THE PEACE PETITION

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26265, 9 November 1950, Page 11

THE PEACE PETITION

Sir,—Please allow me sufficient space for a brief and final reply about the “peace” petition and to thank you for your clemency and courtesy in the past. After consideration of statements by Graeme Duffy, secretary of the Christchurch Peace Council, P. Swithin and others on the various clauses contained in the petition and their wholehearted support of it, I must confess that I am amazed at their action;, for in the main it is entirely at variance with the principles of all peace societies, viz. peace without violence. To implement certain clauses in the petition it is implied, if not exactly stated, that force will be used; and no other interpretation would be correct. —Yours, etc., „ O. M. BRUNDALL November 8, 1950.

~ Sir,—P. Swithin says lam inviting the horror of Hiroshima to visit Christchurch. I did not know the wretched Americans intended dropping the atom bomb over here. He also said the outstanding supporters of the peace petition were Communists and it received the blessings of the Red Popes. Why should Moscow refuse recognition of its brain child? Communists are definitely not paci- . th , ei r peace propaganda is just a political move. To declare only the use of the atom bomb a crime and aggression, and to leave out all the other means of total war is a clumsy attempt to provide a cover for past, present and future Communist aggression. The peace petition does not condemn war in general, but only one type of warfare. Atom bomb or no atom bomb, the world needs total peace, not a sham peace of the Communist brand.—Yours, etc.. NO MUDDLEHEAD. l“P. Swithin” may briefly reply; otherwise, this correspondence is closed.—Ed.. “The Press.”]