HOW TO MAKE WAR IMPOSSIBLE

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 81, 30 December 1929, Page 2

HOW TO MAKE WAR IMPOSSIBLE

MR. J. R- GLYNES AND DISARMAMENT

Mr. J. R. dynes, the Home Secretary, speaking at a League of Nations Union recently, and referring to the Prince of Wales’s dinner to V.C.’s, said: "Such a moment offers a natural outlet and opportunity for exultation, for a little boasting over a defeated foe, for some note of triumph about our own martial success. Not at all. Not a syllable of exultation. There was not a word in any speech denoting a sense of triumph over a foreign neighbour or a defeated foe. “I draw your attention to that because it seems to me to be all part of that better tendency to international understanding, of a desire to bury the past, and to turn our minds to the better future that we are now striving to construct. It is not that we are unmindful of great deeds of individual courage, but we are now reaching that point of reason where we see that great as It may be for men to be ready to die for their country, it is a finer thing to have those men live for and serve their country. “It is therefore the duty of statesmen, of Parliaments, of Cabinets, and, above all, of peoples possessed now of almost unlimited democratic power, to resolve policy upon uew lines which will make it impossible ever again for the nations of the world to resort to arms. We cannot rely upon good intentions. We cannot trust even to the definite and sincere pledges of individual peace adherents.” It was no use talking of peace unless we could also think in the terms of real peace policy in which nations should be disarmed at least to the point of having no more armed power than was necessary for their internal peace purposes, and for what was termed police reserves. We could not accomplish any far-reaching economies in our national resources until a state of national disarmament was attained. “Disarmament .cannot be pursued by any one country. It must be a simultaneous act, and on agreed lines of policy. It must not be forced upon any one corner of Europe, but countries must march together, and that can only be done by an ever-widening process by this educative action for which in the main the League of Nations Union has been responsible.”