KEEPING FAITH

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 September 1941, Page 6

KEEPING FAITH

PEACE A COMMON INTEREST. “Most people are agreed that inside any civilised nation there ought to be peace and goodwill; its members should keep faith with one another' and support the law,” said Professor Gilbert Murray in a recent lecture. “So much, one may say, every good man takes for granted. Does the same rule hold between nations? Is the whole world to be a civilised society, of which nations are law-abiding members? Or is it to be a great anarchy, with the nations like robber bands, living for conquest or plunder? The question was put after the World War: are the nations willing, while preserving their own independence, to live in a state of peace and goodwill, keeping faith with one another and supporting the law? To that question, practically the whole world said, ‘Yes,’ and signed the Covenant of the League of Nations. We know that the League failed. The world was not so civilised as we hoped it was. In most countries no doubt there were masses of people who were ready to work conscientiously for peace and goodwill and the common welfare of all nations, more than for any special advantages for their own nation or class. But this implied a great change, an enormous change, in the traditions and habits of thought of most of the Foreign Offices. They could not see that peace was the common interest of all nations, and that peace could be preserved only if every nation cared for the welfare of the others and was ready to practice, justice.”