Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, APRIL 13, 1939. UNION AGAINST AGGRESSION.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 April 1939, Page 6

Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, APRIL 13, 1939. UNION AGAINST AGGRESSION.

ONLY a month or two ago, Mr Chamberlain was insisting, in the House of Commons and elsewhere, that his policy ot appeasement was succeeding. In the rapid march of events since that time, the British Government has ceased to talk ot appeasement and instead has given guarantees to France and Poland with the prospect of similar guarantees being ottered to Rumania, Greece, and Turkey. How vitally this change in British policy was needed is indicated clearly in a number oi ways, and not least in the state of affairs now reported to exist in Spain. Italy pledged herself to withdraw her forces from Spam when the war had ended in victory for General Franco and very recently Air Chamberlain and some of his colleagues declared their belief that this pledge would be honoured. It is now painfully apparent that the confidence thus expressed in Italian honesty and sincerity was not warranted. Current reports declare that with armed forces numbering some 60,000 still in Spain, Italy is sending additional contingents of troops to that country, some of them disguised as civilians, and that there have been abnormal Spanish troop movements near the French frontier. A position appears to have been reached in which the totalitarian dictatorships, disregarding their pledges, are determined 'to make the most of Spain as a bargaining pawn, if not as a strategic base from which to attack the democracies. It is probably reasonable to assume that General Franco, for al] his sounding talk about the achievements and destiny of “the new Spain,” is a mere puppet of the dictatorships. The gravity of the situation appears in the fact that a continued''hold 'on Spain by Italy and Germany plainly would constitute a threat to French security—a threat in face of which Britain is pledged to give France all possible support. In maintaining their hold on Spain, the totalitarian States are thus going far towards making a European war inevitable. Bad as-the outlook is, it is not yet completely desperate. H the German and Italian dictatorships counted upon continued disintegration in face of their aggression, they must already be sorely disappointed. Britain and France evidently will resist further attempts at domination and the understanding they have reached with Poland, and with Rumania and other Balkan countries gives every indication that they will be able to count, if the worst comes to the worst, on the co-operation of Soviet Russia. Moreover there is increasing evidence that the United States will play, much more, than a negative part should the Axis Powers plunge the world into war. The American barter project, of which particulars were cabled yesterday, holds important possibilities as a step towards united action against aggressors. It. has been suggested that the one condition on which peace can be preserved, or aggression resisted successfully should Avar prove to be inevitable, is that “all peoples who still retain faith in individual freedom as the highest human good, and in democracy as its political safeguard, shall forthwith unite their policies, their efforts and whatever part of their sovereignties now impedes united action.” Advancing that suggestion, a well-known British publicist, Mi- Wickham Steed, added :— On this condition alone, I am persuaded, can a new world order be based. That order cannot be, should not be, universal from the outset. High standards of democratic governance should be required of those who enter it. But, from the outset, its moral and material strength would be so great that peoples now in bondage would feel its power and seek to qualify for admission to it. It would regain the initiative. It would be the beginning of the enthronement of a real reign of law on earth, of an era in which the insane cost and waste of armaments could sanely be devoted to the improvement of human life. I see no other way. no hope of advancing toward a new world order without wading through floods of blood and tears. And I would replace both the formula of Karl Marx and the newer formula of Hitler by the saving injunction: “Free nations of the world, unite!” This is perhaps a counsel of perfection. It implies, amongst other things, that the European democracies should reject the co-operation of Soviet Russia. That rejection certainly is not wari-anled by Russia’s conduct during the years in which she has been a member of the Le’ague of Nations. The future of world civilisation, in any case, evidently depends largely upon the extent to which nations standing for a reign of law as against anarchy in world affairs, are prepared to sink their minor differences in order to take common and united action.