Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, AUGUST 3, 1939. WAR DANGERS AND PEACE HOPES.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 August 1939, Page 6

Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, AUGUST 3, 1939. WAR DANGERS AND PEACE HOPES.

* TT would be pleasant to be able to agree with Mr Chamberlain that rulers and people alike are beginning to< appreciate the fundamental truth that if war should come, “victor and vanquished would glean a gruesome harvest of human suffering and misery?’ If Mr Chamberlain’s suggestion was, as it seems to have been, that this undoubted truth is impressing itself on rulers and people generally, his suggestion will not beai examination for a moment. No other reading of the world situation is possible at the moment than that the. rulers ol: Germany and Japan in particular, with support from Italy and other satellite States, are either preparing deliberately for war, or are endeavouring to intimidate other nations by threatening to go to war. There is much to support the opinion expressed by Mr Anthony Eden when he said in the House of Commons a day or two ago that: “Only an effective peace front would avert war.” Mr Chamberlain has no monopoly of the desire to maintain and preserve peace. The thought of war is abhorrent to every’ rational and decent man and woman in the world. It is not serving the cause of peace, however, to deny’ or gloss over the fact that several great nations at the present day have resigned themselves supinely to the despotic control of unwholesome and distempered visionaries, who have made and are making the fate of nations and the appurtenances ol war their playthings. Something remarkably like a refusal to face facts appears in the British Prime Minister’s reference to “poisonous propaganda in the Press” and in his further declaration that : I cannot help feeling that if only we could halt this wai of words, and if in addition to that some action could be taken which would tend to restore the confidence of the people in the peaceful intentions of all States in Europe—if that could be done, the gains for all the world would be incalculable ... There are States in Europe whose declared and indicated intentions are by no means peaceful and -Mr Chamberlain, appears, on this occasion as on others, to have laid altogether insufficient emphasis on the fact that the poisonous propaganda to which he referred is essentially a totalitarian weapon—one which, apart from its immediate effect, illustrates the outlook and the power for harm of aggressive dictatorships. The actual position to be faced is very far indeed Irom being that of a war of words between Ihe newspapers of competing nations. It is a question whether the mild complaisance of an influential section of the British Press —a section friendly to Mr Chamberlain and his party —has not played at times into the hands of Nazi aggressors. Last week, for example, the London correspondent of the “Sydney’ Morning Herald” reported that the revelations of Nazi intrigues with French newspapers had led to minor repercussions in England and to an anxious searching of heart among those concerned about some aspects of the British Press. It is not suggested that there has been any corruption in England (the correspondent added), but some critics allege that the Nazis sometimes get in London free what they might have to pay for in France. For instance, it is said that between October and March (the period preceding the Nazi seizure of Bohemia and Moravia) Herr Hitler’s real designs were hidden from the public by some sections of the Press in order to present the Munich Pact as a diplomatic triumph for the Conservative Party. The “Yorkshire Post” (which has consistently supported Mr Eden’s viewpoint throughout), in a leading article deploring this tendency, says.- “An attempt is again evident in certain London newspapers to induce a similar complacency over Danzig.” Air Chamberlain certainly is not hampered, in his efforts for peace, by poisonous propaganda in the newspapers ol his own country, but that term ol: reproach may-’ be applied justly’ to the abuse with which his latest speech has been saluted by the servile Press of Nazi Germany, which is now wholly and solely an instrument of propaganda. In Britain and in other Empire countries, Mr Chamberlain’s honest zeal for peace is acknowledged freely. The uncomfortable question remains, however, whether he is not endangering peace by endeavouring to conciliate those who are incapable of being conciliated and who perceive in attempts at conciliation only an admission of weakness and an encouragement to persevere in the tactics of aggression to which they are in any event committed. In the extremely critical phase now reached in Europe the formation of a strong peace trout against further aggression would be much more likely to avert war than the most eloquent expression. bv the British Prime Minister or anyone else of sentiments of appeasement. The development that is needed so urgently to stabilise and safeguard peace in Europe no doubt would Lave its due effect also in the Far East.