Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1940. AN UNDIMINISHED NEED.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 December 1940, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1940. AN UNDIMINISHED NEED.

IT may be hoped that an increasing weight of opinion throughout the world, and certainly in all nations that are tree or hope ao'ain to be free, will second and support an opinion expressed bv the Governor-General, Lord Galway, at a farewel. gathering in Wellington. The opinion was that a solution 0the world’s difficulties “lay in something on the basis of the League of Nations.” The story of the so-called failure ol the League is familiar. The reconstitution, after this war, of all that was essential in the organisation of the League, with certain added features that experience has shown to be necessary, may be considered very reasonably, however, to offer civilised humanity its only hope of getting back lo ordered peace and security. • . The alternative to that vile reversion to barbarism against, which Britain and her Allies are now engaged in a life and death struggle is the re-establishment'of a reign of law. If, however, law is to be established and enforced in world affairs, the organisation of the League of Nations must be built upon in important, and vital particulars. While the fate of the League of Nations was still hanging in the balance, it was held by many people that, besides being made difficult by the absence from the League membership of the United .States and some other nations, the establishment of an international army or police force was not necessary. It was argued, for example, and at the time with apparent force, that if the measure of agreement needed to ensure the constitution of an international force were reached, that agreement in itself would make the use of force unnecessary. Ideas of this kind and' much that went with them have been most conclusively invalidated and exposed as unsound by the events and developments which led up to this war and by others which have occurred during its progress. An overwhelming weight of world opinion, including that of a large proportion of the populations of aggressor countries, was opposed to war. What has been demonstrated is that it is possible for an amoral and unscrupulous minority to plunge an unwilling world into the worst horrors of war. There could be no more conclusive argument than this for the establishment of an international force to uphold the reign of international law, and to take action at the right time against any attempted violation. It is now apparent to everyone that by getting together at the right time, the countries at present lighting Germany, and those she has overrun, could with ease have suppressed her Nazi gang and brought her under control. Whatever efforts, military or otherwise, might have been entailed in holding Germany to her treaty obligations and in organising internationally effective safeguards of world peace, -would have been light and easy in comparison with frightful tragedy, desolation and waste war has now brought upon the world. In 1938, the monster of totalitarian aggression had grown out of control and the humiliation of Munich and all that followed became inevitable. A few years of wasted opportunity made the difference between a world able easily to safeguard itself and one no longer able to avert such horrors as it is now enduring. The moral surely is that no similar mistake must be made again, but that with the defeat of totalitarian aggression the free nations of the world must establish positive safeguards of peace and security. Proposals for the federal union of nations are giving rise to disclission and attracting a certain amount of support, but whether anything comes of these proposals or not, the reconstitution and strengthening of the League of Nations, under that name or another, plainly is a minimum condition of order and security in the post-war world. Failure on the part of European and other nations to take unitedly the positive action —as distinct from agreement on abstract principles—needed to safeguard liberty and to repress lawless -aggression in its early manifestations would go far to demonstrate that modern civilisation had reached a point at which it was incapable of maintaining itself. The attitude of the United'States towards post-war reconstruction and reorganisation remains in a measure uncertain, but it seems likely that the logic of facts, if not the pressure of events, will make impossible a revival of the American isolationism that developed after the last war. It is at all events plain to any intelligent American citizen that if totalitarian aggression in Europe were not defeated decisively by Britain and her Allies, a deadly menace would at once appear to the security and independent existence of the United States. If American post-war policy is based on an enlightened consideration of facts, the full and active participation of the United States in measures to uphold a reign of law in world affairs will become inevitable.

AN AMBASSADOR RETIRES. people in Britain anil in other parts of the British Empire will learn with relief that Mr J. P. Kennedy has resigned from the post of United States Ambassador to Britain. Although he appears to have maintained, during bis residence in London, an officially correct attitude and to have been reasonably popular, Mr Kennedy, since bis recent return to his own country has taken up a position rather obviously open to question. An interview given by the retiring Ambassador to a Chicago paper, and later repudiated by him, may be disregarded. One of yesterday’s cablegrams, however, reported a denial by Mr Kennedy that he had, since his return home, been making anti-British statements and the denial was cast in such equivocal terms that it, might almost have been taken as establishing the charge the ex-Ambassador ostensibly was repelling. Declaring that he had never said that he did not expect Britain to win the war, he added, as he was reported:— What I am concerned with is keeping America out of the war, but that has never been a secret. I have been constantly asked: “Do you think England will win or lose the war?” How could anyone know unless they knew what the strength of Germany is? I do not know what the strength of Germany is. To this Mr Kennedy has added that he plans, after a short holiday “to devote my efforts to what seems to me the greatest cause in the world today—to help the President to keep the United States out of war.” lie explained that he expected to work as an individual and not to retain any official post. This last may well be believed, for the policy to which the American President and Government are committed, with overwhelming national support, is not merely to keep t.he United States out of the war if possible, but to give Britain all aid possible short of war. In regard to that vital qualification Air Kennedy appears to have been studiously and significantly silent. An' ambassador is bound to consider primarily the interests of his own country and an ex-ambassador of course is entitled to do the same. Mr Kennedy, however, can hardly be credited with having done this. He appears rather to have o'onc far towards espousing the discredited isolationist policy which is now repudiated and condemned, not only by President. Roosevelt, his colleagues ami the recent Republican candidate for the Presidency, Mr Wendell Willkie, but by an overwhelming proportion of the American people. The worst feature of Mr Kennedy's reported observations is his apparent abstention from any condemnation of the foulness of totalitarian aggression and brigandage.