PEACE WITH JUSTICE

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 152, 24 December 1929, Page 8

PEACE WITH JUSTICE

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

TALK BY GENERAL SMUTS

(From "The Post*" Representative.) : LONDON, 15th November. ' General Smuts, who has been lecturing at Oxford under the Khodes Trust scheme, was one of the speakers at the Peace Commemoration Dinner held ia the Guildhall last night, and organised by the League of Nations Union. Supporting the principal toast—the League of Nations—General Smuts said that the educative and propagSnda work of the union had been of priceless value to the cause of peace. Its organisation had been above party, and cut across all parties. It had drawn to it those men and women who really believed iv world peace. To Mm perisoually it had been a consolation that, in tho trying years behind them, South Africa could help the good cause by; nominating Lord Cecil and Professor' Gilbert Murray as South African representatives on the Councils of the League. What those two men in. particular had done for the League and tho Union it would be impossible to exaggerate. (Cheers.) The public had ' helped generously with funds, and must continue to help. There'was to-day no better form of missionary enterprise than that service of tho cause of world, peace. Let them continue to make their contributions to that mission of peace and goodwill among men. In making their money contributions to the Union they were not only helping to realise a great ideal, but they were in a very real sense paying their small insurance against the greatest danger that threatened civilisation. "Tho League has passed through many ups and downs during its first ten years," continued General Smuts. "It is true that our highest hopes of ten years ago have not been realised; but neither have the dismal predictions of the critics of tho League come true. On tho whole, it has followed a course of its own, and has quiotly made good; and more recently its prospects have brightened in a very encouraging way. Germany, which, was suspected and feared as a source of future danger to the League, has quite unexpectedly become an active member and a source of real strength to the League, *nd of support to all the good causes for 'which, it stands. The United States, which was supposed to bo indifferent, or evea hostile, to the League, is going to joia the World Court. The Optional Clause is at last becoming a reality, and aa immense extension will thereby be given to tho judicial Bide of" the League's activities. The Peace Pact, which the United States has sponsored, has been signed, aiid has gone far towards closing the gap left in th« Covenant. The happy conversations between tho President of the United States and the British Prime Minister have given a new .turn to the, disarmament movement, and the forthcoming Naval Conference will open -with, every prospect of success. Last, not least, comes the great speech of President Hoover on Monday, which must have been read with the deepest pleasure by every supporter of the League. There was a note of optimism in it, and a-ring of sincerity which are good auguries foi- the future. Wo especially welcome the forecast of the President that there is going to be not merely a . patcll-up of the naval question on a basis of parities and ratios, but "a serious reduction in navies as a relief ■to the economic burdens of the peoples.' It is clear that at last business is meant with disarmament, and we look forward with the deepest interest to tho success of this policy." (Cheers.)

PEACE "WITH JUSTICE,

General Smuts maintained, so far a* disarmament was concerned, that aerial disarmament was the most important matter. He went on to speak of the problem of justice.

"Our ideal," he said, "is not.merely peace, but peace with justice. There "is no doubt that war has in the past sometimes served as a solvent for intolerable situations; it has sometimes destroyed the bulwarks of ancient wrong, and opened the way to necessary reforms and readjustments. If war in futuro is to be rendered impossible, we must see to it that its function, in so far as it has been beneficent in the past, be discharged by some other means. Peace must be dynamic; it must keep tho door open to reform and to freedom, and must not become an incubus on human progress. . The springs of reform, of progress, and of freedom must not be frozen under a deadly peace. Peace must be the handmaiden, of justice in the new world toward which mankind is marching. This position was clearly foreseen by the franiers of the Covenant, and Article 19 calls for means by which obsolete or intolerable situations can be abolished.' The creation of such machinery, and its careful working under proper ; safeguards, will be one of the greatest and most difficult tasks of the League. The time is rapidly approaching when, this task will have to be faced. Otherwise all our machinery of peace, our World Court, our arbitration tribunals, and other legal agencies, will merely serve to entrench tho status quo, and render the danger of future explosions all the greater."

Both Great Britain and America, said General Smuts, must follow up the Peace Pact. "Do not leave its general declaration in the air," he said, "but carry it to its reasonable conclusion. If thai; is done, it may be found that important changes in international lawwill become necessary, which will render the position of tho violator of the Peace Pact untenable, if not impossible. There will be no question of the application of force, but there will bo consequential changes of the laws of neutrality which will have the most far-reaching results, both for future. peace and for the settlement of current controversies. Tho Peace Pact, with its far-reaching implications, not only affords an unrivalled opportunity for tho strengthening of tho peace position, it also offers a bridge between the divergent views on peace methods held on both sides of the Atlantic. This unique opportunity should, therefore b» exploited' to the full."