The Dominion. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1942. A MESSAGE FROM THE BATTLE FRONT

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 25, 24 October 1942, Page 6

The Dominion. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1942. A MESSAGE FROM THE BATTLE FRONT

Mr. Byron Darnton’s last dispatch to the New Yojk Times before his death from accidental causes on the New Guinea front is in the nature of a last testament to the American people. It conveys to them the message that what the young men now fighting on the battlefields are thinking of is an enduring peace that will seture their future children against a repetition of the horrors of the present war. “The politician,” he says, “who preaches normally at the end of the war will find hard-headed opposition. He will find greater, love of peace than ever, coupled with a realization that peace is not automatic, but must be secured by keeping the United States strong on sea and land.” It is stirring (he adds) to see this attitude in our fighting men. It makes the dust all right, the flies all right, and the heat all right. A man can see his countrymen building, with blood, sweat, and toil a firm resolution that their sons shall not die under bombs, but shall have peace because they will know how to preserve the peace.

The foregoing is by no means a purely American sentiment. Ihe same feeling pervades the ranks, military and civilian, of all the United Nations. It recognizes the fact that the tasks of peace will be long and arduous, and because of that, there must be effective guarantees against interruption. But this determination to insist upon guarantees against international 'disorder should have a broader spirit and purpose. In the post-war world there must be order within nations as well as order among them. That means, in both cases, and with equal emphasis, law enforcement without fear or favour. ’There must be salutary penalties, rigorously enforced, for any nation acting in contempt and violation of the law of nations. But international law will not be resolutely enforced unless there prevail among the citizens of the various countries such a profound consciousness of the power and inevitableness .of their own judiciaries and a hard determination to uphold them, that any attempt to subvert its process and divert its course will evoke widespread condemnation. With every concession to law-breakers, national or international, every effort at appeasement as a means of shirking the legally prescribed course of action, the prestige and the authority of the tribunals of justice are undermined. Treaties between nations lose their sanctity, and agreements among citizens, such as civil contracts and industrial awards, are no better than scrap-paper.

We have seen what eventually resulted from a sincere attempt on the part of the British Government to carry out a programme of appeasement in Europe, and particularly in Germany and Italy. Every move for the sake of peace sharpened the appetite for aggression on the part of those two countries. With each unchallenged act of aggression the authority of the law of nations became visibly more weakened and held in greater disrespect. We have seen also in our country how gestures of appeasement extended toward law-breakers beget relatively similar results. What we must have, if peace among nations and within nations is to be held secure, is an attitude of mind that regards the law. as a sacred and protective institution that must at all costs and on. all occasions be vindicated. Once nations or individuals become habituated to the feeling that the law may be flouted. without fear of reprisal, the forces of disorder begin to make mischief.