THE PROMISE OF EASTER

"I don't know the complicated road to peace in a particular political situation. As for Vietnam, I weighed it and prayed for it."- Dr. Billy Graham, The Herald, Melbourne March 24.

The dilemma of Dr. Graham is that of a man protected from ultimate forms of evil. This can be said without denigrating the personal and challenging mission of Dr. Graham to those seeking to deepen their Christian faith. But there is a force of evil, which goes beyond the personal failings of the multitude. In Common Law it was said that the law was not concerned with trivia, minor matters which could be dealt with outside the courts of justice. But the law was concerned with conscious acts, which deliberately set out to break down, or destroy the law. There is such a force in the world, which can be described as an organised conspiracy of evil. Its objective is to overthrow the Kingdom of God.

When Christ died on the Cross and the veil of the temple split from top to bottom, and darkness covered the whole earth from six o'clock in the morning until nine o'clock, that force was momentarily triumphant. But the message of Easter is the triumph of man, through the Son of God, over any ultimate form of evil.
The peace of Easter is the knowledge that man can always overcome the forces of evil through God.
"These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye may have peace. In the world ye have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."

In 1945 at the end of the Second World War after which we were promised continuous and lasting peace, part of the residue of Christendom, Britain and the U.S.A. had the mightiest force ever assembled in the history of the world. Peace could have been assured into the foreseeable future. But the forces of evil conspiring in the highest circles of the Allied Governments and High Command, disarmed those forces, built up the armies of mammon in the Communist world, used economic pressure to destroy the credit of Britain, and perversion of word and deed reigned supreme, culminating in the erection of the prototype world government ironically called the "United" Nations.
To the conspirators events have probably not moved as quickly as they would have liked.

A member of one of the world's financial houses, which helped to finance the Bolshevik revolution, Mr. James P. Warburg told the U.S. Senate on February 17, 1950, "We shall have World Government whether or not we like it. The only question is, whether World Government will be achieved by conquest or by consent."
The present Secretary of Defence Mr. Melvin Laird told the same Senate on March 21 that the Soviet Union was poised for a knockout blow against the Western world. Twenty- four years ago we had the solution to world peace in its physical application. Tyranny will always have to be met with force and strength. But is has to be directed and applied by mind of strength and will. The tragedy of the West is the dissolution of strength and will so that the shepherds desert the flock and leave their charges to the mercy of the ravening wolves.
Dr. Graham said recently that Mr. Nixon "was the best equipped" man to enter the White House for a long time. It is to be trusted he meant he was equipped with the strength and the will which comes only from God. "By their Fruits..."

THE AMERICAN WITHDRAWAL

"Enemy supply requirements are, officers report, higher than ever. With the enemy force in South Vietnam now consisting overwhelmingly of North Vietnamese regulars, it requires the support of modern logistics." - George McArthur, A.A.P. correspondent in The Herald, Melbourne, March 28.

A.A.P. report in the same paper from Washington a statement by the U.S. Secretary of State, Mr. William Rogers that "secret talks in out-of-the-way-places had been held on the Vietnam War. He added that the U.S. was ready for more.
Such an approach to the problem of winning an honorable peace against the enemy can do nothing but breed cynicism about the terms being offered the communists. What guarantee do such talks give that the South Vietnam battlefield will not be transferred to Laos, Cambodia or Thailand. Already the Government of Thailand is showing its apprehension by advocating compromise with the Communist Chinese Government. They want diplomatic recognition and admission to the U.N. for the Communists. Even though they have 55,000 members of the American armed forces in Thailand they do not feel certain that the U.S. will stay in the fight.

It is certain the whole of South East Asia is watching with bated breath the type of deal the Americans are making with the Communists. That they seek to do it in secret, not openly, with strongly avowed intentions would make it clear to the Communists that they aren't going to compromise, which is not a healthy sign.

GUILTY MEN IN THE GREAT WHEAT GLUT

"And the men responsible for the current chaotic conditions in Australia's number one agricultural industry are the Federal Parliament and all leaders of our wheat growers organisations." - E.J. Donath, lecturer in Social Geography, in The Herald, March 24.

Mr. Donath made much of his foresight in that he had been warning of the present situation for many years. However it does not take very much perspicacity to make such predictions when the history of the formula for guaranteeing the price of wheat is known. The crime is that such a formula should operate giving a spurious type of security by advancing the guaranteed price as costs rose, without doing anything about rising costs. And although Mr. Donath was given space for a leading article he did not throw any light onto the problem of halting rising costs.

It is raising costs, which have destroyed the incomes of other farmers and brought about the vastly increased acreages sown to wheat. The guilty men may be those Mr. Donath named, but in the realities of the situation, they are merely pawns in the hands of the economic advisers spawned into the Government from the halls of learning frequented by Mr. Donath. However in Mr. Donath's article he does inadvertently refer to one item which could throw light onto the problem of halting rising costs in the wheat industry. He asserts that the Government through Mr. Anthony has assured the continuation of the wheat acreage planted by assuring growers within the last few weeks that "no matter what happens on the international market it will receive a minimum of $2000 million. This is 25% increase in guaranteed income of growers."

We have pointed out repeatedly that over production in primary industry, and the difficulty of selling that production results from the disastrous policy of making finance available for production only. If the same policy is pursued in the future as has been done in the past the $2000 million will be used to finance the ever-rising cost of producing wheat. No attempt will be made to subsidise the consumer, or those services whose ever-rising costs decrease the income of the producer.

Mr. Donath's advice is that farmers should decrease wheat acreages and plant increased quantities of maize, oats, sorghum, and a variety of oil seeds. This is only a palliative in an attempt to cure what is fundamentally a financial problem. While the politicians and the officials representing primary industries are the guilty men so far as being the men responsible for policy decisions, the advice they have had from the experts has always been the basis of those decisions. It is time they challenged the experts.

THE EISENHOWER TRAGEDY

"He may not always have been a Republican by label, but he was one at heart" - Merriman Smith, news reporter closely associated with Eisenhower for the eight years he was U.S. President.

History will undoubtedly assess General Eisenhower much differently to the plaudits it is customary to give all figures built into prominence as "great leaders" by the world press. Undoubtedly the late Senator Robert Taft the Conservative Republican, would have been selected as the Republican candidate in 1952 and was almost a foregone conclusion until the tremendous promotion campaign for Eisenhower the "world" leader narrowly defeated him.
History would have been vastly different to what we have today, as the American people were ripe for a complete revolution against the policies of compromise, retreat and defeat against the advance of the world communist conspiracy.
The liberal left of the Republican Party with its vast financial resources knew it also and it was essential they obtain a candidate susceptible to their objectives.

Eisenhower had already demonstrated his affinity with the liberal progressive policies of co-existence with the Communists, and was the ideal figure. His eight years in office only continued the deterioration in resistance to Communism which today sees the Western world almost defeated politically and morally while militarily the American forces and NATO have been almost disarmed in comparison to the Soviet.
Eisenhower the soldier come popular figure knew little of political realities, of the control exerted by key personnel sympathetic to Communism. Taft, was of different mettle, the professional politician with the rare quality of integrity, would undoubtedly have attempted to root out of the U.S. administration the cancer which was destroying it from within.

MIDDLE EAST TO EXPLODE

"The influential editor of Cairo's Al Ahram daily, Mohammed Hassanein Haykal said that the ceasefire lines were like a time bomb primed and ready to explode. Egyptian impatience for action to oust Israeli forces from Arab territories occupied during the June 1967 war, was mounting he warned in his weekly Friday Article." - The Sun, March 29.

Events unfolding in the Middle East indicate the Easter of 1969 could see another blood bath. It is doubtful that the Arabs are any better equipped or sufficiently united to fulfill their threats against Israel. Of significant interest in this regard are the recent reports of open hostility to local communists in key Arab states of Syria and Irak. The Soviet re-equipped the Syrian-Irak forces after the last debacle and supplied expert advisers to train their troops. Reasons for the disenchantment of the Arabs with their Soviet "benefactors" is not clear, but it is certain that despite the hundreds of communists reported to have been arrested it will have not cleaned out key cadres left in vital command positions in the Arab forges.
It will be the responsibility of these key personnel to ensure the war is fought to achieve the results desired by the Communists. That result is not the destruction of Israel, so dear to the hearts of Arabs.

If the word "justice" had not lost its meaning when applied to the Middle East situation, the plight of the Arabs in this situation would be - and in fact is - a pitiable one. The whole of the Western world has been organised politically and economically against them. Their only "friends" being those whose only objective is to exploit them ruthlessly for their own purpose of achieving domination of Europe and the world. As with other groups who stand in the path of this objective, the Arabs, and for that matter, the rank and file of the Jewish people are expendable.