YOUTH AND WAR

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 553, 9 June 1933, Page 4

YOUTH AND WAR

There is excuse for impatience with the University outlook when in the faee of the eiforts and the sacrifices which the British Empire has made to secure world peace, the Cambridge University Union with a typical condescension passes 'a resolution such as the following: "Thls house has no faith in the conception of a strong united British Empire as the mainstay of world peace." Mr. Michael Harkway, in proposing the motion, said the League of Nations had done more to promote peace in 10 years than the British Army had ever done. It is possibly fortunate for the world and its faults and frailties that • the intellectually raised eye-brow of the Cambridge University Union can affeet it very little and that there are hardly likely to be any international repercussions following upon the momentous announcement of its views. It is probable that the Ecoriomic Conference and the J}is^rmatmer)'; Conference will be held despite the poor opinion which the Cambridge Union has formed of the British Empire. There are, of course, many arguments academic and otherwise for and against the conception of a strong and united British Empire as the mainstay of world peace but whether it is as a mainstay or not, there is very little doubt that a strong and united Empire is a very much greater factor in building world j peace than a disintegrating and ) diversely-minded conglomorajtion of nations could ever be. i The- motion passed by the Cambridge ^ Union suggests that the Empire has set itself up as a rival to the League of Nations in working for peace but this is manifestly ridiculous. It is as the mainstay of the League of Nations that Britain can achieve the greatest good in providing safeguards against war and whatever may be her shortcomings there can be no doubt about the sincerity of the efforts which' her statesmen have , made in that direction. But youth, and partieularly university youth which has not yet encountered the leavening of life, is notoriously intolerant. Notoriously also, very little notice is taken of its intolerance with the result that it inevitably disappears. Fulminations of this description are best summed up in the words of Archbishop Julius when referring to a similar resolution passed by the Oxford University Union. "It seems a little hard on those who served in th'e South African war o'r the Great War that they should he told that they were s-erfs and went to those wars because they could not help it, and came back becaiise they jyeren't shot (said His Grace) also, that if th'ey were not murderers at all events they were next of kin to those who murdered their fellows, but this is the voice of young men. They don't mean all they say, and it doesn't matter twopence if they do. Yet it should also be remembered that in the past war some of the most distinguished of the Empire's soldiers were among the graduates of these Oxford and Cambridge- universities and among men who had very probably subscribed to very similar .Tesolutions in their union de^j bates. The greatest hope for peace in the world to-day is the : inculcation Q^fHie peace, spirit not only among its youth but among many of the fire-eating , oid men who make wars. Resolutions by the Oxford and Cambridge Unions will not make | wars or prevent them Amt although they may be radical in expressibn they at the same time reflect the growing determination to Iook upon war not " as a pathway to iflag fiuttering I glory but as the utterly savage ■ and detestable thing that it is.