To the Editor of the "Nonru-Ciuxa Dany News"
Sin-—You state in your leader of the 19th inst, that "Human prescience alone cannot avert catastrophe." This isa truism that should be writ large in the kindergarten copy books {oF five year olds as a first step to} wisdom, Once it has been absorbed, the axiom that human prescience does not really avert anything will be more easily assimilated. If prescience could. avert our woes, Utopla—and not The Earth—would be the name of this planet.
Human activities. like the activities! of all living things, are the outcome of Nature, and as the environment is, Gistinctly hostile it is patent that only hose who are equipped for battle have a chanco of survival. T say chance because even they do not necessarily survive in the face of superior fighting powers or adverse conditions. This is a platitude, and it is hardly worth mentioning in view of the ever recurring wars and cataclysms in the ages through which man has marched.
Its Idle to talk of the discipline of a higher morality when there is no meat in the pot, and no fud in the stove. Let us come down to earth. Either we are, or we are not, imbued with an awareness that enables us to follow the light of self-preservation, which dances disconcertingly at times in dimeult, complex situations, If) we are not able fo follow it our days fare not long in this world, for no pact between nations, no contract of any kind that is not in accord with the exigencies of reality can be effective for long. Look' at the drop in debentures; look at the tottering Treaty of Versailles; look at the League of Nations.
As long as economic conditions are propitious the cultural qualities man have a chance of flowering in the arts and sciences to make for a better sociological order. The evunomic conditions in Germany and Ttaly are far from being propitious. These countries appear (0 be the disturbing element at the moment, and trying to get come of the good things of rife they are simply manifesting. a characteristic common to nations. If anyone wishes tu avert war for a time it will be necessary to convince these powers that theft position would not be improved by the acquisition of colonial possessions.
What may be in store for mankind ho one knows, but in the present stage of human evolution It Is evident that all that is worth keeping will be so firmly es ternational police force and courts that shine with justice will be all that is necessary to hold society together. "But that time is still out of sight and, things being as they all who infinitely profer the fresh Union Jack to the stifling, medieval atmosphere of servility and persecution that pervades. some parts of Europe, are glad to know that the Aghting forces of Britain are being raised to slate more commensurate with the vast resources and responsibilities of the British Empire, Shanghai, Aug. 20.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.