"INTERNATIONAL DAY"

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22566, 23 November 1938, Page 4

"INTERNATIONAL DAY"

CHRISTCHURCH ROTARY CLUB

ADDRESS BY REV A. C. WATSON

The advancement of understanding, goodwill, and international peace through a world fellowship of business and professional men united in the ideal of service, which was the fourth ideal of Rotary, was not an invention of the movement, but had been born in the great European liberal tradition, said the Rev. A. C. Watson, in an address at the "International Day" luncheon of the Christchurch Rotary j Club yesterday. Mr Watson traced the history of what he described as the "supra-na-tional law" from Greece through the mediaeval church, which had been strong enough to impose these ethical ' teachings on Europe, up to the time when this system had broken up. Later, the theory of the absolute sovereignty of the national State had developed. Although there was a relationship between the nations in the economic and cultural spheres, there was no corresponding legal system. Without law there could not be order, and without order there could not be peace, said Mr- Watson. At the present time, the nations met one an- 1

I other individually, and not with a common law. So each country tried to seek security in its own power—by self-defence. Law required a dynamic .element in it—legislation or the making of new laws. If there was no power to make new laws, the law would become unjust. Speaking of the movement for international peace, Mr Watson said that the Rotary movement was one among the many forces which worked for it It was not enough to write against or speak against war. There was something far more dangerous, courageous, and laborious—the task of peace-mak-ing. This task did not so much concern the making of laws or fresh pacts, but it rather concerned personal, social, and spiritual relations so that man could be united with man. Mr Watson was accorded a vote of thanks on the motion of Mr A. J. Campbell, president of the Christchurch branch of the League of Nations Union.