PEACE NOT AN IDEAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 May 1939, Page 5

PEACE NOT AN IDEAL

SOME THINGS EVEN MORE SACRED. “I am quite unable to take the position of the pacifists. I respect their conscientious convictions; I admire the courage of their faith; but I have never yet been able to believe that they have 'thought out the consequences of their position,” said the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Lang, speaking in the House of Lords. “Indeed, many of them frankly say that consequences are no concern of theirs, that they leave them to providence. But, while we must admit that it is hateful indeed at the present time, after the lessons of twenty years ago of the folly and futility of war, that we should contemplate massing more force which may ultimately be used for an indescribably odious purpose, yet we are driven to this because we are convinced that there are some things that are more sacred even than peace, and that these things must be defended. Peace in itself is not an ideal: it is a state of things attending upon the achievement of ideals, and especially the ideals of justice and freedom. Peace in itself might be the most barren desert in which these ideals were lost and buried. I cannot believe that it is against the will of providence that the nations should, even at the cost of arming themselves, defend things that are so precious to civilisation and to human welfare.”