Looking Forward

For reasoning beings to reach the year of grace 1940 with half of the total population of the world at war, and the other half looking on in hope or apprehension, is something that the lower animals, with their limited traces of intelligence, could not be expected to understand. These have all, in their respective classes, reached a working basis amongst themselves that makes fighting an occasional, rather than a constant, factor of living. They have survived because of their “live and let live” attitude. It was the armour-plated types living in saurian times who, through fierce intolerance, gradually did away with each other until only such interesting relics as our New Zealand tuataras are left alive to remind us of that warring age.

Will mankind follow the moa and the mammoth into the limbo of lost species through an equally fierce intolerance and inability to adapt himself to changing environment? There is much to ponder over in the possible ultimate effects from the unleashing of the tremendous powers of destruction which today lie in the hands of the major nations of the world.

Will the animal instincts which cause bitterness to become more bitter, pleasure in physical triumph over an adversary, and persistence in the practice of butting heads against brick walls, bring about the decline and fall of mankind?

Or will the present tension be relaxed, and a reign of fair dealing and better understanding replace existing muddlement?

All know now that mankind can produce ample for the requirements of all in the essentials of life. Very few are unwilling to lend what aid they can in production. Most of the world's population produce with ease much more than they can consume. Transport has been perfected to a point where none need go without because transport is not available. A reasonable admixture of work and play is admittedly good for all. Then there are increasing numbers of folk who find their chiefest joy and relaxation in comparatively costless things. There is a real joy in work well done. The young fireman who could not keep up steam on one engine blamed himself and was ready to “chuck the job.” The same fireman, on a better engine, kept steam up to the high mark even on the steepest pinches, was acclaimed for his performance and was elated by it. He then felt that both he and the job were “pretty good.”

Other joys besides work can be comparatively costless—the enjoyment of good literature, music, sea-bathing, gardening, companionship, mechanical hobbies, and such like. If wars were necessary to obtain the costly things of life, how much better to do without them !

If 1940 is to be a year for which the people of the world can offer thanks, it will see an early armistice so that the essential things of life—national needs and aspirations, goodwill, co-operation, and appreciation of what constitutes the real happiness of peoples and nations—may be understood and safeguarded in the interests of all.

Without this, the very preservation of the human race is in the balance. How long that balance can be maintained depends upon factors that none can contemplate with any sense of security.