THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 278, 20 August 1919, Page 8

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

MR. MASSEY'S COMMENTS

WARS ARE STILL POSSIBLE

THE DUTY OF PREPAREDNESS

"Historians have said that (he result of the Congress of Vienna was a harvest' of wars," said the Prime Minister (Right Hon. W. P. iUajscy) at the New Zealand Club luncheon yesterday. "I hope that wa shall see no such outcomo of the Conference of Paris, from which I have just returned. I hope that the fruit of that Conference will he, to 'a great cite it. peace on earth and good will towards men.

"The Conference gave a great deal of earnest attention to the promotion of faco by means of the League of Nations. want to say that no possible objection could be taken to the principle embodied ih tho League covenant. Wo have to admit right away that the Leaguo will not necessarily prevent wars. What we all expect is that it will mako wars loss frequent in the futu.'e than they havo been in the past. There was no difference of opinion regarding tho prin-. ciplo. There was some diiterence of opinion as to tho measure of success likely to bo achieved. "Tho foundation members of the League are , the Allied nations, which stood together during the Great WarGreat Britain, iVance, Italy, America, and Japan. Those nations fought for freedom and justice, and- they have deserved the confidence of the other nations of tho world. Wo realise that the League must have force ibehind it. I am not going to discuss in detail how thai; force should be secured and applied, but the force mustbe there. You have merely to look aiound the world to-day to realise that there are many hundreds of millions of pec-ple, ip different countries,' who will acknowledge no argument but force, and, aro only kept within IJieir Qwii boundaries and prevented from violating tho riqrhts of others by force. If they are to be kept within their own boundaries in the future and compelled to live decent lives as nations, the forco must be there, just as police are 'required to support law in our own countries.

"That raises the whole question of armaments. We as British citizens must remember the part that force will still play in international affairs, and we must not forget that the war could not have been won without tho British Navy. I inolude with tho British Navy the British mercantile marine.. In saying that I do not detract at all from tho, tremendous efforts put -forth by other Allied nations engaged iu the war. . . . Without the British Navy we would probably. have been to-day under tho dominion of Germany. Such being tho ease, it will be our duty and the duty of those succeeding us—l am not anticipating another great war during the present generation—to keep tho British Navy up to a safe standard of strength. "We havo two mistakos to avoid. We must not imagine that tho League of Nations is coming into existence fully matured and able to assert itself right away. The League may take twenty years to attain its full growth, and\durinsr that time it will require the best brains of the Allied nations to make the additions and amendments that circumstances may require. Then we must | not iniagino that -bccause we have 1 founded a Leaguo of Nations wo have done everything that it is possible to do. We must not allow ourselves to be lulled into a false sense of security, tam not a militarist. If war could be swopt away, for ever by a stroke of the pon, every one of us would be proud to make the stroke. But wars have not been made impossible. Wo must-all faco that fact, and wo must' bo prepared to aocept as a duty the preservation_ of the Empire. The chief mea,ns of doing that is to maintain the British Navy at the requisite standard."