The Timaru Herald FRIDAY, MARCH 4, 1927. THE NEXT WAR.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXIII, 4 March 1927, Page 8

The Timaru Herald FRIDAY, MARCH 4, 1927. THE NEXT WAR.

“I don’t think you realise, the tremendous danger there is cf another war,” .said the Bishop of London, in the course of an address before the New Zealand Club, at Wellington, on Tuesday. Dr Ingram said that in these islands of New Zealand die people were too happy, comfortable and prosperous, and were apt to forget the dangers of another war. “There is only one chance,'’ declared our distinguished visitor, •for the great peace of the world, and that is by putting moral influences behind world statesmen who are holding down the war spirit and striving to maintain peace.” Dr Ingram confesses that the peace of the world can he maintained by the free and enlightened peoples of the world supporting the League of Nations. . It might be asked, Dr Ingram admitted, “What had the League of Nations done?” The League had stopped five wars in five years, including that between Britain and Turkey for Mosul, Avar in Macedonian Greece, and between France and Germany. The League _ had brought three bankrupt nations, I Austria, Hungary and Germany, on their feet again, had dealt with child labour throughout the world, had rescued thousands of girl victims from the hands cf the Turks. Notrvithstanding

ie remarkably successful efforts )f the League of Nations in the interests of cvoiid peace, _ there are influences at Avork which are creating an atmosphere of hostility and jealousy. There are those who already see the next Avar coming. An American writer, to take one coirvenient example, a few months ago published a hook devoted to an examination of “The Origin of the Next War,” a question more important in some aspects than either the nature of the coming Avar or its ultimate results. His thesis is interesting, for lie discusses the problem seriously nud Avith a good deal of knoAA'ledge of recent historical facts. What he suggests, in effect, is that in spite of all that happened between 1914 and 1918, in spite particularly of all that happened in 1919, AA'hen the rulers of the world met together to make peace, and thought for a. moment they had made it, the factors at work to-day are very much like the factors at .work in 1914, and the chances are considerable that they may Avork out in a conflagration like the last, only greater. Iti cannot be denied tbat there is still intense rivalry for markets, a rivalry Avhicli, of course, concerns' the industrial nations ik© Britain. There is still, more than eA-er, indeed, the need for expansion on the part of several OA'er-populated and rapidly increasing nations, notably Italy, Germany and Japan. There is still the insistent demand of ceitain States fir free, or freer’, access to the sea. —Jugo-Slavia to the Adriatic: and the Aegean, Russia to the Mediterranean, arrd so forth. There is the soreness of States like Italy and Germany at the denial of colonial outlets for population and trade. There is Italian discontent, at seeing the one sea that washes her shores sealed by . Great Britain, at Gibraltar and Suez, and policed by her from. Malta, an Italian island, while France, from Toulon, makes its western end a French lake. Doubtless it will, he felt that the list gets a little Avearisome, hut. it is very far from being exhausted. There is the unrest caused at half a dozen points in Europe by the discontent of minorities—Austrians in

-o Lower Tyrol, Hungarians in Transylvania, “Macedonians” on both sides of several Balkan frontiers. There is always the radical antagonism between German and French. There is the unceasing stimulation of unrest A r the Soviet Government and its l agents. There is the perpetual possibility of clash between Russia and Japan in Asia. There is the whole baffling- problem of China. There are special danger-spots, like Bessarabia and the GermanoPolish frontier, and, perhaps, Lithuania. There is the shadowy potentiality of a Pan-Asiatic, ana the still more shadowy potentiality of a Pan-Arab movement. Doubtless 1 , the superficial observer will say, with a fair amount of reason: “Look at all the factors making inevitably for war.” But it is fair argument to point out that the seeming inevitable is not happening. For the moment the world enjoys peace because the nations have thrown up a series of hairier?, some spasmodically improvised, some systematically engineered, against war. Franco-German antagonism is met by a Locarno and a Thoiry. In the Balkans, refugee settlement schemes • are slowly substituting stability for flux, and the sparks of little wars are played on promptly from the tyrants at Geneva.. Minority moblems, though very far from being solved, are at least, pievented by a series of minority treaties, from producing- open wars. The Pacific Pact has largely dispelled the mutual suspicions of •America and Japan. The Danzig compromise just works, when, to all appearances, no other solution in that region would. And—most hopeful of all omens, so- far:, at any rate, as far as Europe is concerned--Britain, France and Germany are methodically working togethei for the maintenance of world peace. The League of Nations j tire most substantial barrier

against the war spirit. But it must be confessed that the League lias not yet had to meet a vital and world-shaking challenge. Till it does face that test, and emerges triumphant, t.r grows to such strength that the challenge is never' delivered, there will still be a danger of the next war. If, however, the peace-loving peoples' discern the danger, they will be all the more ready mightily to strengthen the League, as the first step towards averting another world conflagration.