FOOD SHIPS

Hokitika Guardian, 17 January 1930, Page 2

FOOD SHIPS

n IX" WAN TIME. PLAN OF DIM UNITY DISCUSSED ' / • in the 'course of his speech on Armistice Day, President Hoover said “Lam go jp,to , have the temerity to put forward an idea which might break through the involved legal questions and age-old interpretations of right and wrong by a practical step which wouU! solve a large part of the intrinsic problem. It would act as a preventive ;is'"Well as a limitation of war. .1. offer it' only for the consideration of the world. “i have not made it a governmental proposition to any nation and do not do so’now. , J know that any wide departure from 'accepted ideas requires long and searching examination. No idea ’can' be perfected except upon the anvil of debate. This is not a proposition for the 1 forthcoming naval conference, as that session is for a definite purpose, and this proposal, will not he injected into it. “For many years, and horn of a poignant personal experience, 1 have field that food ships should be made free of any • interference in times of war. i would place all vessels laden solely with, food supplies on the same footing as hospital ships. The time has come when we should remove starvat-

ion of women and children from tlx© weapons of warfare. “The rapid growth of industrial civilisation during the past half-century has created in many countries population far in excess of their domestic , f°°d supply and thus steadily weakened their,natural defences. As a consequence, protection for overseas or imported supplies has been one of the most impelling causes of increasing naval armaments and military alliances. “Again, in countries which produce surplus food their economic stability is also to a considerable degree dependentupon keeping open the avenues of their trade in the export of such surplus, and this again stimulates armaments on their part to protect such outlets. “Thus the fear of an interruption in sea-borne food supplies has powerfully tended toward naval development in both importing and exporting nations. In ail important wars of recent years, to cut or to protect such supplies lias formed a large element in the strategy of all combatants, “We cannot condemn any one nation : almost all who have been engaged in war have participated in it. The world must sooner or later recognise this as one of the underlying causes of its armed situation, but, far beyond this,' starvation should be rejected among the weapons of warfare. “To those who doubt the practicability of the idea, and who insist that agreements are futile for the purpose of controlling conduct in war, f may point out that the Belgian Belief Com-

i mission delivered more than two thousand shiploads of food through two rings of-blockade and did it under neutral guarantees, continuously during the whole World War. “The protection of food movements in time of war would constitute a most important,-contribution to the rights of all parties, whether neutrals or belligerents, and would greatly tend toward lessening the pressure for naval strength. Foodstuffs comprise about 2b per cent, of the commerce of the world, but would constitute a much more important jVirtion of the trade likely to he interferred With by a blockade.” GENERAL SHUTS DISSENTS. “I confess,” said General Smuts, “that I am doubtful about the suggestion of the President in reference to the immunity of food ships. 1 doubt whether methods of humanising private war will over really serve a useful purpose. That was the road followed in the era preceding the Great War. As soon, however, as the first shot was firod these humanising expedients went by the board. It will always be so. j “War cannot be effectively Immunised: its utter inhumanity and inexpressible barbarity will be it's undoing and will work the cure, and on attempts at rendering it more Immnnc to the innocent. The axe lias been laid to the root of the tree; let us keep hewing' there. Under the Peace Fact mankind lias definitely and unanimously declared war against war. Let us not in any I

■ way weaken or recede from that position. “Let us develop the conference system, both for members and mon-mem-bers of the League. The spirit of conference is the very soul of the peace | movement. Such conferences will in j most cases prove effective in keeping I the peace, and if war should break out . they will disclose the mischief maker. “Such conferences may also lead to concerted action in regard to any special immunities for food ships and the like, under very exceptional circumstances; which may arise. Put no general rules should he laid down in advance which will make the way of the transgressor smooth for the future,” . WE cannot be humanised. :Wr .). A. Spender, writing in the “Daily News” said: “We share the profound scepticism which Europe feels as to the impossibility of imposing any such limitation in time of war. The argument from Belgian food-supplies which President Hoover cites does not j carry us fur. for these were carried with the consent of all the belligerents, whereas the case we have to consider is one in which a powerful belligerent may resist the proposed rule and endeavour to enforce its own view of its rights in time of war. “Moreover, the immunity of foodsupplies for the civil population is only one branch of the whole question of the ' position of non-combatants in time of i

■war. It is now generally acknowledged that in the aerial war of the future there can be no distinction between the soldier and the civil population. “Combatants aiicK non-combatants, men, women, and children alike will all he liable to bombardment from the air and suffocation by poison-gas. To expect a belligerent to submit to this- and yet refrain from, tfje comparatively mild retaliation of striking at the food supplies df his enemy is; ijfyuost certainly to ask more of lnmnfn nature than it will give. “The Preside,lit will do good service if he opens up'thei whole of this question, but, 1 am afraid, when it is opened. the answer will be that the humanising of war iff, a lost cause and that the only way of preventing these inhumanities is to prevent war.