THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST WAR

Shannon News, 4 June 1929, Page 2

THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST WAR

WORLD PARLIAMENT IN THE MAKING. STUDIES OF WILSON AND CHAMBERLAIN. The paper which was to have been read before the last meeting of the League of Nations Union, Levin branch, by Mr W. Falloon, is published herewith. It is entitled “Some Personalities of the League of Nations,” and gives a compact summary of the movement and character sketches of its pioneers, in the folowing terms:— ' , It seems 'to be a common idea that the League of Nations is a new thing. Confucius, who lived- long before; the Christian era, taught his followers to live at peace with all men. And probably because he taught peace, the Chinese Empire, which mainly is composed of adherents of Confucius, has lasted to the present day, while other empires founded on the sword, have long since passed away. We have our own Scotch poet who spoke of the time, when ‘ ‘ Man to man the wide world o’er shall brithers be for a ’ that. ’ ’ But although .the peace idea has always been in the mind of the poet or the dreamer, or the mystic, never before in* our time has it capturthe minds of the politicians. So when we go back to the commencement of the League of Nations Union, we must think of the founder and he was a political leading light. Woodrow Wilson was President of the United States when the Great War broke out in August 1914, and while the war was raging and before America came in, he gained much prominence with his 'famous “ Fourteen Points. ’ ’ These fourteen points which he, with muck persistence, brought before the Allies, and the Central Powers, were a basis for peace • negotiations. The most important of them were that there should be no secret agreements between any nations, but that all covenants should be open and above board, and that there should be absolute free; dom of the seas outside territorial waters. The greatest' instrument of war that the Allies had was the economic blockade of Germany. .Theise fourteen points were not agreed upon by the contending nations, and later President iWilson; much a(gainst his will, was drawn into the war. The country was not very kind to him, as she forced him into war, and after wards when he drew up plans for a League of Nations Union, she refused to become a party to any sUch agreement. Wilson returned from the Peace Conference a very disappointed man, and the next they heard of him was a very serious breakdown .in health.

The world is never worthy of its greatest men, apid President Wilson was something of a failure to his own day and generation, because he was just a little ahead of his time. The idea of universal peace was welcomed by the statesmen of other countries, but his own country turned him down. All great movements roust have a beginning and posterity will p(robably accord President Wilson a higher place than the present age does. A personality of a very different character from Wilson is Si: Austen Chamberlain, a clever son* of a brilliant father. In politics it is unusual for a eon to follow in hi 3 father’s footsteps, but here we have a son whose work is likely to be more lasting than that of his father, who was One of the most successful Colonial Treasurers that Britain has possessed. Joseph Chamberlain thought to bind the ties of Empire more closely by a. system of preferential trade within the Empire and his son aims to benefit all nations together by a system of mutual disarmament. Al ston Chamberlain was educated at Cambridge, also at Berlin University. He had an opportunity while quite young of studying those who were to be his opponents in after years in the Great War. He entered the House of Commons in 1892; id 1894 he was made Civil Lord of the . Admiralty. His rise was rapid, as we find him in 1900 Financial Secretary to the Treasury and in 1903 Chancellor of the Exchequer or, as we wouldi say in New Zealand, Minister of Finance. He served during the war in the Coalition Ministry, and on the fall of the Government in 1922 he did not join the. new Conservative Ministry, but ift 1924 he became Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. In this capacity he secured the Locarno Pact, for which he received the high honour of being created K.G.

To quote Sir Austen’s own speech in the House of iCoimmons: “When we joined the League of Nations wo became, in a greater or less degree participhnts in any conflict that breaks out, and our interest is to see that th 6 danger of war is removed as far as possible in every quarter of the world. I do not say that these treaties, when ratified, will make war impossible. It is not given to any human instrument to do that. But I do say that they render war infinitely more difficult, that they make it far less possible that war should break out on some obscure or trivial incident or claim.”

This papier may be concluded by a quotation from Mr Lloyd George, who perhaps did more than any living man to bring victory to the Allies in the laic war. This speech was delivered during the war: “I can see peace coming now, not a peace which would be a beginning of war, but a real peace. The world is an old world which never had peace. But strange things have happened in this war and stranger things still are to come. To-day we are waging the most devastating war that the world has ever seen. Tomay be abolished for ever from the categories of human crimes.”