The Sun TUESDAY, APRIL 24, 1928. THE MIRAGE OF PEACE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 337, 24 April 1928, Page 10

The Sun TUESDAY, APRIL 24, 1928. THE MIRAGE OF PEACE

IT so happens in the hemispherical processes of the seasons that, throughout all the countries wherein the WorlcL "W ar was waged with furious wantonness, Nature is most avid and most successful at hiding the horrors of the conflict and in pleasantly mocking its appalling havoc. From Palestine to Passchendaele, from Gallipoli to Galicia, over hill and dale among the haunts of raw, remembered history. Spring marches with banners of beauty flying. Its purpose is the healing of earth s wounds.

Corn is shooting on many former battlefields; birds are nesting and twittering where murderous artillery once skulked and snarled; and there is peace along scarred valleys. A stubble of sacrifice —the tombs and memorials of vanished heroes —alone reminds peasants and passers-by of a terrible past. There is less harmony in the hearts of men and nations. Their happiness is so shallow as almost to seem spurious. It is true that their representative tongues speak eloquently of enduring peace, but their political policies still envisage and prepare for the possibilities of destructive war. A vital ideal continues to be as a vivid mirage. It is appropriate in this country on the eve of Anzac Day that consideration should be given to the international question of outlawing war. The subject is really much more important in relation to the best interests of the Dominion than the so-called sensational break in the friendship between a sectarian political organisation and the leaders of the Reform Party, whose fate in time, irrespective of intrigue or financial support, must be determined by the merit of their service or by a lack of merit. Anything like a dependable international outlawry of war would be vastly more beneficial to the people of New Zealand than could be any fierce campaign politically to outlaw Mr. Coates. Almost a decade has passed since the great company of inspired peacemakers at Versailles made a solemn covenant for the safeguarding of world peace. The League of Nations was to take the place of armies and the bad old diplomatic methods of intrigues and secret bargains. It was to become the inspirer, the arbiter, the supreme fountainhead of perfect peace and loving kindness. And in those glowing days of statesmen s dreams lo! the name of America, like that of Abu ben Adhem, led all the rest. Where is American idealism now? Some disillusioned Americans themselves say caustically that it appears to have shifted from Washington to Wall Street. In any case the Government of the United States is not in the League of Nations. Of course, it could be demonstrated easily that the League of Nations has been a tremendous power for peace and. the maintenance of international amity in circumstances which, in other times, without the League’s influence, would have provoked bitter conflict, but it is still far from being the supreme authority on questions affecting the most delicate and dangerous causes of war. The latest French plan for a multilateral pact to outlaw war is no better and very little worse than all the other pacts and proposals for the establishment of world peace. It accepts the idealism of America with enthusiasm, but adroitly evades its pi'actical issues. In the German phrase, France “weaves niggling reservations into the proposals made by the United States.” The lesson of to-morrow will be an old lesson: If war is to be outlawed every nation must first have the will for peace in its heart. Meanwhile New Zealand will remember the noblest virtues of war.