ABOLITION OF WAR

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22767, 20 July 1939, Page 7

ABOLITION OF WAR

“PACIFISM AS NATIONAL POLICY” BRANCH OF PEACE PLEDGE UNION AT RANGIORA Criticism of the “smug hypocrisy of taking about a peace front againstaggression” while injustices resulting from the maldistribution of the world’s wealth continued and the opinion that nothing but a revolution of “the way we think and act” could now prevent war were expressed by Mr B. Godward, secretary of the Christchurch branch pf, the Peace Pledge Union, in addressing an audience in Rangiora before the formatibn of a branch there recently; . • Mr Godward mentioned that the New Zealand branch of the Peace Pledge Union, whose pledge yvas “I renounce war and will never sanction another,” had in 13 months gained 250 members and had branches in 10 towns. After claiming that defence was an impossibility, Mr Godward said that the average Britisher would say that if war came it was the fault of Hitler and Mussolini, and would forget that Britain, France, Russia, and the United States . were seeking to perpetuate a maldistribution of the world’s wealth so outrageous that it was a standing menace to the equilibrium of the world. A -New Zealander erred when he said that Britain was guiltless in bringing the world to the brink of war. More than 85 per cent, of the raw materials of the world belonged to Britain, France, Russia, and the United States of America, which left less than 15 per cent, for Germany, Italy, Japan, and 60 other nations. “This is the status quo which the Defence League is asking us to defend,” he said. “It is merely, smug hypocrisy to talk about forming a ‘peace front’ against aggression while such injustices continue, what is really needed is an economic world conference to consider.the pooling and fair division of the world’s resources and raw materials; We are now on the same slippery path as we were during the years leading up to 1914. “Nothing can save us from war but a complete revolution in the ways we think and act. and I advocate pacifism as a national policy. It is not that disarmament was tried and found useless—like Christianity it was found difficult and not tried. New Zealand is perhaps the least likely country to be attacked, and yet we are arming as madly as the other nations. We are not yet 100 years old as a nation and have never, seriously been threatened with invasion, and yet. we are guilty of having entered major wars in that period.” ' Mr Godward made a plea for the use of methods as represented by the Peace Pledge Union in facing the task of 'abolishing war—the supreme task the twentieth century faced.