“Taranaki Central Press” SATURDAY, APRIL 17, 1937. POLITICIANS AND WAR.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 410, 17 April 1937, Page 4

“Taranaki Central Press” SATURDAY, APRIL 17, 1937. POLITICIANS AND WAR.

O — Is it true that if a war starts in Central Europe it must inevitably drag first France and then Russia, then Italy and Japan, then Great Britain, then the Dominions, and finally the United States into the vortex?, asks the Round Table in discussing questions of foreign policy that must be answered at the Imperial Conference. That is the direction in which we are moving to-day. Yet is not an alternative possible? Might not the Pan-Ameri-can system and the British Comm onwealth system, if they both detached themselves from any com mitment to any other continental system, form a bloc so strong that no other Power or Powers would dream of attacking it, and economically and politically so stable that it could stand outside a European war and yet exercise a decisive influence in preventing war, in isolating it if it broke out, and in ending it quickly and on reasonably just terms? If the European complex, which centres about the distribution of armaments and alliances, moves more and more toward a balance of power within itself, if Brit ish opinion continues to feel that it is not its business to take part in anv European war that does not threaten the existence of France and Belgium, if the United States begins to feel that its present policy of neutrality will not suffice to keep it out of war once Great Britain is dragged in, then the creation of such a group of nations dedicated to the preservation of liberal and democratic institutions, detached from the warsystems of Europe and the Far East, may become a practical possibility. It is precisely questions of th is kind which it is the business of the Dominions to compel the Europe-fascinated politicians of Great Britain to face next month.