FOREIGN POLICY

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 255, 25 July 1935, Page 9

FOREIGN POLICY

League Still Britain’s Sheet-Anchor

ASSURANCE GIVEN

Deputation Waits on Mr. Baldwin (British Official Wireless.) Rugby, July 23. Tlie Prime Minister. Mr. Stanley Baldwin, ami the Foreign Secretary, Sir Samuel lloare, to-day received a deputation of organisers of the national declaration on peace and disarmament, commonly known as the peace ballot, in which 11.500,060 votes were east out of an estimated possible 30,000.000.

The deputation, which was led by Lord Cecil, presented the result of tlie voting on six questions submitted which varied from majorities of 13 t<* one in favour of support of tlie League of Nations to three to one in favour of tlie employment of military sanctions. The majority for total abolition of military and naval aircraft by international agreement was four to one.

Lord Cecil said that half a million voluntary workers by whose services the ballot was taken had found everywhere. but especially in humble homes, eagerness to vote and very intelligent appreciation of the issues. The Dean of Chichester emphasised the great, interest the churches had taken in the national declaration. It had revealed a marked development of opinion, for many who started with pacifist opinions had come to see that the full doctrine of the Covenant was vital to the preservation of peace. Miss K. D. Courtney said that the ballot had appealed to women because it represented recognition of the value of the judgment and intelligence of the ordinary citizen and because it enlisted the support of people of all parties. Tlie Prime Minister welcomed the deputation, which lie said would be aware that the foreign policy of his Majesty’s Government was founded upon tiie League. That had been made plain many times in declarations and by their actions at Geneva, where they had taken a lead in endeavouring to secure tlie settlement of international disputes by peaceful means in accordance with the Covenant. He would not discuss the questions submitted in the ballot in detail. Some of those submissions frankly he would have wished to see put in a different form, but he could not but be grateful for the deputation’s action in coming to sop him and to know that the object of the ballot was not to criticise the Government but to show the large volume of public opinion behind it. in the efforts it was making to-day to maintain the authority of the League. He concluded: “We are living in a period of very disturbed international relations, and I am glad of the opportunity to assure you that the Government intends to persist in the policy it has hitherto pursued and that the League remains the sheet-anchor of British policy.”

The ballot overwhelmingly favoured Britain remaining in the League, also a general reduction of armaments and prohibition of the manufacture o£ arms for private profit. Ten million supported economic non-military. measures and six and three-quarter million advocated military measures in international combination to nullify one nations insistence in attacking another.