PEACE AIMS AND WAR OBJECTIVES.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 January 1940, Page 4

PEACE AIMS AND WAR OBJECTIVES.

TT is noteworthy that while the Allied nations have been asked from time to time to give more detailed expression to their peace aims, no request of the kind has been addressed to the Third Reich. One suggested explanation of this discrimination is that Germany is considered to have no hope of winning the war, but it is even more to the point for the time being that the Nazi dictatorship has, in the true sense of words, no peace aims to declare. Writing on this subject not long ago in the ‘‘Christian Science Monitor,” Mr. J. Emlyn Williams observed that while the 'Allies are concerned fundamentally with the question of establishing conditions which will lead to greater European co-operation and understanding rather than to chaos, no such problem agitates the thoughts of Herr Hitler and his associates. National Socialist “Weltanschaung” (outlook on life) may for a time have deceived many both within Germany and without as to its true content (Mr Williams added). But today, while some may still be led astray by its so-called “dynamism,” few can deny that its whole philosophy is mainly negative, that if it is anything more than a 20th century Teutonic nihilism, dependent on violence for its victories, it has yet to be revealed. So little root did its doctrine take even among the leaders that at the first sign of real danger they sacrificed everything — anti-Communism, self-determination, Lebensraum, “blood and soil,” etc. . . In such circumstances, it is not surprising that present-day Germany has no desire nor intention of offering terms to the world. A more accurate statement of the position perhaps would be that the Nazi dictatorship has no terms to offer to the world. Its whole object and aim is to extend a career of international brigandage to its practicable limits. In these circumstances, it has justly been contended, the Allies are fighting.to uphold, not only their own freedom and independence and those of small nations, but the greatest things which man has striven to attain. As Mr. Harold Nicholson, a well-known British author, now a member of the House of Commons, wrote last month :— Wc know that the evolution of the human race has been marked by certain advances. Greece gave us the beauty of the liberated mind and Rome the sanctity of law and contract. Christ taught us gentleness and tolerance, truthfulness and unselfishness. The blessings of honesty, the delights of scholarship, the balance of reason, the refinement of art—all these have been evolved in the Christian epoch. They were great and gentle attainments. In Russia and Germany they have been denied, ridiculed and persecuted. We know that had we surrendered to Hitler we should have been betraying mankind. These facts not. only make it possible to understand why Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia have nothing to say on the subject of peace terms, but provide a lull refutation of unbalanced declarations like those made in England last week Id the University Labour Federation and in this country by the Methodist Young Men’s Bible Class convention. 11 has been made clear that neither ol these expressions ol opinion carries representative authority. As a minority, and probably a very small one, Ihe University Labour Federation proposes to lead a working class struggle against what.it calls “a war for profits and world domination,” for which it holds ‘‘Hitler, Fascism and British and French imperialism” equally responsible. It is a sufficient answer to these assertions that in Nazi Germany, or in Soviet Russia, any corresponding minority action would be instantly, ruthlessly and on an average murderously repressed. In Britain the University Labour Federation enjoys full freedom Io air its preposterously distorted views of the facts of the war. The same applies to the Methodist Bible Class convention in New Zealand and to its passage and publication of resolutions condemning all war and rejecting the idea of any war service, voluntary or compulsory. It may be taken for granted, however, that these resolutions will carry their own sufficient condemnation in the eyes o'f an overwhelming proportion of the people of New Zealand, young or old.

War is a frightful calamity, but to attempt to halt or impede the present war effort of the Allies is in effect to urge that all free nations should submit tamely to the fate that has meantime overtaken Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and other victims of aggression