"NO MORE WAR."

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 307, 28 December 1934, Page 5

"NO MORE WAR."

MOBILISING OPINION. INTERNATIONAL MOVEMENT. DELEGATES IN NEW ZEALAND "Now that the first suspicion as to the methods of the movement have been allayed, ground is •being gained rapidly," said Senator Arthur Rae and Mr. W. H. Nugent, who are to represent the Australian National Movement against War and Fascism at a congress on that question, which is to be held in Wellington early in February. Both delegates have been visiting in Auckland. The latter is national organiser in Australia for the movement. The visitors explained what they meant by the " first suspicion" of the methods of the movement. They said that while the average man in the street was convinced of the futility of war, and therefore approved of the objects of the movement, some wore afraid to ally themselves openly with it because they thought that means other than those constitutional might be used to secure those objects with which they agreed. Two of the most active workers in breaking down the distrust had been the late Rev. A. Rivett, the old Congregational minister who had dropped dead —- he fell against Mr. Rae's shoulder as he died —just after addressing 20.000 people at an anti-war demonstration in the Sydney Domain on November IS, and the Rev. W. H. Burton, national secretary of the Australian Methodist Mission Society. Mr. Nugent said that the Australian movement was affiliated to an international body, with headquarters in Paris. There was a council in each Australian State, which in turn was affiliated to the Commonwealth body. Beneath the State bodies again were numerous other smaller councils, until finally the movement resolved itself into a house-to-house canvass. The first world congress having been held in October, 1932, the movement throughout the world was only two

years old. In that time much work had been done, and much remained still to be done. Both visitors explained the object of the movement. It was common knowledge, they said, that the world was in a state of turmoil; where the danger of war was not only great, but seemed to be growing imminent. No one could read of nations wanting to increase armaments, of munition factories ousv, of hosts of aeroplanes which could be converted into instruments of death at a minute's notice, of political trouble in Europe and growing friction between nations, without serious disquiet. He fijit, and those responsible for the movement had felt, that if those factors were arrayed for war, other factors ought to be created whose object was for peace. The most powerful factor was public opinion, the views of the individual, not held as the opinion of a host of units, but organised into a single voice winch could speak with authority. It was not the slightest use sitting down like Micawber and waiting for something to turn up at the last minute to avert war. it was that the movement was growing. A cheering note was that there was a growing feeling against war. The mass of the people in Germany did not want war, Mr. Rae and Mr. Nugent said. There was, a definite reaction in Japan against the military dictatorship. The movement had the approval of . nany important organisations and people, not merely in Australia, but the world as well. In England George Bernard Shaw and Lord Marlev were members of the International Council. In France, Henri Barbusse and Romain Holland, two well-known authors, were members. In America, Professor Dana, of Chicago, Upton Sinclair and Louis Dreiser. In Ireland, Mrs. Despard, sister to Lord French. In Sweden, the Countess Karolyi. and in China Madame Sun Yat Sen belonged to the movement. Many members of the International Council had taken part in the Great War, and Mr. Nugent mentioned that the membership to the movement in Australia of returned soldiers was strong, as also was that of university men. There, too. the churches, members of Parliament, the legal profession, and the medical profession were all strongly represented. He mentioned * that the Bishop of Goulburn, the Pvt. Rev. E. H. Burgmann, was a member of the National Commonwealth Council.