The Dominion. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1936. WHY SHOULD WAR BE INEVITABLE?

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 47, 19 November 1936, Page 10

The Dominion. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1936. WHY SHOULD WAR BE INEVITABLE?

There has been, in many countries during the past few months, a gradual development of public fear that another world war ’S inevitable. International political tensions, the feverish competition in armaments, and the emergence of Fascist and Communist rivalries as a factor provocative of war between nations, have all contributed to this state of mind. Sir James Parr, former High Commissioner for New Zealand in London, remarks in an interview reported -°-” a y that the foreign situation is as bad as it can be. Is it so bad that the inevitableness of war must be accepted as a reality? Sir Samue Hoare, First Lord of the Admiralty, thinks not. Nevertheless, war will surely come unless those who abhor its ghastliness and cruelty are prepared to concentrate upon the task ot removing the causes of the present unrest. Sir Samuel Hoare declares it to be the determination of the British Government to take every action in its power to make prophecies of the inevitableness qf war impossible of fruition. British policy is still buoyed, though more with hope than with certainty, to the principle of collective security. But, Sir James Parr points out, “no one in England places tne slightest reliance on the League or on collective security as a means of saving the country from aggression. This is the reason for rearmament.” ■ , , , But is it enough to suggest that because the League has failed the drift toward war should be allowed to continue? Is there nothing that can be done to accomplish by other means .what the League as a body has been unable to do? Even the British Labour Paity, according to Dr. Hugh Dalton, M.P., in an addiess at. the paity s recent conference in' Edinburgh, has to admit that, if a Labour Government came into power to-morrow it. would be obliged, pending an international agreement to reduce and limit armaments, to provide an increase in British armaments. “The time has come, he declared, “when we must get rid of vague, mushy generalities, and come down to a precise, clear-cut policy.” Unquestionably the most practical means of attacking the prob.em of averting war is to restore the elasticity of international commercial intercourse. The present deadlock is fundamentally opposed to peace. The most important and most encouraging advance that has been made in this direction is the recent currency agreement reached by the Governments of Great Britain, France, and the United States. By this agreement, the door to freer trade among nations, which had been closed by policies of economic self-sufficiency, has been opened, though only slightly. It marks, however, a beginning, and if. the movement can be extended and accelerated the results should be highly favourable to a more peaceful atmosphere. It is only through harmonious trade relationships that the will to peace may be created. The will to peace must precede the will to disarm. Such trade weapons as tariffs, quotas, and currency-exchange restrictions are in themselves as dangerous and provocative as competitive armaments. In. fact they are largely responsible for the re-creation of the competition. Nations under economic stress come eventually to the point where they begin to think either of their need for new territory, or of regaining territory of which they consider themselves to have been unfairly deprived. It is clear that the restoration of free international trade intercourse depends upon common action. That was what the abortive World Economic Conference of 1933 sought to achieve. The new Anglo-French-American agreement is a sign of returning sanity. Experience has demonstrated that no nation can thrive on a policy of economic self-sufficiency, or, as a Canadian province has discovered and New Zealand should note, carry on successfully with-a currency system the principles of which are divorced from general practice. There must be common agreement on principles and rules if confidence is to be fully restored, international trade reanimated, and men’s minds turned away from thoughts of war and its inevitableness as an instrument of national policy.