Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1938. POSITIVE WORK FOR PEACE.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 September 1938, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1938. POSITIVE WORK FOR PEACE.

JN all British countries and in some others there will

be full sympathy with an appeal made by the Leader of the British Labour Party (Mr C. R. Attlee) for “a positive peace policy, rallying democratic and peace-loving forces throughout the world.” Not everyone will agree with Mr Attlee as to the practicability of the policy he propounds, but effort on the lines he advocates would be worth while even as a forlorn hope. The only obvious alternative for the democracies is to continue dancing to the tune piped by the aggressive dictatorships until all are involved in common disaster. If hopes raised in current news are so far realised that a conflict oyer Czechoslovakia is avoided, there will still be plenty of room and need for constructive peacemaking. Mr Attlee is of opinion that there is abundant evidence that the peoples of Italy, Germany and Japan resent the huge sacrifices that are being demanded of them and that the peaceful elements in these countries would make their influence felt, provided simultaneously the way was opened for international co-operation by a strengthened League of Nations, removing causes of friction, especially economic causes. To dismiss these contentions as sentimental and impracticable idealism would be almost if not quite tantamount to concluding that modern civilisation is on the way to Armageddon and that there is no possibility of turning it towards some more desirable destination. It is perhaps too soon to abandon finally all hope of organising the world for peace. Against all that has been said, and is to be said, about the desertion and weakening of the League of Nations, there is to be set the happier fact that time and events have done much to free the League from some of the worst faults and imperfections of its original constitution. It is now agreed very generally that a terrible mistake was made in embodying the constitution of the League in the Treaty of Versailles and in saddling the League with the task of upholding that treaty. Objections to 'these initial errors have found much more than academic expression, however. Much of what was most contentious in the peace treaties has been scrapped or overthrown, unopposed or in face of only verbal protests, and of the items of contention that remain, a considerable proportion could be brought speedily to a settlement in a reasonably peaceful and orderly world. There is no question in these days of loading a restored and invigorated League with partisan duties. The simple question facing all the nations is whether enough of them are prepared to combine in re-establishing a reign of law in the world, so that good faith, order and security may be substituted for international anarchy. • Unanimity on this great question plainly is unattainable for the time being, but it does not by any means follow that the peaceful nations of the world are incapable of imposing their will, by united action, on those that are at present organised for aggression. A resolute effort to halt the drift of the nations into Avar demands, not so much a breaking of new ground, as the clearing from familiar ground of the litter and debris of past mistakes. A wise use by the peaceful nations of combined economic power might be made a tremendously powerful agency for the preservation of peace. There need be no other commitment than an agreement to unite loyally in withholding economic resources from any nation rejecting the legal settlement of an international dispute and electing instead to rely on force. A positive policy on these lines—obviously demanding for its success the cooperation of the United States—appears to be the only alternative to ultimate conflict between the democracies and the aggressive dictatorships.