FOR PEACE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 42, 5 March 1937, Page 4

FOR PEACE

Writing on the question, "How Can We Preserve Peace?" in Reynolds News, Sir Norman Angell says : " Three conditions at least . are indispensable. First, the defence of the democracies must be co-operative, collective. Britain, France, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Holland, the Scandinavian States, Russia, with certain others now sitting on the fence, should form a ' defensive confederation,' pooling resources, an attack on one being an attack on all. But, secondly, the collective aetion should be strictly subject to the condition that the members of the confederation are prepared either to arbitrate all differences, both as between themselves and as between themselves and non-members, or to refrain from war as a means of settlement. 11 The members would thus gnarantee not the status quo, but peace; guarantee that the status quo wquld not be changed by war. Meantime, machinery of peaceful change and consideration of grievances should be elaborated. Finally, the club should be open to any member of the 1 other side ' who cared to join and observe the conditions. It could not, therefore, be described as 1 encb'clement.' The resources of such a group, moral and military, would be such as to makg attack upon it, so long as it held together, doomed to failure. But, in the long run, its power would not eonsist in its material resources, but in the fact that it offered to 1 the other side ' the rights of defence it clainied; stood, in other words, |or esgentjal cqu&H&y of right."