"WAR MUST GO."

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 139, 14 June 1934, Page 15

"WAR MUST GO."

FINDING A WAY OUT. DR. NORWOOD'S STRONG PLEA SACRIFICE IN VAWt "The verdict against war has been delivered. It is endorsed by the common sense of the world. All over the earth men of every degree speak disparagingly of it; confess their dread of it; profess that they only tolerate its potential presence under fear of vet greater peril. The vast masses of nm u . kind, if they speak at all, declare that ifc has no further function of deliverance in the world as we know it today," said Dr. F. W. Norwood, of the City Temple, London, in an address on 'Peace and War/' delivered under the auspices of the League of Xatione Union at Wesley Church, Taranoki Street, on Tuesday night, states the 'Tost." The church was crowded. The Mayor, Mr. T. C. A. Hielop, presided, and among those, on the platform were the Et. Rev. Dr. Sprott, Bishop of Wellington, and the Ecv. D. D. Scott, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. "And yet in spite of all this," said Dr. Norwood, "the war machine is more powerful now than it has ever been since the world began, and the threat and dread of war hangs over the consciousness of all intelligent people. The struggle to-day is not between the militarist and the pacifist. The struggle is rather between those who in their hearts cherish the same hope—that war may yet be dismissed from the earth, and it is to be feared that the struggle between these potential allies is complicating the issue. " What Was Achieved? "Well, let us look at the facts; let us look back to the Great War. As we have looked back through these wearv post-war years, the more thoughtful among us, I believe, have been haunted by a feeling that there was something unreal about that titanic conflict. There ■was something illusory, shadowy, something that did not seem to meet the facts of the case. We find ourselves asking of ourselves: Why were they there—those innumerable multitudes of fighting men, and what was it they actually achieved? And the more we ask the question the less confident we are about the answers. Shadowy and unreal, I have said, and yet, God knows, it -was the most tangible and apparently real manifestation of forces that the world has ever seen. Those vast armies for the first time in history, no more selected groups of fighting men, but whole nations, devoted to an attempt to plough their way through slaughter and destruction to some shadowy realm of peace far on beyond. They were the most like each other, those fighting men. They wore different uniforms;" they marched under varying flags, but in themselves they were animated by the one spirit. They were almost all of them young, strong, brave, patriotic, capable of immense sacrifice. The slogans that they used, though in different languages, were identical. The watchwords to which they kindled were the great human words, 'fatherland,' , Tiome,' 'freedom,' "honour, , 'liberty.' It was as if some inscrutable destiny had ranked together fir two vast hosts the very flower of the human race, the nation-builders of the future, and caused them to believe that there was no hope, either for their own country or for the world unless they should slaughter the men who in all the world were the most akin to themselves spiritually, and they fell in their countless thousands. A Changed W.orM. "This was the most wonderful manifestation of human courage and tenacity and capacity for sacrifice that the world has seen. Then why was it that the results seem to be so inconsiderable ? Was it their fault? No. My answer is that they were really up against something in the universe that they did not understand, nor did their rulers understand. There had actually come into existence, though few knew it clearly, a different kind of world from that which their fathers had known. Under the providence of God, by the enterprise of men and their inventions and discoveries, there had heen woven and forged all manner of interacting links between race and race. . . .

For nearly sixteen years we Lave not been trying to make peace; we have been trying to prevent war, which is an entirely different thing. We have spent nearly sixteen years trying to prevent war by a reduction of armaments, or by signing treaties, and we have left the real causes of war scarcely touched as yet, but very much aggravated Ay the laet war. Economic maladjustments, poverty of peoples, depreciation of money, increase of fear and suspicion and hate—all theee things the war could not cure; it only intensified ■them; and we have hardly to this very moment begun really to think in terms of peace. . What I mean by terms of peace is, helping to remove the anomalies and injustices that cause war. . . . ■ "Must Be a Way Out." "I confess that to me as a simple Christian man there comes down through ■the ages a cryptic saying of Christ, 'If thine eye be evil, thine whole body shall be full of darkness.' I submit that we have given ourselves far too much to war. Wβ have epent more upon war 'than upon any other human cause. . . . "And yet there must be a way out. In the long run what happens in the world is the reflection of what is in the human mind. If men do not believe in war then war will .finally go. It may have its spasmodic manifestations of power, but it cannot endure. The next war will not be fought out. It will only create revolution,, as the last one did." Dr. Norwood referred to the scientific discoveries and inventions which would make another war frightful. The outcome of such a war would most likely be the destruction of our civilisation. Hβ admitted that there was some cause for defence; but there wae no adequate defence possible to-day. He said that the League of Nations was the meet sensible thing that came out of the war. We might at least recognise, he added, that we belonged to a nation that had no excuse for war. In regard to territory, Britain held a fourth of the world; and if we could only get true and spiritual life with that other great English-speaking country, America, then •he thought peace would be reasonably safe. We could not, however, do without the League of Nations. In some way this tliincr called war mu.st and the glories of this great and beautiful world would break through, and be used for the service of men; and men would live together in co-operation rather than in deadlv conflict. _ Or. the motion of Mr. P.■ £ °?f «"' Ktopded by Mr. W. Nash, M.P, a heartv vote of thanks was passed to Dr. -Moiwood for his address. . : _