SAFE TO BE NEUTRAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 March 1939, Page 2

SAFE TO BE NEUTRAL

BUT PERHAPS NOT ALWAYS RIGHT VIEWS OF AMERICAN WOMEN . WIFE OF PRESIDENT SPEAKS OUT. POSSIBILITIES OF ACTION AGAINST AGGRESSORS. Neutrality was described by Mrs Franklin D. Roosevelt to the fourteenth conference on the Cause and Cure of War here last night as the “safe” rather than the “right” road to peace, a Washington correspondent of the “Christian Science Monitor" reported on January 24. “It’s safe to be neutral but Im not sure it’s always right to be safe,” she told the women. She urged them to examine their thoughts and decide “what you are willing to give up from a material standpoint to keep the world at peace. “Each of us,” she declared, “must put ourselves in a spiritual frame of mind where we can bring about the settlement of questions both at home and abroad by reason rather than force.” The President’s wife told the women she thought they were wasting time trying to convince the people of the United States not to go to war, urging them to assume mare responsibility in contacting the people of other nations “where war has been offered as the only solution to their problems.” Criticism of neutrality has been general at the conference. The Cause and Cure of War group, under the direction of Mrs Carrie Chapman Catt and Miss Josephine Schain has long been an advocate of international co-operation to end. war. If there is any change in the general tone of the conference this year it is in the softening of a long-time antipathy to force in any form. Numerous speakers have been telling the women that force may be the only means of punishing aggressive powers, though the conference itself insists that any militarisation in the United States be co-ordin-ated with an international programme to end war.

PERPETUAL PEACE WILL COME! Mrs Catt’s message to the annual dinner at which Mrs Roosevelt spoke was one of encouragement. “Perpetual peace will come. No power can prevent it,” she assured the women. “The date,” she added, “will be earlier in exact ratio to the intelligence and persistence of those who have faith in its coming.” Mrs Roosevelt received an ovation from the women as did Mrs Cordell Hull, wife of the Secretary of State. A plea that the United States and Great Britain'join together to use military and economic power to uphold “ordered behaviour between nations, tolerance and fair dealings, sanctity of pledges given and arbitration of disputes” was voiced by Lady Dorothea Layton, Member of the Executive Committee of the League of Nations Association in England. JUSTICE WITH POWER. “We, in England',” Lady Layton declared, “have at least learned this lesson, that in an armed world, justice can only be assured if there is power to enforce it.” Public opinion in Europe is decidedly opposed to the Munich settlement M. Louis Dolivet, secretary of the International Peace Campaign, reported. Eight-five per cent of the majoi- organisations in Europe, he said, are advocating collective security. A recommendation that the conference, go on record in favour of an embargo on war materials and credits to Japan, described as a “treaty-breaker” was advanced at an earlier session by Mrs Edgerton Parsons, Chairman of the Conference’s Far Eastern Commission. Mrs Parsons also proposed that the conference study the question of boycott in all its phases “in order that individuals and groups may intelligently make up their minds in the matter.” STUDY OF DEFENCE POLICY. Appointment of a permanent joint committee of executive and legislative officials and representatives of the general public to plan a defence policy in relation to a constructive foreign policy for peace was recommended by the conference’s Commission on National Defence headed by Dr Esther Caukin Brunauer. Asked by a member of the audience, “What shall a peace chairman advocate to her organisation these days in the midst of the present armament race?” Dr Brunauer advised against “propagandising for peace.” She told the

women: “Don’t come to hard and fast conclusions about peace policy but study all phases, then stand by your conclusions until necessary to change them in the light of new evidence.” Predicting that the United States will soon take strong economic action to stop dictator-aggressors, Eugene Staley, Associate Professor of International Economic Relations at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, warned against use of the sanctions to promote further chaos. While expressing gratification that the American public “is at last aroused to the real menace foi' use as well as the rest of mankind in the. spread of aggressive totalitarianism,” ’ Professor Staley made a plea for constructive use of economic pressures as (1) part of a collective system of community police action back by a world organisation, probably a reorganised League of Nations, and (2) .as part of a larger programme offering a positive, peaceful alternative to aggression. EXTREMES DECRIED.' ' “An isolationist refusal to co-operate in a world community system of resistance to aggression and a single-handed effort to do the job of policing the world ourselves are equally stupid,” he declared. An international police force was also advocated by Miss Sarah Wambaugh, former Deputy Member of the Saar Plebiscite Commission. She also proposed a permanent League of Nations Commission of Equity to investigate dangerous situations and make recommendations before conflict has broken out. “Behind all of these measures,” she added, “there must be in the background the certainty that if they fail, mutual assistance against the aggressor will be applied with military force.” Extension of the Hull reciprocal trade agreements, support of the League .of Nations, and International Labour Organisation and placing less stress on economic self-sufficiency were suggested by Ernest Minor Patterson, Professor of Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, as ways in which the United States can ease world tension. The 1.L.0.’s place in world peace was described by Miss Frieda S. Miller, Industrial Commissioner of New York and twice delegate to 1.L.0. conferences. Much of the delegates’ time was devoted to interviews with senators and representatives from their home states on questions of foreign policy.