A DREAM OF PEACE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 694, 21 November 1933, Page 4

A DREAM OF PEACE

Nothing is more inimical than the "armed peace" that has so often riven the world with slaughter. But more immediately, nothing is more to be deplored in the power for peace of puissance in arms. So much has been striven for, and so much achieved towards establishing world security founded on trust and not on distrust, that it would be sheerly catastrophic to see the first gusts of disillusion sweep back into the murky depths from which came the tide of progress towards the dream of universal peace. If angling and wrangling for that "prestige diplomacy" which is rooted in strength of arms is again to convulse the legislatures of the world, then all the progress vaunted of during the past three eenturies is a mere drivel and a show. If international politics are to retrogress to the comparatively amoebic state of the Middle Ages, then the crown of success which has graced the fronts of peace advocates since that era has been broken to fragments on the wheel of persistent ohstinacy_._ The Jfolly of the thing is patent. Reiteration of the woes which the policy of arming for peace has wished on the world can do little now beyond serving as arevealing beacon to the shoals yet ahead if the same course is still pursued. Recent §mbarkations on the hazardous trip to an unknown goal have been far too frequent. SinoJapanese hostilities, Russo-Jap-anese rumour and ill-concealed hate, Australian and New Zealand strengthening of defences, have been a few signs of it in the Pacific. The salvo of malicious accusations fired at Germany from across her borders, and a general strain of tension in all quarters, are European manifestations of a turning of faith. Good intentions are, all to frequently, being divorced from good deeds. Too often the great voice of peace devotees is passing unheeded and they find themselves preaching to empty pews and the deaf ears of those who will not hear. Naturally the present order of things is such that negligence tolerated may be wellnight as culpable as zeal perverted, but the real peril is that a "fear complex," engendered by trepidation and jealousy, may again grip the minds of men. Nothing could be more portentious than the threat of Mr. Arthur Henderson to resign from the Disarmament Conference, the influence of which has been sadly undermined by the collous indifference or the petty animosities of Powers. His at.titude of disappointment after long months of minute care is not indeed a gesture of utter despair, but a timely rebuke proffered after long suffrance of antagonism. The indictment, if it be needed, of the one-time axiom, "If you wish for peace, prepare for war," is given beyond refute in the words of Sir Edward Grey, Rritain's recently deceased Wartime Minister : "Great armaments lead inevitably to war. .The increase of armaments, that is iniended in each nation to produce consciousness of strength and a sense of security, does not produce these effects. On the contrary, it produces a consciousness of the strength of other nations and a sense of fear. Fear begets suspicion and distrust and evil imaginings of all sorts." Where then lies the remedy? Is the present elaborate peace machinery inadequate, worthy only of being jettisoned in fayour of .a better? No. It must be retained, but it must Be con-

firmed and not confounded by international public opinion. The ultimate destiny of things, is in the hands of the thinking man, and so soon as he asserts his unquenchable faith in docility instead of aggressiveness, will durable world peace be an attainahle end instead of a beautiful but fantastic dream. To turn the other check for a change can at least induce no more ills than those that have followed in the train of a too-long continued rattling of menacing sabres.