It is possible that some Victoria University students have noticed that there are sufiicient nuclear weapons stockpiled at the moment to blow up a considerable part of the world at very short notice. It is not, of course, polite in New Zealand to talk about such things: whoever gets a bomb dropped on them, the assumption seems to be it won't be us.

New Zealanders have always been noted for their optimism. But as fortunately or unfortunately, our country is committed to the defence of the free world by several military pacts, it is possible that the Russians detest us sufficiently to toss a few nuclear warheads in our direction. It will he a new experience to have one's country devastated; New Zealanders, unlike Europeans, have never really suffered in a modern war.

It is mainly because New Zealand has never been sufficiently hurt by the outside world to notice its existence that the outside world may, on occasion, feel annoyance with this small island. If one does not care about other countries, one commits blunders in foreign policy and puts one's country in a position where H-bombs may be thrown at it. New Zealand, isolated from the consequences of two world wars, is conducting the foreign policy like a child of four playing in an ammunition dump. Any movement may blow the child to smithereens, and the child does not know enough about ammunition to realise either its danger, or how to act to get out of danger. This is precisely our own position as long as we prefer reading the sports news in the Dominion to working out what the banner headlines about the Congo really mean.

The overseas news section in Salient hopes to be able to inform those students who have nothing better to do than read it about the ammunition with which their country is playing. We are not ambitious, we do not expect to have much effect; we only hope that the issues which are interesting so much of the world today have sufficient intrinsic importance to make students read about them. If we emancipate a few students from the tyranny of the right and left-wing sterotyped views of world affairs and succeed in persuading them to think matters out for themselves, we shall have succeeded.

For, let us make it clear, there are stereotypes. We know all about the angelic Americans gallantly defending freedom against totalitarianism with the aid of such great free nations as Fascist Spain. We know, too, the all-beneficent socialist system which the workers love, and never raise a finger to injure, unless they are Fascists like three-quarters of the population of Hungary* These are myths: we want the reality. If there Is a conflict between good and evil on the international scene at the moment—and every political judgement assumes there is—it is not a conflict between angels and devils but between human beings, who are on occasions stupid, make mistakes, and act wrongly, ev*n though on the whole light. It is always easier to believe the myth than the reality; myths are especially constructed so as to be easy to believe. But the society that is founded on a myth eventually fails, because men only tolerate societies if they effectively grapple with reality. If we fail in foreign affairs the penalty is greater than the mere dissolution of a decadent society; it may be perhaps the dissolution of civilisation Salient wants this year to de-mythologise international affairs: it is up to you to decide whether it is effective in so doing. We want to present every possible view, and to have each view argued out, Its consequences judged, its value assessed. Then we may be able to pick our way gingerly out of the International ammunition dump.