BRITAIN LEADERS SPEAK IN UNISON.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 260, 2 November 1935, Page 9

BRITAIN LEADERS SPEAK IN UNISON.

ON WORLD AFFAIRS. Will Keep Pledged Word To League. ALL PARTIES ON PLATFORM. British Official Wireless. (Received 2 p.m.) RUGBY, November 1. i In the midst of the vigorous general election campaign, the leading members of all parties were represented at a great non-party peace meeting in the Albert Hall, organised by the League of Nations Union and attended by 6000 people. The presence on one platform, just before a general election, of representatives of all three political parties was referred to by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Cosmo Lang, who occupied the chair, as being an event of almost unprecedented significance. He directed the attention of the Governments throughout the world to this demonstration of national unity on the grave issues now before the League of Nations. The meeting unanimously pledged itself to support the League in the measures it deemed necessary to maintain the provisions of the Covenant by collective security. Viscount Cecil of Chehvood said there was no possibility of the League's failure in the present crisis except through want of resolution on the part of the League Powers.

Sir Austen Chamberlain said it was neither affection for Abyssinia nor dislike for Italy that brought him to the meeting. It was his deep and proud conviction that if treaties solemnly signed, Covenants freshly undertaken and pledges to pursue peacefoil regulation of disputes between nations and to adjure war as an iustru■ment of national policy, could be broken, it was idle to pretend that peace would anywhere be secure. The nations would go back to savagery and there would be no faith between them. Mr. Baldwin's Views. Earlier in the day, the Prime Minister, Mr. Baldwin, at a meeting of the Peace Society, said that by the law of the Covenant Britain was bound over to make peace, but she could not make it alone. It took two to make a quarrel and it would take all to make peaceReferring to the scope of the League, he said: "I am an impenitent patriot, but England is no less England because she is a member of the League. She surrenders nothing she would wish to retain merely because she wishes to live at peace with the other nations. "The League will grow in strength as wc respect the individuality of the nations which compose it. I am certain that there are millions of Americans who are watching with lively sympathy our efforts to make the League an instrument of world peace.

"Germany has left the League. We regret it, but the future is open and I trust a solution may not be impossible. Japan is a world Power which has turned her back on the rest of the world. We must look fairly at her reasons, for they lie deeply in criticisms of the League. If the League exists only to keep things as they are it has become desiccated and will crumble into dust, but the change must come primarily from within the League. It must be ordered evolution. The League is living and it gains adherents. Not long ago, it was strengthened by the advent of the Soviet Union. Impatient Friends. "Old relations with old friends are being put to a strain, but they cannot be fundamentally impaired. There are elements in Franco that have not seen eye to eye with us, but there is solidarity between the two Governments as loyal members of the League, and that is what really matters. "The dispute between the League and Italy is real, but it is not more real than our friendship. We believe Italy is rashly departing from her own great traditions, but we are moving in no spirit of national antagonism against Italy. "In being true to our pledged word to the League we a.lso wish to preserve old friendship. We are bound over to make peace. It may not be an easy task but we will accept it."

SOCIALIST CANARD. Mr. Baldwin Kills Fable of Great Armaments. SNOWDEN AS "WHIPPER-UP." (Received 11.30 a.m.) LONDON, November 1. The Socialists with avidity are seizing the Nationalists' armaments programme as their best campaign card. It is believed that this largely 'explains Mr. Baldwin's outspoken declaration to the Peace Society when he said: "1 give you my word that there will, not be any great armaments. We are bound over to make the peace. It may not be an easy task but we accept it." Canvassers in all industrial areas had reported the widespread circulation of a canard that the return of the Nationalists would mean a speedy plunge to war. Viscount Snowden seems destined to ho tlie Liberal "whipper-up." There is a strong move to get him and Mr. Lloyd George on the platform at Manchester to endeavour to reverse the 1931 Nationalist landslide there. There are likely to be 12 Doniinio)i candidates, including the New Zealander Mr. Douglas Cooke in a straight light for Hammersmith.