The Sun 42 Wyndham Street. Auckland. N.Z. Monday, November 28, 1927 NO MORE WAR NONSENSE

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 213, 28 November 1927, Page 8

The Sun 42 Wyndham Street. Auckland. N.Z. Monday, November 28, 1927 NO MORE WAR NONSENSE

ANOTHER conference on international disarmament is to begin this week at Geneva. Whatever its outcome may be it is at least expected to produce the plainest speaking yet heard® there on the subject. The idealists are going into a wordy battle with the realists in the cause of peace. So far, the various international talks on the question have created nothing better than irritation and anxiety, these finding expression occasionally in outbursts of hysteria. This emotional mood was most prominent in Great Britain on Armistice Day when the memory ,of a million dead and “the stark recollection of workless and homeless heroes” aroused what was described as “an almost incredible clamour for peace and disarmament.” Of course, cynicism does not help in these matters, but sentiment should be confronted with facts in order to keep it sane. The realists have not yet surrendered to the idealists, and do not show any signs of a. desire for surrender. They still make plans and provide money on a profligate scale in preparation for the wholesale slaughter of humanity by way of proving again that “war is a fool’s game.” Has it not been pointed out as simple statements of fact that Great Britain spends £.115.000,000 a year on war services, that Europe spends £500,000,000 in' the same period on preparation for the next war, that America contemplates spending £80,000.000 on a five-year naval building programme, and that there are 10,000.000 more armed men to-day among the nations than at the outbreak of the war that was to end war?

Perhaps it is a good thing to have a No More War movement, as in London last week, but it would be foolish to be lulled into a belief that it will accomplish much toward the elimination of war. It may be noted that part of this No More War nonsense has taken the form of an appeal to Great Britain to lead the world in a common effort for universal peace. The most passionate appellant at the London conference in this connection happened to be Signor Nitti, a former Prime Minister of Italy, who, by reason of his close association with British statesmen in the closing stages of the Peace Conference at Paris and later, must know that if Europe would only agree to co-operate with the British nation for peace, peace would be assured. What’s the use of Great Britain agreeing to disarm to the extent of impotence if the heathen continue to rage furiously together? After the failure of the recent Geneva Conference on naval disarmament the American “Army and Navy Journal” immediately issued a trumpet call to the people of the L T nited States to provide a navy which would make America dominant afloat. And that journal sneeringly assured its readers that victory in war wiped out debts. The fact that Britain is paying about £IOO,OOO a day to America for the liquidation of war debt shows that the British nation has no intention of welshing. Until America comes off the fence and does its duty in the League of Nations, the demand for the outlawry of war will never be anything more than a noble sentiment.