WORLD PEACE.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 October 1921, Page 5

WORLD PEACE.

IXFT.I’EXCE OF THE PRESS

DEMOCRACY ON TRIAL. WAR UNTHINKABLE. By Tetetrapb —rreea AMn—Copyright. Received Oct. 13. 12.10 a.m. Washington, Oct. 11. President Harding despatched a letter in connection with the opening of the Press Congress at Hawaii, saying: "If your deliberations shall inspire a larger, a better and a more humane view of the elements entering into the problem of peace and measurable disarmament, and if you can encourage the ideal of a world permanently at peace, then you will have given a vast impetus to the efforts of the statesmen who will presently consider these problems at Washington.” The letter adds: ‘The Pacific ought to be the seat of generous and open-minded competition between the best ideals of Eastern and Western life.” The President issues a warning against propaganda, and adds that democracy has* come to its great trial, and the verdict will depend largely upon iu capacity to make men think. He hopes the Washington Conference will result in the maintenance of world peace. Concerning the Pacific, the letter said: “We have heard much in recent years of the problems of the Pacific, whatever that may be. I take it to be merely a phase of the universal problems of the race of men and nations wherever they are. It is hsfd to imagine justifications in this day and age, especially in view of the world's late unhappy experiences, for an armed conflict among civilised peoples anywhere. and especially among peoples so widely separate as «tbo*e on the opposite borders of the Pacific. They represent different races, different political systems, and different modes of thought. There may well be between them and their varying systems amicable competition to determine which community possesses the better and more effective ideas for human ad-

vancement. but that warfare should interfere is almost unthinkable.”—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn.