Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1942. AMERICA AND PEACE.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 December 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1942. AMERICA AND PEACE.

WOT the least interesting part of an address in which the WeePresident oE the United States (Air Henry Wallace) dealt with the question oE the organisation oE the world for peace is that in which he said he believed the United States had learned its lesson in this matter and was prepared to assume a responsibility in proportion to its strength, To a. very great extent the future fate oE mankind depends upon whether this .judgment is well or ill founded.

Most thinking people in and to some extent beyond the areas of the United Nations will agree with Air Wallace that it would be the height oE folly not Io prepare for peace now, even if it is too early to determine all the details. It is plain that if there is to be any hope of future welfare and security, the United Nations must devise and carry out measures ol international organisation, backed by effective and immediately available force, under which nations that have broken the peace will be disarmed and kept disarmed, the guilty leaders 01. these nations punished ami the way opened to international cooperation in economic and other affairs.

Some people, in our own nation and others, hold that these aspirations amount to impracticable idealism. IE these sceptics arc right, the world is doomed to sink into a. horrible chaos ol: barbarism, but happily it is far enough from being established that they are right. Although admittedly it 'will not be accomplished quickly or easily, the establishment of a reign 01. law governing international relationships after all would follow logically upon the tremendous strides that mankind has made in substituting law for brute force, not only within the confines of individual nations, but in the mutual relationships of important groups of nations.

Whether a hopeful beginning is to be made upon the task of organising the world for peace must depend largely upon the willingness or otherwise of the larger and more powerful members of the United Nations to accept continuing responsibilities and burdens when the war has come to an end. Not least any such beginning must depend on the attitude of the United States, and what that attitude is to be cannot yet be taken for granted.

At a direct view there is a great deal to support Air Wallace’s opinion that his country has learned its lesson and may be counted upon to participate actively in promoting world peace and security. Ou the other hand, isolationist ideas, though they are discredited, are not dead, in the United States, or indeed in other countries. Some American political elements apparently are preparing to trade upon a revival of isolationism when the war is over. It is said, for instance,, the influential Republican Party leaders favour as their next nominee for the Presidency a State Governor who has no “liabilities” of declared opinions either on questions of international policy or on contentious domestic issues.

It seems probable, however, that in the United States, as in many other countries, a, foundation lor the essentials of a firm-knit international organisation may be found in a keen and widespread desire and determination to do everything that is humanly possible to prevent a recurrence of the tragedy in which the world is now involved. It has been said, for instance, that the people of the American Middle West, which was the most strongly isolationist part of the United States prior to Pearl Harbour, now reject isolation as a political doctrine, and are “determined, with a fanatical and bitter earnestness, not to let another war flood the world again.” The people ol: the Middle ,West, one observer has declared, “are far more earnest in their hatred of war than they were in 1919 or in 1939,” and to this it has been added that in the Middle West and in other great divisions of the United States: “Citizens generally are prepared to see the nation shoulder the task ol: helping to police the post-war world.”

In the extent to which they are accurate, this and similar estimates of the trend of opinion in the United States indicate that one of the most essential conditions of the organisation of the world for peace is likely to be satisfied.