Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1938. PEACE HOPES IN EUROPE.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 December 1938, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1938. PEACE HOPES IN EUROPE.

JN spite of some hopeful contentions more or- less to the contrary by the British Prime Minister (Mr Neville Chamberlain), the New Year opens with a troubled international outlook showing' little enough sign of improvement. The success of the Lima conference is in itself of good promise. The important measure of agreement reached will help, perhaps materially, to insulate the two American continents against the effects of possible -world disorders. The broadening of the Monroe Doctrine has some ultimate bearing, also, on the general outlook in world affairs, but it would be too much to hope that it will exercise any very appreciable immediate influence on the policy of aggressive dictatorships in Europe and in Asia.

For European countries, and for those, like our own, whose fate and fortunes are in great part identified with those of Europe, the transition from one year to another is being made in an atmosphere of unrelieved danger and menace, The assurances embodied in Mr Chamberlain’s New Year message would be more comforting and more sustaining if they were rather better off in the matter of visible support. In fact, they find their place in the category of pious hopes.

As he is reported, Mr Chamberlain shows a disposition to fasten on pretexts and to avoid the larger issues that are really raised. He rejects, for instance, “the contention that Britain’s sole task is to prepare .for war in the belief . that war is inevitable.” Presumably the British Prime Minister is here intent on confuting those who have criticised his conduct of foreign policy and continue to do so. These critics, however, or most of them, have expressly repudiated the contention that war is inevitable. Their principal contention is that the European democracies would have been less likely than they are io be drawn, into war had British foreign policy been better handled.

No one doubts that Mr Chamberlain, is sincerely intent on peace, but his critics hold that he has in some measure undermined the foundations of peace by a. policy of unwise and unwarranted concession to the totalitarian dictatorships. Under that policy we have had the sacrifice of Czechoslovakia, which has given Nazi Germany a free hand over a great part of Europe. Pursuing the same policy, Mr Chamberlain is about to pay a friendly visit to Italy at a time when the legally constituted Government of Spain is making what may prove to be its last stand against a powerful mechanised army largely supplied and equipped by Italy and Germany.

It would be a cheerful optimist indeed who believed that the course of events in Spain promises well either for the people of that country —people who should, according to Mr Chamberlain, be free to settle their own differences —or for the general peace of Europe. It is entirely reasonable, however, to regard the Italian and German action in Spain as preparing the way for attack on the great European democracies, Britain and France. The facts of the European, situation, in the serious extent to which it has developed, are flatly at variance with the cheerful confidence with which Mr Chamberlain professes to regard that situation.

An outlook at present by no means promising may change in some degree for the better if Mr Chamberlain, in his forthcoming meeting with Signor Mussolini, lives up to his declaration in his New Year message that Britain will meet all peoples in a spirit of reasonableness, but will make no concession to force. A great deal obviously will depend upon the meeting in Rome and its outcome.

No official information is available regarding the ground to be covered in discussion, Mr Chamberlain having declined explicitly to commit himself on the subject. Various reports are current, however, one of them alleging, somewhat surprisingly, that the British Prime Minister has given an assurance that he will not discuss Franco-Italian relations with Signor Mussolini. It has been stated also, on the other hand, that the Duce will ask for a liberal measure of autonomy for the Italians, numbering about a hundred thousand, who constitute an important part of the European populat ion of Tunis.

Whether Air Chamberlain means to discuss Franco-Italian relations with Signor Mussolini or not, it must be hoped that he will make himself no party to an attempt to extort concessions of any kind from France where Tunis is concerned. The establishment of an autonomous Italian colony in Tunis woidd give Fascist Italy an excellent opportunity of stirring up trouble in that territory.

At best the outlook in Europe as the New Year opens cannot be called promising. All experience supports the view that when nations prepare for war, it is only a matter of time when they will go to war. Air Chamberlain himself said only a few weeks ago that he was waiting for a sign from Germany that she was prepared to co-operate in a policy of peace. Italy shows herself as little inclined as Germany to give any sign of the kind. ■ ft will be lime enough to express some confidence in the outlook when European affairs are established on such a footing as to enable a beginning to be made upon the reduction and limitation of armaments. Meantime, nations intent on aggression and nations which sincerely desire peace are alike arming as nations have never armed before. The latest development in this category is an'inl iniation by Germany that she proposes to increase her submarine tonnage to a point of parity with that of the British Empire.

In the way of tangible developments there is little enough to set against, the colossal waste and sacrifice of the armaments race. Throughout the world there is, however, a rising spirit of revolt against the insanity to which the nations are meantime committed—a spirit of revolt that may yet prove to be a vastly greater force in human affairs than the savagery and megalomania of the dictators, and even in the immediate future may impose some'restraint on the worship of brute force that is so widely prevalent in Europe and. elsewhere today.