THE REFERENDUM

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 538, 14 October 1949, Page 5

THE REFERENDUM

Sir,-An answer to the commendably hofest letter by J. \Malton Murray centres around two points: (1) Can we prevent culminative international tension by arming? and (2) is Russia menacing us? The first point is clear. War is made inevitable by armament — it gives conflicting national sovereign States the power to settle differences by force. Also, if we are to hope for disarmament, surely a start must be made somewhere. If tension can increase by aggressive acts as your correspondent describes, could it not decrease by pacific ones? Concrete pacific acts are the one means of undoing international tension. . The second point is rather more clouded because of the lack of impartial information. One would not expect a conservative press td do anything but oppose Communism, and the Socialist press is doing all it can to dissociate itself from that emotive name; ‘and we must remember this when we gather information. The U.S.S.R. has a point of view that few of us understand, on which we cannot, then, pass an informed opinion. In the United Nations the Russian point of view is a minority ‘and therefore on the defensive. Also, at its inception, the U.S. voted for the veto, thus showing herself;/no more in favour of co-operative world government by surrender of some national sovéreignty than Russia. ; Your correspondent does not grasp the scale and profundity of the changes in human life that are in progress. The scale of distances has been so altered, the physical power available (through science) has become so vast that the separate sovereignty of existing States has become impossible. Yet wwe cling to it, and, like J. Malton Murray, vote in favour of militant national sovereignty. The independent sovereign State tradition is inseparable from the war tradition-to give a State permission to arm ‘is to give it licence to settle difficulties by force and give excuse for other States to follow suit. He says that there will be war "lacking the irruption of saving sense" and shows that he for. one does not possess that sense. Incidentally it is odd that he speaks of "the fantastic notion of defending the ‘Christian Way of. Life’ by . . . bestialities..." and yet seeks to justify it from the Bible. | Why not spend the millions of pounds to help understanding throughout the world? Instead of "trying to survive in a crazy world" why not try to put it

right?

H.C.L.

P.

(Wellington).