THOUGHTS AND THINGS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 590, 16 February 1929, Page 8

THOUGHTS AND THINGS

Sir,— „ T ln , your leade r of the 12th inst went°to th alkS Peace ” i' ou certainly !'“‘ to th , e root of the matter with ” r S S: P ' World Peace will never oe a matter of pacts and vague asthoughT'of K t r n C ° me ° nly Tvhen ghastlvmi / World discerns the gnastly folly of conflict.” Those are SLt| n an m im tS ex f ctly ' We have to create an international “will to peace”

before we can have peace in actual fact. For, obviously, it would not be enough for us in New Zealand, eleven Britain overseas, to turn our spears into pruning-hooks and oir swords into ploughshares, since it would only leave us at the mercy of any predatory power which lad not assimilated our ideals. The thought toward peace must be world-wide or it is useless. Doubtless, as a preliminary, there would have to be an end made to secret understandings «ad councils. There would have to be a real “Parliament of Man and Federation of the World,” as depicted by Tennyson, before any single nation could consent to disarmament In the meantime, regrettable as it may seem to peace-loving people, there seem* nothing left for us but to be prepared for all eventualities. If the recent letters in your Citizens* Column are any criterion of what the nations have learned from the bitter experiences of the Great War, the ground is already cultivated for the planting of the seed. Let us hope that such is the case, and that our younger generation at least may live to reap the harvest. This much is certain—another big war with th€> devilish devices of modern science let loose would end the domination of the white races and fiing the world back into the barbarism from which it originally emerged.