Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 14, No. 12. September 20, 1951

[Introduction]

Just 2000 years ago Caius Julius Caesar was defeated. But what defeated Caesar was not an army, but a problem. He left behind him in Gaul what has never since been quelled. The French have always feared and hated their German neighbours across the Rhine, and Caesar could do nothing with this.

Yet last year, a French statesman forgot this ages old tradition of fear. Robert Schumann offered a plan which would have called for complete co-operation between the French and Germans. Who is this Robert Schumann who can succeed where Caesar failed? We need not look far, because the only significant fact about Robert Schumann is well known. He is a follower of the Moral Rearmament Movement, a disciple of Dr Frank Buchman.

Then who is this man Buchman, who can persuade French and Germans to cooperate? Indeed this looks like a new spirit of understanding in international politics, and we need men like this.

Dr. Frank Buchman is the founder of the Moral Rearmament Movement. Some of us may remember him as the founder of another Movement in the thirties—the Oxford Group. But if Frank Buchman is little known, it is not for want of praise: because Mahatma Gandhi long ago praised him highly. And among his current followers are not only Schumann of France, but Adenauer of Germany. Chiang Kai Snek in China, and leaders in every other country in the world.