A LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1897, 31 October 1918, Page 2

A LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

THM “Jirst steps” towards the establishment of a League of Nations arc discussed in an examination of tJie terms of peace by Lord Hugh Cecil, senior member of Parliament for the University of Oxford. He remarks that the policy of the Government is that “the treaty of peace shall include the beginning of a League of Nations designed to prevent future wars. This every haler of war —anjl which of us does not hate war? —must heartily support,'’ says Lord Hugh.. “Yet we. must not be blind to (he extent and diflicully of the change we desire. The diplomatic and political machinery is the smallest part of the task. All nations need a convert sion of heart before the league can realise our hopes and make an end of war. To think of the League of Nations merely as a diplomatic structure because it must be begun by a diplomatic instrument, is like thinking of baptism as a hydropathic treatment, because it is administered by immersion or affusion. In both it is the inward change that is the essence. Tim League of Nations will be of very limited value unless it is associated with a profound conversion, of opinion and affection. To make an end of war, nothing Jess is requisite than a shifting of (lie centre of human allegiance from nationality to something wider. We need to feel a super-national patriotism. Such a change as this cannot be effected by the experience of war, however terrible, or by any treaty, however solemn. It must be the Avork of moral and religious influence, and probably of a long period of time. Yet (he war has given a powerful impulse to the work, it is an exaggeration, though an instructive exaggeration, to say that this Avar has done for the League of Nations almost as much as the Avar of 1870 did for German unity. Put at least the treaty of peace may Jay the formal foundations of the league. We can make a beginning. Even now we can think and act as lielonging to something larger than our own country, as owing allegiance to Unit great League of Nations—for such it is—which is now lighting to avenge civilisation of its enemies. So we shall feel bound to secure its undoubted victory and that submission of Germany to its authority .which is (he goad of ail our efforts in war and (he starting point of all we hope for in peace.’’