The Waikato Times. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1939 NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20958, 10 November 1939, Page 4

The Waikato Times. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1939 NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

President Roosevelt is the most likely candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize—if the prize is awarded this year, says a message from Oslo. The condition attached to the statement suggests that those whose task it is to allocate the annual prize for the greatest contibution to the cause of peace have some doubt whether anyone has earned it in the past twelve months. That confusion is not surprising in view of the chaotic state of world affairs today. The leaders of all the nations are giving at least lip-service to the cause of peace, but somewhere there is gross insincerity and hypocrisy. Ambition, greed and unreasoning nationalism are warping men’s minds. But it is clear that the greatest evil is totalitarianism which allows one man to impose his unsupported will upon a whole nation.

According to Dr. Goebbels, Herr Hitler is the man most qualified to receive the Peace Prize. Russia is alleged to see in M. Stalin the embodiment of peaceful intent. Review the whole galaxy of great national leaders—Mussolini, Daladier, Roosevelt, Chamberlain; where can the choice be made among these? Or if the search be made among lesser men, where is the shining example of constructive peace effort to be found? National or political bias might suggest a name, but the Nobel Peace Prize committee is not concerned with suen factors. The award is not exclusive to politicians or to any other class—not even to individuals, for last year it was won by the Nansen Office for conspicuous service to the cause of peace. The question arises whether the prize should be awarded to representatives of belligerent countries or only to neutrals, and whether a nation at war might in fact be serving the ends of peace. President Roosevelt is certainly not at war, but is it not possible that he might have made a greater contribution to the cause of eventual world peace by ranging himself on the side of the other democratic countries-which believe they are fighting to bring peace to a world which for years has known only strife and the everpresent menace of aggression? He who remains aloof and cries “Peace” to a distracted world is not necessarily a real peacemaker, if by his inactivity he permits the forces of disruption to trample underfoot the only agencies that can ever make for international settlement.

When the choice is being made the name of Chamberlain must inevitably come under discussion. Who among all the prominent men of the world has been more active than he since the crisis became acute? Who has risked more before and after the Munich conference, and who has suffered such acute disappointment and sense of frustration because the vision he saw at Munich crumbled to dust? Who, when he has seen the promise of fulfilment of a great ideal, has ever been more grossly betrayed by the man upon whose solemn promise he chose to rely? Chamberlain has his detractors, and his human faults, but he, or perhaps rather the spirit of the nation which he represents, has striven unremittingly for the maintenance of peace, even if unsuccessfully. But the decision can safely be left to the authority that controls the award, and it may be that no prize will be given this year.