FEDERAL UNION

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 124, 28 May 1942, Page 8

FEDERAL UNION

COLLECTIVE SECURITY

BASIS FOR WORLD PEACE

The monthly luncheon of the Federal Union, arranged by the women's committee, was held to-day in Milne and Choyce's reception hall. The convenor. Mrs. H. C. Duthie, presided, and the speaker was Mr. Harold Thomas, president of the union in New Zealand. His subject dealt with the practical application of the principles of federal union to the problems of the post-war world and to political reconstruction.

There were two ways, Mr. Thomas said, of attempting to ensure future peace. The one was by armed force imposing peace. The other was by some form of collective security in which there was law and order; where each individual State agreed to receive protection from a central authority, and in turn to protect that central authority. This second was surely the only principle compatible with democracy — the pooling of individual strength and the curtailing of individual sovereignty. "People often ask." 'Mr. Thomas said, "if the principle would work. The answer is. I think, a trifle unkind — like hitting a man when he is down. It is: "How does the present principle work? Federal union works in America, in Canada, in Switzerland and, w» believe, in Russia." If we were to learn the lesson we half-grasped in the last war. and this war was not to leave us as the last one did, then we must look to collective security, sponsored by the great democratic nations of the world, as a means of security and peace.