THE QUESTION OF PEACE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 173, 9 August 1937, Page 4

THE QUESTION OF PEACE

" The real trouble with our age is a simple but deep-seated one," says Mr John Martin in his hook on Peace. " It is surely that men 1 and women are so occupied with affajrs that they scarcely ever flnd time to do any serious reflection. At the same time in no age has tbought been of.more consequence as much to the man in the street as to the leader; for the elementary reason that in no age has change been more frequent and various, and hence by a kind of law of political gravitation more rapid with the passage of time. So it is that those of us who believe that this question of Peace is fundamental to the establishment of any true world order, must revert insistently to that "elementary question. rWhat are all these armaments for V To that question, as every one very well knows, there can only be oue answer: 'To make war.' " You may qualify it if you like by adding that they are alternatively the chief instrument in a game of bluff and blackmail of which war is the ultimate sanction. The qualification makes little difference to the short answer. If anything, it gives it an added signiflcauce. But immediately you begin, as the average politician and expert — most of them suffer from this modern complaint of being too husy to think — invariably does, to argue with an elaborate clisplay of virtue that they are merely defence against SQjOBS wioked ag-gressor, you beg an^ befog the whole questiqu." ♦