The Hokitika Guardian FRIDAY JUNE 9th 1922 THE NEXT WAR.

Hokitika Guardian, 9 June 1922, Page 2

The Hokitika Guardian FRIDAY JUNE 9th 1922 THE NEXT WAR.

In his speech at the unvoiling of the war memorial at West Eyreton on Sunday Mr Massey declared that lie was not one of those who believed that we had henid the last of war. He believes that when war does come again it will come from Northern Europe- from Germany and Russia, who would be a powerful combination. If Rusisa and Germany were to become military allies, and were to strike at the rest of Europe ten or fifteen or fifty years hence, it is possible that Europe could not withstand the blow. The course and the character of the last war so completely confounded all the ideas and theories derived ■' from earlier conflicts that 'no prudent person would care to speculate at all upon the nature and consequences of any greatt Euroean war that might happen n generation hence. Nohody ljjipws exactly what the result would bp, remarks the Christfhurph Press, i but, are few who will not. agree

Hint it would he so ruinous that the fust, duty of statesmanship to-day is to lay the foundations of future peace by eliminating, wherever possible, the conditions which make for war. Mr Massey’s 1 relief that the next war, when if it comes, will come from a military alliance of Russia and Germany is based upon the fact that European statesmanship is not unanimous in desiring to secure n peaceful future for Europe. It hardly required the economic and political agreement which these two countries signed at Rapallo during the Genoa Conference to open (the eyes ol Europe to the perils involved in treating them as outcasts. Mr Lloyd George before the Versailles Treaty was signed. warned his colleagues of the Alliance that Russia and Germany coiud he driven by an unwise policy into each other’s arms. There is no natural affinity between 'the Russian people and cue German people, nor between the •Russian policy and German policy. On the contrary, there has been in the ;>ast an antipathy between them. But uotiiing is so binding as companionship in adversity and anything like settled hostility towards these two countries on the part of Western Europe would lay tbo foundations of a ’llusso-Gemian co-operation tlie consequences of which would be incalculable. . This is so obvious that many people leave wondered that i ranee should appear so determined to face the future as the sworn enemy of a Germany and a Russia whose' growth in Trade and population—and as a consequence, in power—cannot but be enormous. It is not . merely for the snke of the commercial health ol the world that Mr Lloyd George has been fighting for the healing policy of magnanimity ami conciliation—Hot merely because the whole world has been suffering from the isolation of Russia and Gennaiiy—ln.fc for the sake of Europe’s future. That' nations remember old enmities and nurse wrongs or even fancied wrongs for ages history lias abundantly taught. Nor is history without its teaching that benefits and goodwill are remembered too.