AMAZING APPEAL BY EMINENT KEN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 23, 28 January 1939, Page 7

AMAZING APPEAL BY EMINENT KEN.

CASE AGAINST WAR.

Statement to be Broadcast To Germany.

PREVENTING CATASTROPHE. British Official Wireless. (Received 1 p.m.) RUGBY, January 27. An eloquent appeal for peace and co-operation among nations, over the signatures of nearly a score of public men eminent in diverse fields of activity—literature, education, law, science, finance, medicine, administration, art and music—has been issued to the Press for publication.

The Associated Press says the statement was submitted before publication to the highest quarters, where it is regarded as one of the greatest possible contributions to the moral case against ■war. It is considered most timely.

Arrangements are being made for a broadcast of the statement to Germany at least three times to-night. It is also included in all other foreign programmes from the 8.8.C.

The signatories include leaders in science and art who have a recognised following in Germany.

Text of Appeal.

( The text of the appeal is as follows:— "A spirit of uneasiness broods over the world. Men and women in every country are uncertain as to what the next weeks and months may bring. They see huge armaments piling up on every side. They see plans being made for civilian defence, and they realise only too vividly that war under modern conditions between highly-organised States can bring no good but only death and destruction to countless homes, irrespective of age and sex.

"They see our civilisation, to which men and women of all classes, and in all countries, have contributed, threatened with the greatest catastrophe in human history. It is time, if we arc not to be too late, that men of goodwill, who value the fruits of civilisation, who have no hatred or spirit of revenge in their hearts, and who desire in all sincerity to live on terms of friendship with their fellow-men in every country, should speak across the frontiers to those who feel as they do, in order that they may use together their gifts of heart and mind to cooperate in preventing a supreme catastrophe, and in breaking down artificial barriers of hatred by which we are in danger of being divided."

"Wo in Britain have no desire to dictate to others. While resolutely determined to maintain our own liberty we stand for peace—a peace of equality for all and justice for all. We stand for the rule of law in relations between States—the only basis on which our civilisation can be preserved. We recognise that no civilisation, if it is to survive, can be static, but no nation will find a lasting solution of its problems save in the spirit of co-operation with others.

"We appeal to them to use those great gifts by which they have for centuries enriched our common inheritance in all the fields of human knowledge and activity, and join with us in a supreme effort to lay the spectre of war and enmity between nations, and in a spirit of free and willing co-opera-tion, by which alone can their needs and ours be satisfied, to build with us a better future, so that we may not only preserve civilisation, but hand it down to our children enhanced by our experience."

The signatories are the Marquis of Willingdon, Earl Derby, Lord Dawson of Penn, Lord Horder, Macmillan Stamp, Mr. Montague Norman, Mr. H. A. L. Fisher, Mr. G. M. Trevelyan, Lord Eustace Percy, Sir Michael Sadler, Dr. Vauglian Williams, Sir William Bragg, Sir Arthur Eddington, Sir Edwin Lutyens, Sir Kenneth Clark, Mr. John Masefield and Lord Burghley.

CLOSELY STUDIED.

Speeches by Mussolini and Daladier. AN OMINOUS PHRASE. British Official Wireless. (Received 1 p.m.) RUGBY, January 27. The speeches by Signor Mussolini on the fall of Barcelona, and by M. Daladier and M. Bonnet on the international situation, are being carefully studied in London. The "Daily Telegraph" finds not a little ominous the phrase in II Ducc's speech that the fall of Barcelona "opens another chapter in the history of the new Europe we are creating."

A new situation, it agrees, is created, and while it is not surprised at the BU gg®stion for an international conference, to the idea of which M. Bonnet was by no means hostile, it calls attention to the latter's warning that one must beware of being disappointed, and adds that the prospects at the monent of the necessary collaboration are not bright.

M. Bonnet's reaffirmation that the French-British friendship was never so close as to-day will, says the "Daily Telegraph," be echoed unanimously on both sides of the Channel, for that entente is founded, not only on political sympathies, but on the identity of vital interests. It is the corner-stone no less of British than of French policy. Events in the past year put the entente to the severest tests, and not only revealed but tempered its fundamental strength. The desire for peace in Britain and France is unquestionable.

Doubters as to Britain's power to defend it are advised by the "Daily Telegraph" to ponder over Sir Samuel Hoare's speech. There is no confirmation in London that Sjgnor Mussolini intends to ask for a Four-Power Conference, to which oblique reference was apparently made by M. Bonnet. No such intention was revealed in the Anglo-Italian talks at Rome,