Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 1940. A SUGGESTED DISPARITY.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 March 1940, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 1940. A SUGGESTED DISPARITY.

• + JJIRECTING attention to what he describes as certain differ- . ences of expression, in the speeches of M. Daladier and Mr Chamberlain on the subject of peace aims, “which may sow seeds of misunderstanding,” the French writer “Pertinax” has called up ghosts from a tragic and not very distant past. M. Daladier’s demand for material and positive guarantees ol peace, “Pertinax” declares, is preferable to Mr Chamberlain’s demand for “tangible evidence that will satisfy us that any pledges or assurances given will be fulfilled.”

On the point thus raised two opinions doubtless are possible, but if the experience of the last war and its aftermath taught any lesson, part.of that lesson is that “material and positive guarantees of peace” are apt to prove illusory and disappointing even, when they are in a form imposed by victors on a vanquished enemy. Some of the principal provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, notably those relating to the disarmament of Germany, were intended frankly to put it beyond the power of the Reich to engage in further aggression. The outcome has been written plainly for all to see. France, the nation foremost in 1919 in demanding “material and positive guarantes of peace,” stood by with other nations in the years that folowed, watching the restrictions the treaty had imposed on Germany being kicked to pieces one by one. Today we ’ have, as Mr Winston Churchill has just said, a war in which “Hitler and his Nazis have exceeded the worst villainies Imperial Germany committed in the last war.” It does not follow that hope of establishing peace on stable • and enduring foundations must be abandoned, but the experience of the last war very definitely suggests that when the time comes to make peace, other methods than that of seeking 1o enclose Germany in a strait-jacket of treaty clauses must be relied upon. The need of a broader international outlook' lias not been overlooked in France. While M. Daladier has spoken of material and positive guarantees of peace, he has also agreed with Mr Chamberlain and other British leaders in affirming the need for a wider and more liberal organisation of nations in the interests of peace anti security. In a speech delivered some weeks ago, the French Premier not only demanded guarantees of peace but declared that there was need. of a new Europe that should be of far wider organisation. It will be necessary (he said) 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. For the time being the Allies have a plainly-defined task before them. Mr Chamberlain has declared as emphatically as M. Daladier that there can be no question of calling a halt in war effort until Hitlerism has been defeated and overthrown and conditions have been secured which will make the achievement of the Allied, peace aims possible. There should be no great difficulty, therefore, in agreeing upon the terms of a joint memorandum on Allied peace aims advocated by “Pert-inax.” How far it is meantime possible to draw up a memorandum of the kind in really concrete and explicit terms is another question. Much depends on war issues that have yet to be determined. How far. for example, the defeat of. Hitlerism involves the defeat of Germany depends, as the London “Times” observed the other day, “on how far the whole) country continues to identify itself with Hitler. ” Whether, however, the Germany people are or are not capable of spontaneous action to overthrow their Nazi tyrants, the best and most dependable guarantees of peace, when it is restored, will have to be sought in more effective international organisation rather than in the imposition of bonds on a single nation. There can be no other guarantee of peace worthy of the name than in the widest possible association of nation's agreed and determined to stand together in upholding a reign of morality and law and in resisting aggression should it be attempted. Great and formidable difficulties stand in the wav of the development of an association of nations on these lines. On the other hand if has been snffieic tly attested in European experience from 1919 onwards that ostensibly material and positive guarantees of peace are capable of leading inevitably and directlv to a renewal of conflict.