15 SEPTEMBER 1939, Page 15

PEOPLE AND THINGS

By HAROLD NICOLSON

SPEAKING on the wireless the other night, I ventured the remark that we were fighting to defend certain human values against a system the avowed aim of which was to destroy those values, and that we should therefore treat with Christian charity those unfortunate Germans who, for one reason or another, found themselves stranded in our midst. I recalled how in the last war many innocent aliens were tendered acutely miserable by the dislike and suspicion by which they were surrounded. If in truth we are defending the Christian virtues against the pagan vices, then let us practise charity in our own lives.