DELAYED ACTION.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 195, 3 September 1937, Page 4

DELAYED ACTION.

I do not claim that war can aiways be avoided. I do not need to answer the question whether war is even defensible. The qnestion does not arise, inasmuch as our knowledge of human nature tells us that in practice there are circumstances when war on our part, whether defensible or not, is unavoidable. We are brought, therefore, to the second aspect of foreign policy. The first duty of foreign policy is to avoid war. Its second duty is to ensure that, if it occurs, the circumstances shall be the most favourable possible for o'ur cause. Let us consider tbe immediate position from this point of view. By ,postponement we gain peace to-day. Have we anything to lose by it? Our capacity for cunctation tdelayed actionl is one of our most powerful and characteristic national weapons. It has been our age-long instrument against dictators. It is maddening and humiliating to have to take so much lip. We may, conceivably, have to submit to great humiliations and worse betrayals than any yet. Those who applaud war and believe they have something to gain from it have an inevitable advantage, which cannot possibly be taken from them, in a game of bluff and in the preliminary manoeuvres; though all the time they may be running unperceived risks which one day will catch them out. But we have to look farther ahead; believing that time and chance are with us, and taking precautions that if we are forced to act, we can be %ui U ture. — Mr J. M. Keyues,