The Daily News. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1911. A CENTURY OF PEACE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 79, 23 September 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1911. A CENTURY OF PEACE.

In 1914 the Anglo-American celebrations of a century of peace between t'he.Eng-'j lish-speaking nations will take, place and few doubt that the celebrations ] will have a magnificent effect on the nations and 'bring nearer to attainment the inevitable brotherhood of man. The plan to celebrate the completion of a. century of peace among English-speak-ing nations began to take shape years; ago in the minds of many who are interested in promoting international goodwill. Tn the United Slates, in Canada, in Great Britain, and on the Continent the question of a general .celebration on the one hundredth anniversary of an event of such tremendous importance as the signing of the Treaty of Client has been generally discussed for some time past, and the last three years have seen the beginning of several movements in the direction of a worldwide peace celebration. Among the best known members of the American National Committee is Mr. Edwin T). Mead," of Boston, secretary of the World's Peace Foundation. "The whole peace, party in America," recently wrote Mr. Mead, "is enthusiastically enlisted for this notable observance;. The people of Canada are organising as thoroughly as the people of the United Stjvt.es, and T am sure that the organisation, on this side will he commensurate. We shall probably have the memorial bridge at Niagara and the great convention building in New York. lam deeply interested in the effort to secure Sulgrave Manor and make it a memorial, not only of Washington, but generally of the English era.dles of American life. It should be made one of the most beautiful and popular American shrines in England, and there is particular fitness in identifying the. movement for its acquisition with this centenary celebration, which accentuates Anglo-American fraternity." Continued Mr. Mead:—

"But while all this is splendid, win I 1 chiefly care about, am] what all serious American wir!■■ r~. for international progress o.irc about ]■• I lint, this memorable aimivcr aw shill lo> nlilinl Id give a now and decisive impulse to (bo really groat b--niis which Croat Britain and tll« United Sf:lf.■; bavo taught the world. V.'-M-, null'."- inipor'.-iiit than any Niagara bWdgo is (lio radical advancement of Mm iinf'iw of disarmament begun by the demolition of t.lio British and American fori- at Ni.wara a hundred yoiir-. »-o. Why. at the oloso of our last war there were forts all along tho lino (eight at Niagara alone) and British .''irl .Anw'iioaii navies on all tho great, lakes. But. the enlightened men of tho two Covornnients -aid--and I mint in jn.fio:. say ihat (ho first proposit inn <.""-o 'rom your side—that this was. all '■>■■}'■ !;?■: s and that (hero was a. more eye.l'. nf wav. Thov rosolvod that tho loiv fror-'iors between tho possession-, (if Britain and tho t'nitod States ri'"n:n ps unguarded as tho liii" l-i'.-.•■•oi Ivi'lnnd and Sootland. or as. Mi-'t b, t-.vo.n New York and P,. nn ,..].,,„;., v.'hat was tho result? What, •.v.-M hnvo brm tho rosult if wo had nrr'i'-iivd our so'iadrons on tho lakes an'? a V.-.n- ii, u . 0 f f ( , r ts and garrisons ■■!;• ''bin" from Vancouver to Diilufh? Whv. wo know those would bavo lvn i,,n friction, and twice at least lb. !•■ wonlil probably have boon eonfliet. But the frontier was unguarded and. th.-ivforo, was safe; the one j safe frnn<irr in the world. Tho nion-i strous laltl.'.hips and armaments which are crn.-.liin«r the people are now vastly more a provocation and danger than a dofenee. and the problem proposed to tho nations is: TTow soon will they act like gentlemen, settling their disputes by law instead of by duel, and so be safe? I would respectfully suggest that Croat Britain and the t'nitod Statos should celebrate this centenary of their salutary Canadian frontier ciiterpri>e hv leading the world in a vastly more radical experiment in disarmament. F predict for it an even greater success and universal acclaim, and the statesmen who are wise enough to shape the programme of the approaching Hague Con- '

ference to tins end will be acknowledged I by history as the statesmen of the greatest insight." "As an American," continued Mr. Mead, "I am proud and grateful for what President Taft is doing for universal arbitration. It is an accusation against all civilised nations that this step has not been taken before; let them now all take it together. It is only when the reference of all disputes to the Hague Conference is pledged and the people have realised, as they are, now rapidly realising, that the Court can be trusted and that justice at its hands is a hundred times likelier than justice from war, that the war system and great armaments will give way. England and America, in the historic. Ghent arbitration, taught the world that there arc no questions of vital interest so serious—those questions were all involved in the Alabama case in the highest degree—which cannot bo successfully arbitrated upon when great nations have made up their minds to act like gentlemen. We never .forget in America Gladstone's great words in that case; we never forget that England anil America have led the world in arbitration. We remember that it was in these two countries, in 181.T and 1810, that the peace movement began, and that from these American and English centres, it has spread around the world. Let us by all means celebrate, the centenary of Anglo-American peace by every fitting festivity and memorial. Tint let us observe that chiefly by a mighty national endeavor to make the century, which prophetic Englismen and Americans opened so nobly, culminate in the real, reliable and permanent organisation of international justice and rea- j son."

It would be fitting the solemnity of so great' an occasion were the distant oversea Dominions to join in this great celebration, for in the growing power of pacific management probably depend the sole safety of Australia and New Zealand. The extension of a scries of international treaties makes armed settlement of disputes impossible and stupid. It is only through a general recognition of the futility and foolishness of the swashbuckling methods common to all past history that the dawn of £ warless era can come.

THE UNBRIDLED TONGUE, rije other day a public man spoke feelingly on the subject of slander, saying that a "lie had a thousand legs." A half lie, or a garbled truth, or an immendo that suggests evil is also a great traveller. Wc have in New Zealand lately had had ample evidence of the fact that much humanity loves evil report rather than good. We all know the mysterious person who makes indefinite allusions to a business man's credit, a politician's honesty, or a woman's character, and it is amazing that a busy circulation of an unsupported allegation may be gladly spread by people almost unacquainted with the butt. A trifling dereliction becomes a crime. These are not the days when the slanderer is dealt with shortly and sharply. They are indeed the days when the malevolent slanderer may be an angel in disguise with potential damages and costs in his pocket. People's,.feelings are a good deal more tender than they used to be, but gold is the glittering balm that gives the greatest satisfaction. Most people rush to law for solace for their tattered feelings nowadays, the law being infinitely more gentlemanly and payable than the very bad old method of listicufls, horsewhip or cudgel. Besides, the law has no sympathy for the man who smites the liar or the slanderer, although there has been n, recent case where a magistrate com: mended a man for striking a blow from which the recipient died. It is urgently necessary in these days of gentlemanly legislation and dollar raising to prove in court that one isn't a scoundrel, the assumption generally being that most men are scoundrels, and those who are not epenly so are merely restrained by a fear of the legal consequences. Even the small tittle tattle that is bandied about among neighbors sticks. Vague allusions to a damaging report, if carefully retailed at a nice "at home," get far afield, and are indeed never stopped. The unbridled tongue is a pestilence that lias swept the world since the days of Moses, but at no time has the unbridled tongue wagged more freely and venomously than in these. Christian days, when it is wrong to smite the liar, the perjurer and the . scandalmonger, but quite right to smite his pocket.