THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, JANUARY 31, 1907. PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT ON PEACE AND WAR.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8346, 31 January 1907, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, JANUARY 31, 1907. PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT ON PEACE AND WAR.

No portion of President Roosevelt's message to Congress is more clearly thought out or more weightily expressed than that which deals with the ethics of war and peace. Other portions treat of American problems, or of the particular forms in which general problems present themselves in ;the United States. But in.his observations upon peace and war and upon the duty of every self-respect-ing and prudent nation to be prepared for the effective defence of its convictions and its vital interests the President occupies wider ground and lays down principles of universal validity. He reminds the world that war is not only justifiable, but imperative upon honourable men- and upon an honourable nation when peace can be maintained only by the sacrifice of conscientious convictions or of national welfare. Though peace is a great good, to be promoted by every nation that seeks to do right, by sti-aining every nerve to do justice to all with whom it has dealings, there are yet occasions on which the duty of seeking peace is superseded by the higher duty of preventing wrong. Peace, says the President, normally coincides with righteousness, but it is righteousness, not peace, that i exalteth a nation and that ought to j bind the conscience of a nation. He adds, following some of the wisest of mankind in the past, that a just war is in the long run far better for a nation's .soul than the most prosperous peace obtained by acquiescence in wrong or injustice. This is true even if by criminal unpreparedness

or by evil fortune a nation is defeated in war. A beaten nation is not necessarily a disgraced nation, but the nation or man is disgraced if the obligation to defend right is shirked. There is not in sight at present any kind of international power which can effectively check wrongdoing, although by the Hague Conventions and other means we are all trying to establish some international conscience and public opinion which may some day develop such a power. We have to deal with things as they are, not with things as they might be, or with things as they seem to be to visionaries and sentimentalists. Things being as they are, the only chance that justice and righteousness may be made to prevail over tryanny and wrong-doing lies in the readiness of nations that believe in right to defend right effectively. Hence, as the President concludes, it is a foolish and evil thing for a great and free nation to deprive itself of the power to protect its own rights and even in exceptional cases to stand up for the rights of others.