LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 August 1919, Page 6

LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

BEST WORK AT PEACE ] CONFERENCE. ( i SIR JOSEPH WARD'S VIEWS, j 1 1 Wellington, August 9. , The establishment of the League of | Nations, in the opinion of Sir Joseph j Ward, was the most important work ( done by the Peace Conference. "It is not a question of whether the League to-day is perfect or not," he said. "The real point is what the League is going i to become during the next five or ten yearß." The Minister for Finance in- J dicated that he helieved the League was . destined to be a factor of enormous iin- ' portance in international affairs and that it would be able to exercise a tre- ! mendously strong restraining influence ; on any nation that might threaten to disturb the peace of the world in the future. Germany and Russia were outside the League, but he had no doubt that they would come in. The Germans had de- , pleted their country financially and with a vast bill to pay to the countries they wronged they would realise their need of peace. The Russians, practically bankrupt and at present ridden by the Bolsheviks,; would feel their need of a long period of peace. The Russians today, lacking adequate communications and an effective press, were at present in much the same position as the Chinese people occupied during the Boxer War. They imagined that they were on! the Winning side. But they would learn orally, if no other way, what was going on in the world, and their 1 desire for peace and for settled conditions would be as great as that of any other nation. ' The League;'of Nations, added Sir Joseph Wardj would provide a breathing space during which the education of the nations, and certainly the education of the youth of the nations, would transform the world. Other generations had been taught that war was the sole path to the goal of freedom and security within their own territories. The new generation would be taught that freedom and security could be found within the organisation of the League of Nations, which would be ready to apply united pressure to the nation that threatened 'to disturb the world's peace and infliet injustice on a neighbor.