Wirarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 3, 1940. A NOTE THAT WAS NEEDED.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 January 1940, Page 4

Wirarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 3, 1940. A NOTE THAT WAS NEEDED.

A [ANY people in this country and in others no doubt will x ao'ree with the “Manchester Guardian’’ that in his latest speech the French Prime Minister (M. Daladier) “has sounded a note of leadership for which the democracies have been waiting for many years.’’ What M. Daladier did on this occasion, was not to proclaim any novel theory ol Inture international relationship, but rather to put living emphasis on. proposals for world order with which other statesmen have been content to deal as something that lies beyond the immediate horizon. Lord Halifax suggested a month or two ago that i might be necessary, in the interests of effective international organisation, to contemplate some modification of national sovereignty. Mr Chamberlain, too, speaking in the House ol Commons in October last,,said; — We are not aiming only at victory, but rather looking beyond it to the laying of a foundation of a better international system which will mean that war is not to be the lot of every succeeding generation. I am certain that all the peoples of Europe, including the people of Germany, long for peace, a peace which will enable them to live their lives without fear and to devote their energies and their gifts to the development of their culture, the .pursuit of their ideals, and the improvement of their mateilai prosperity. This is very well, ns far ns it goes, but British statesmen have been reluctant to give concrete and specific shape to their aspirations for a better world order. M. Daladier has shown a more practical initiative. He. sounded an impressive opening note in declaring that the Franco-British union is open to all. France and Britain, that, is to say, are not combined m a narrow alliance, but invite and will welcome association with all nations prepared to co-operate in re-establishing and maintaining pence. As to the methods to be pursued, the H’eneh Brime"Minisler was definite and emphatic. Having said that without material and positive guarantees France will not lay down her arms, he added: —■ Just as I distrust grand theoretical conceptions, so I prefer material guarantees against a return of events such as those from which we are suffering. So, too, I conceive of a new Europe that should be of far wider organisation. It will be necessary to extend our intercourse and perhaps to envisage federal ties between Europe’s States. We are ready to co-operate with all pursuing our aims. This declaration is the more to be ’welcomed since it represents a tremendous change from the outlook and spirit with which France, or her then dominant, leaders, emerged from the Gieat War More than any other nation, France insisted mJJU on imposing on German/ penal restrictions that presumably were intended—ludicrous as such an intention now appears—to he permanent. That, hopeless policy is now discarded, and with wisdom born of unhappy experience M. Daladier looks instead to a wider international organisation, involving extended intercourse and possibly federal ties between European States. With his declaration that the Franco-British union is open to all the French Prime Minister has brought this commanding issue’into the. forefront. It must be hoped that the note he has sounded will not be allowed to die away. The Allies are strong not. only in the possession of developed and potential military resources which Germany cannot hope to rival, but in their honest desire for the establishment of international conditions which will ensure just and enduring peace. It is not less necessary that the essential aim of the Allies should be asseiteci powerfully and insistently than that their military effort should be expanded until Hitlerism lias been broken and overthrown. Ever since the League of Nations was established, it lias been belittled and even ridiculed by more or less influential sections of opinion in Allied and other countries as an expression of impracticable idealism. In fact, however, failure to concentrate practical support on the League accounts largely for the terrible plight in which the world finds itself today Instead of being impracticable idealism, the association ol nations to uphold law and maintain order for. their mutual benefit is in the direct line of human evolution. It is by banding themselves together in law-abiding communities of ever-increas-ing magnitude, and complexity of organisation that men ha\e emerged from bestial savagery. Throughout, the whole course of human history, the essential, condition of progress has been the ability and ’readiness of men to combine and co-operate under a rule of law. An association of nations prepared to abide by and enforce a rule of law is the alternative, and the only alternative, to conflict which would hurl the human race back into barbarism. The true note of enlightened leadership is sounded by M. Daladier in his. declaration that the FrancoBritish union i.s open to all.