A BACKGROUND TO THE NEWS

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 98, 19 January 1935, Page 13

A BACKGROUND TO THE NEWS

The World and War In an address at Wellington on Thursday night, Dr. J. B. Condliffe, who is attached to the Secretariat of the League of Nations, said he had been profoundly impressed by a statement of an American that the world could not afford another war. While the Disarmament Conference has been a failure, France, with a budget deficit of £51,000.000, is planning nearly £24,000,000 of new military expenditure; Italy with a deficit of £66,000,000 recently made an extraordinary grant of £33,000,000 for her navy and air force; Germany—while pleading for a complete moratorium even on her private debts—spent £18,000,000 more in 1934 than in 1933 on her army and navy, and £11,000,000 on her air services; United States with a prospective budget deficit of £1,800,000,000 over the next two years is finding £123,000,000 for the greatest programme of naval construction ever undertaken; Japan, forced to raise a loan of £88,000,000, to cover her deficit, has embarked on a naval replenishment programme costing £22,000,000; this year Great Britain is expected to spend over £113,000,000 on the fighting services; Russia is engaged in mechanising her forces League Of Nations “The League of Nations,” said Dr. J. B. Condliffe, is not a new form of government nor a super-state. Its objects are conciliation and reconciliation bv consultative effort round the table” The terms of the Covenant of tbe League of Nations form the first 26 articles of all the Peace Treaties concluding the Great War, and are as binding upon their signatories as any of the clauses that relate to frontiers or reparations. The Great War came to be regarded as a war to end war, having for its principal object the formation of an organisation among the principal peoples of the world with power to ostracise armed forces as a means of settling disputes. While President Wilson is usually regarded as the real founder of the League of Nations, few if any of the ideas in the Covenant were conceived by him. Actually a report from a British. Foreign Office committee, which was sent to him in 1918, was used by President Wilson in making his own draft of a League Covenant. This he severely revised after reading a pamphlet by General Smuts. The third draft drawn up and used at the Peace Conference was a joint scheme drawn up by the British and American legal experts, Cecil Hurst and David Hunter Miller, who had at their disposal all the earlier documents as well as a draft convention written by Lord Robert Cecil. The League And War “I am certain,” said Dr. Condliffe, “as are all intimately associated with Geneva, that war must surely follow coercive action by the League for disciplinary purposes.” There are several Articles in the Covenant of the League of Nations dealing with possibilities of war. Article 10 says: The members of the League undertake to respect and preserve as against external aggression the territorial integrity and existing political independence of all members of the League. . . . Article 11: Any war or threat of war, whether immediately affecting any of the members of the League or not, is hereby declared a matter of concern to the whole League, and the League shall fhke any action that may be deemed wise and effectual to safeguard the peace of nations. Article 12: The members of the League agree that if there should arise between them any dispute likely to lead to a rupture they will submit the matter either to arbitration or judicial settlement or to inquiry by the Council, and they agree in no case to resort to wab until three months after the award by the arbitrators or the judicial decision or the report by the Cquncil. Article 16: Should any member of the League resort to war in disregard of its Covenants ... it shall ipso facto be deemed to have committed an act of war against all other members of the League, which hereby undertake immediately to subject it to the severance of all trade or financial relations, the prohibition of all intercourse between their nationals and the nationals of the Covenant-breaking state, and the prevention of all financial, commercial or personal intercourse between the nationals of the Covenantbreaking state and the nationals of any other state, whether a member of the League or not. . . .” Peat Widespread peat and scrub fires are raging in many parts of the Waikato after many rainless weeks. Peat is a spongy substance of vegetable origin common to almost every temperate country. The formation of peat depends upon a particular combination of climatic and topographical conditions. There must be a soil which will retain water at or near the surface, a sufficiently low temperature to prevent evaporation, a temperature not too low to prevent; the growth of vegetation, yet low enough to check too rapid a decay. The average temperature best suited for the formation of peat ranges from 42 degrees to 48 degrees Fahren* heit. The process which converts plant substances into peat is similar to that which has formed the coal measures, but the oldest peat deposits are modern compared, with coal. Peat bogs cover an area of about 6,000,000 acres in the British Isles, Ireland, alone possessing 3,000,000 acres. They vary greatly in depth, in Ireland rarely exceeding 20 feet, while in parts of Wales and Dartmoor the deposits are as much as 40 feet deep. Peat has a calorific value rather more than half that of a similar weight of coal. The Edict Of Nantes Professor Macmillan Brown stated in his annual address to the Senate of the University of New Zealand that “the revocation of the Edict of Nantes impoverished the culture of France and prepared the way for the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire. The Edict of Nantes was an edict signed by Henry IV. of France on April 15,1598. It allowed the Huguenots free exercise of their religion, gave them definite rights of public worship, threw open to them all the offices of State and established a Protestant chamber in the Paris Settlement, and joint chambers In the local governments. This measure did much to promote the concord and prosperity of France, but unfortunately, in October 1685 Louis XIV formally revoked it. As a consequence religious rivalry was again stirred up, riots took place, and 400,000 of the most intelligent and industrious section of the community had to flee the country. They settled in Protestant countries, many in Holland and Great Britain and were an acquisition wherever they went.