WORLD PEACE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 274, 18 November 1936, Page 7

WORLD PEACE.

BRITAIN'S POWER. FORCED TO RE-ARM. SITUATION IN EUROPE. "NO RELIANCE ON liEAGTTE." While advocating the strengthening of the League of Nations, Sir James Parr, ex-High Commissioner in London for New Zealand, who arrived by the Rangitata this morning, declares that the League can never become effective until it is universal, as originally intended. "Unfortunately fne roreign situation is as bad as it can be," said Sir James. "Every month Europe is on the edge of war as each alarming new crisis develops. Great Britain is all the time struggling to keep the peace between Fascist and Communist countries and there are sore spots everywhere.

"I take off my cap to Old England for lier magnificent struggle and patience in her efforts to stall off war," he continued. "She is still trying to keep the League of Nations going, but at the same time she is 'spending hundreds of millions of pounds in rearmament, in modernising every section of her defences and bringing each unit up to strength. Day and night factories are at work. "I am anxious to see the league kept alive, but no one in England places the slightest reliance on the League or on collective security as a means of saving England from aggression. 'That is the reason for rearmament. The general view is that until Germany and Italy return actively to the League—until the nations are prepared to fight for it and go to war for it —it- is useless to expect it to perform its main function—that is, to prevent war or to stop war when once it has started. The founders of the League conceived a universal organisation for peace, and while it is our duty to endeavour to strengthen the League it can never be effective until it is universal. "It is my considered judgment, after eight years of attendance at the League of Nations, that we have got to arm just as every other nation is arming. It is deplorable, but the world is bent on arming. The British Empire in its campaign for peace allowed its forces to go below danger point, and now it is recognised that Britain must rearm not only for the defence of the British Empire, but to keep the peace of the world. "It is regarded in the struggle of the 'haves' and 'have nots' that Britain is possibly a rich prize, but Britain still remains the greatest force in the world to enforce .general p«ace."