TO HUMANISE WAR

Evening Star, Issue 23373, 16 September 1939, Page 16

TO HUMANISE WAR

MR HOOVER'S PLAN Mr Herbert Hoover, predecessor of President Roosevelt, in an address to the international convention of Christian Endeavour Societies, recounted his experience, immediately after the Great War, of caring for “ the homeless, the foodless, the frightened, and the helpless,” whose sufferings, ho said, he witnessed in 20 nations. In offering a proposal to outlaw war in the future, he went considerably farther than Mr Frank B. Kellogg, former Secretary of State, whose Anti-war Pact was signed by 59 nations, including Germany, Italy,' and Japan. Mr Hoover’s proposal is that all nations who are willing to do so should enter an agreement:—

1. That vessels laden solely with food supplies should be placed upon the same basis of immunity as hospital ships. They should go freely. Blockade should not apply to them. There should bo no attack upon their passage by either warships or submarines. 2. That there shall be no bombing of civil populations and no bombing ally where except .in the field of actual fighting men on land or sea, and at works devoted strictly to munitions. 3. That the shipment- of food supplies in war to any blockaded nation may be in full cargoes under the management and jurisdiction of a commission of the neutral nations.

' 4. That neutral observers should be continuously in - session within every belligerent country to determine the facts of any killing of civilians from the air.

As for enforcement of such a unique proposal, Mr Hoover said that the real ” teeth ” behind it would bo public opinion among neutral nations, which was one of the most potent forces in modern war. “in the strategy of modern war, one of the utmost anxieties of both sides is to hold the goodwill of neutrals—or at least to prevent their indignation forcing them to aid or join the enemy. The ill will of neutrals or their citizens at once induces informal boycotts of supplies, even if they go no farther. To influence neutral opinion in the Great War, every combatant spent millions in gigantic propaganda, and they are spending millions again to-day.”

To the horror of killing women and children public opinion reacted in neutral countries more than to the “ legalistic ” question of whether cotton was contraband, to imperial ambitions of combatants, or to specious circumstances of such instruments as the Kellogg Pact. It had been asserted that public opinipn of neutrals had no effect in the last war; contrariwise, when the final verdict of history was given, it would be found that the losers lost, not by lack of valour or courage, not by lack of efficiency, or even from starvation, but by failures to heed the public opinion of what were originally neutral nations. Had the American sense of humanities not been outraged over the years, there is little likelihood that the United States would have joined in the war. With the United States half a dozen of hitherto neutral nations also joined. Ten years ago, Mr Hoover recalled, he made that part of his present proposal relating to the immunity of food ships, in an Armistice Day speech, and it was approved by the leaders of a score of nations. Those nations who did not regard it with favour thought it one-sided But they now found themselves hideously menaced from the air. The double proposal should now commend itself to them.

“ To-day’s is perhaps a poor atmosphere in which to make any proposal to mitigate the barbarities of war,” Mr Hoover concluded. “So many are desperate with fear. So many have learned to hate. In six years treaties limiting navies have been abandoned. Negotiations to limit land arms have died away. Nations have violated their pledges never to use war ns an instrument of national policy. The standard of living, all over the world, is being lowered to pay for increasing arms. The only methods of peace to-day seem to be military alliances, threats of force, and delicate balances of armed power. All this may seem discouraging, but there are times when to relift the banner of moral standards is essential. For America to voice these ideals on behalf of women and children remiires no use of force, no military alliances, no leagues, no sanctions. But that voice, when raised on behalf of humanity, can be a most potent force in the world to-day.’-