German Govern- fered any disappointment in the ment is willing and deter-change. He would never have at- mined to accept in its in-

nermost soul the Pact of The performance: Be- Locarno." (Jan. 30, 1934.) fore dawn on April 9,

German On 1940,

troops The performance:

across Den- March 1936, Germany marched remilitarised the Rhine- mark's frontier and Ger- land in violation of the man warships attacked Locarno treaty.

Norway.

The pledge: "Germany The pledge: "The new

"my own choice.

I maintain that what has good in these years more counterbalances what has dreadful in them.

As a matter of fact, a

springs from the fact

that

great

50

RKEY

more

and under

has neither the wish nor Reich has endeavoured

the the

continue

tra- intention to mix in to internal Austrian affairs, ditional friendship with or to annex or unite with Holland. *** Immediate- Austria." (May 21, 1935.) ly after I had taken over The performance: On the government I tried to March 12, 1938, Germany establish friendly rela- annexed Austria.

tions with Belgium. * * *

"GARN, TAIN'T CHRISTMAS AND YOU'RE NOT SANTA CLAUS," The pledge: "I repeat We have given guarantees

meaning individuals will spring.a..poem which is all the here that if this problem for the states in the west." "At first sight, considering our forward to ask me whether I da impressive because it is only half.. sell his seem not know what dreadful condi- articulate, and had to (concerning the Sudeten (Sept. 26, 1938, and Oct. present situation, it may

rather eccentric to express a pre- tions still obtain in Doomington, notes and manuscripts for the sup- of his declining years. area of Czechoslovakia) 6, 1939.)

ference for this period. But, of Bruddersford, and a score or more port

Curles worked in an* is solved, there will be no The performance: Be-

course, I do not specifically choose of our industrial towns. I do The

the know. I have seen them. I have ill-equipped 'shed where they

winter, frozen in further territorial pro- fore dawn on the morning 1940-rather the whole of blems in Europe for Ger- of May 10, 1940, the Ger- century so far as it has gone. And been into the back-to-back houses were

been and seen those streets where six- they lived all their lives than teen or so houses share a con- the shadow of poverty. Were they We do not man war machine rode many. ***

been venience ill-called sanitary. But saints or were they not? the want any Czechs." (Sept. into Belgium and

having seen these things, I still

Unhealthy tracts of the world believe that conditions are vastly Netherlands. 26, 1938.)

better than they were when are being made healthy. Infertile The performance: On The pledge: "We have deal of our modern horror of war

was born, and that, barring catas-tracts are being made fertile.. Wa begin to know something, however March 14, 1939, Hitler's guaranteed to all contig- many of us have so much to lose trophe, they will be better yet.

What we call civilisation has little and apparently useless it troops marched into what uous neighbours the in- (And the seeds of the Nazi war-

reces may be, about the microscosm or now lasted, with certain were planted and

at remained of Czechoslo- violability of their ter-philosophy

sprouted in the rank soil of Ger- sions, for some six thousand years the atom and the macrocosm

This second bound -at most, for two thousand years the universe. vakia and made it Ger- ritory so far as Germany many's unemployed millions, who longer. It is a period ridiculously forward of humanity may bring is concerned. That is not were taught that they had no short when we compare it with us to a time when there will bo man spoils.

thing to lose.) We have more the other time-scales especially no more famine and The pledge: "We are all a phrase that is our than our lives at stake; we have the time-scale of the animal who disease and man can get on withi determined, and also con- sacred will. *** Alsace- so many things that seem to us was already, or was in the way the job of being man.

to make life worth living. This to become, Homo Sapiens perhaps For my part I count is as a vinced, that our agree- Lorraine does not exist very horror, widespread and deep-half a million years ago. But great adventure to live, even only ment (with Poland) will any more for us. ***We seated in the common man and how short a time this is in which as a spectator, in such times

woman, is the measure of the to expect us to have become per- these. There has been nothing bring about lasting and want nothing of France, superiority of our own age over fect! How short a time for us to like it for thousands of years. continuous pacification. absolutely nothing." its predecessors at any rate in master the powers we have disPossibly nothing like it may ever occur again in the whole history ***We are two peoples. (Sept. 26, 1938.)

Let me not be misinterpreted as At some unimagineable distance of man, Admittedly there is a They shall live." (Sept. The performance: On asserting the absurdity that we from our own age our ancestors chance that the whole. thing dy to the Earthly discovered the uses of fire and the go smash before it is stablised. 26, 1938.)

Nov. 30, 1940, the incor-have attained The performance: At poration of Lorraine into Paradise. Apart from the count-wheel, how to grow cereals under But, even so, it is a great

less millions who, in spite of control, and how to use -metals.

further by recognising how great 5.11 on the morning of the Reich was announced all I have said, really have no Nothing can ever be proved about venture, which we can the better

thing to lose that is worth keep the way in which these things Sept. 1, 1939, Hitler

This is a little of the re-ing I am fully aware of two were done, but what evidenco it is. If I were obliged to choose dered German troops to cord of the man who now dangers to which our present de- there is goes to support the fair some period other than my owl attack Poland.

holds out encouragement gree or attainment exposes us guess that all these milestones I should choose the future of two One is the obscuration of spiritual were passed within a relatively or, three hundred years hence, so choosing The pledge: "Germany to the apostles of appease-values by material progress. The short time--whether a thousand that I might see how the adven has concluded non-ag-ment and asserts that he other is that our advancing science years or a hundred, I should not ture turns out. But,

may lead us into self-destruction care to say. Upon this basin what without compulston, I choose. this was built day and this hour. I may per- gression pacts with the has no thought of aggres-by its application to weapons or we call civilisation

Egypt, the cities of Mesopotamia, haps add, thai what was begun Baltic states. Her inter- sion in any part of the war.

At the moment the second dan Greece, Rome, the Arabians, the in a Cotswold garden has been ests there are exclusively Western Hemisphere, and ger seems rather less menacing medieval culture of Europe, and finished in a London -house and of an economic charac- no dreams of world con than it did a year ago. There is lastly what we now call modern that I can hear a Germon aero- -plane overhead as I write, But at least a possibility that the pre- civilisation. | quest. ter." (Oct. 6, 1939.)

sent ""-war maybe decided with What we call modern civilisa- that does not alter my opinion...

or-

my eyes.

covered!

no

morn

us

að-