WORLD AFFAIRS

Hokitika Guardian, 15 November 1928, Page 3

WORLD AFFAIRS

AIR BALDWIN’S REVIEW

LEAGUE OF NATIONS’ AVORK

FOR PEACE

(British Official Wireless.)

RUGBY, Nov. 10

The Prime Minister, speaking at the Lord Mayor’s banquet last night, made a wide review of international relations, in which he described tlic improved position of the countries of Europe and of China. He gave a fine appreciation of the influence of the League of Nations, expressed his belief in the value of wireless as an agent of peace and examined the implications arising from the signing of the Kellogg Pact. Referring to the fact that the present British Government had been in office for four years, lie said: “The history of those four years in Europe has been the history of stabilisation and reconstruction, a policy based upon and rendered possible by two outstanding events the London Agreement, to which groat credit was due to my predecessor, which placed the reparations 'problem on >;t workable economic basis and removed it out of the cockpit of political controversy and animosities; and secondly th /i Treaty of Locarno, which terminated once and for all the war period and re-introduced Germany into the comity of . nations. Tt is true that since then there have been no sensational or spectacular achievements as those were, hut the contrast between now and four years ago is a very real one. The enmities in Europe have disappeared or are disappearing. The war wounds have healed, or are healing. Currencies have been stabilised, and though there are grave economic problems still to he solved, their solution is being approached in a new spirit of goodwill. There is more and more throughout Europe and throughout the world to-day, a feeling of the necessity of nations getting closer and closer together. CO-OPERATION WITH FRANCE. With Franco we have sought the closest co-operation, and a progressive improvement has taken place during tho last five or six years in our relations, which had been marked by certain vicissitudes after the war. but now all that is far behind, for we understand each other perhaps bettor than we have ever done before. The fact that this improvement that has come with the years in our relations has been followed by a striking change in the internal conditions of Germany, as well as in her relations with France, is the best proof, if proof were needed. that the close co-operation between London and Paris does not and cannot react and shall not react to the detriment either of Germany or of any other Power. On the contrary the expansion of that co-opera-tion into the wider co-operation of Locarno still forms the keystone ot the European arch, and it still constitutes the policy of his Majcstv’s Government. Peace means not less collaboration, but more, and the fact that his Majesty’s Government so often begins by seeking collaboration with its nearest neighbours does not mean that it is in the slightest degree loss eager to co-operatc with others.” Reviewing reconstruction efforts, and the measures of success attending them, of the nations which suffered by the war, the Prime Minister spoke notably of the progress made by France, Belgium and Germany. GERMANY’S PROGRESS. Referring to Germany, he said: “Four years ago she had just emerged from tho abyss of financial, political and economic collapse. She lias more than re-established her position as a great industrial country. She is on the high road to recovering all that wealth and prosperity which four years ago she seemed to have irretrievably lost. She has re-entered the councils of Europe. The Military Commission of Control has boon withdrawn from Germany and commercial treaties have been concluded, between Germany and this country, and Germany and France. Her relations with her former enemies are in fact restored to a. position of mutual frankness and understanding. She stands to-day as a great country among equals and she owes that largely to the genius of I)r Stresemann, to whom everyone in this hall will wish a speedy recovery to health.” THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS. In his appreciation of the League of Nations Air Baldwin said: “The League is helping in ways not always obvious to that peace which we all desire. Peace has to be made in effect by statesmen, and statemcn are fallible instruments but nothing but good comes from this constant meeting of statesmen in the League of Nations. They learn there exactly what regard has to be paid to the peculiarities of individual personalities and they can realise that is, to have vision and to comprehend the effect of environment and tradition upon a man who comes from a countiy that is not your own.” VALUE OF WIRELESS. Mentioning how at home he went round Europe on his wireless set, the Prime Minister said: “When the mass of the people realise that in every country in Europe there lives a human being like himself with his family and his family life, with a wireless set like himself with his services on Sunday, his daneng in the evening and his lectures, the war presents a very different aspect. I believe that wireless is going to be one of tho greatest bonds between tho common people jvho in the long run will dew lie they there will bo war or not.’