WRITERS MILITANT

New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 669, 2 May 1952, Page 5

WRITERS MILITANT

Sir,-It was, I think, Bertrand Russell who suggested that in the event of ’ @ third world war New Zealand might ~~ be a sort of Noah’s Ark, surviving alone, or almost alone, in a world reduced to rubble and ashes. In one of his more recent novels Aldous Huxley used the same idea, If it is true that we have a better chance of survival than most communities, may this not tempt us to take the sort of view of the world peace movement that you, in your editorial article, have put forward? And can we baame the writers, and the general public, of Great Britain, if they" take a rather different view? It seems that today, when war is nearer to downright madness than at any previous time, it is impossible to adyocate peace with- . out being suspected of treason, or at least of blind complicity in treasonable acts. The Authors’ World Peace Appeal is supported by (among hundredg of other writers) Edmund Blunden, Marjorie Bowen, Vera Brittain, Albert Camus, A. E, Coppard, C; Day Lewis, Christopher Fry, William Gerhardi, Dan Davin, Laurence Housman, C. E, M. Joad, Sheila Kaye Smith, Compton Mackenzie, Ethel Mannin, H, J. Massingham, Andre Maurois, Naomi Mitchison, Sean O’Casey, Eden Philpotts, Herbert Read, Cecil Roberts, Siegfried Sassoon, J. W. Robertson Scott, Edith Sitwell, Dylan Thomas, L, A. G. Strong and Frank Swinnerton. It seems to me to be merely ridiculous to suggest that these people are dupes, and that their "honest aspirations" are being ‘"exploited" in some unproven manner. They, like the millions throughout the world who have signed peace petitions, are simply people who are aware that to prepare for global war without a_sustained and genuine campaign for peace (and at the same time to reject out-of-

hand all Russian peace proposals as having sinister motives) is to make war all but certain, You suggest to writers who signed the Appeal that there may be "occasions when it would be their simple duty to speak out against evil things" even though this "sharpened existing dangers and hatred," The Authors’ World Peace Appeal is the response to just such as occasion-except that it is difficult to see how it can prove dangerous, And if a number of authors make a joint appeal, they can hardly be blamed for doing what trade unionists, business men, farmers, churchmen, public servants, teachers and many other groups do on occasion as a matter of course; and there is no need to assume that they are unaware of the nature of their actions, or that they are being used as tools by scheming politicians. The criticism, by the sponsors of the A,W.P.A., of Priestley (who made a regrettable exhibition of himself over the Colliers affair) and of "Pendennis" does not imply any "coercion" or "persecution." These men did not merely refrain from signing the A.W.P.A.: they said‘ publicly (and were gratefully reported by the press to this effect) that the signatories were "mugs." The signatories would certainly be mugs if they let such an irresponsible gibe go unanswered. The public of New Zealand has heard little or nothing of the case that has been put forward by the peace organisations, The newspapers, cynically refusing to fulfil their proper function, have declared a boycott. Is it not high time we heard some honest and uninhibited discussion of these matters from our radio stations? Or are we already at war, with a complete "security" clamp-down on all essential politics?

A. R. D.

FAIRBURN

(Auckland),