GOOD NEIGHBOUR POLICY

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 65, 9 December 1938, Page 5

GOOD NEIGHBOUR POLICY

United States And Disarmament

I ROOSEVELT’S WARNING | President Roosevelt, in a broadcast speech recently made an appeal for world disarmament. He declared, however, that the United States of America must continue to arm under present conditions. "It is our business now,” he said, “to utilize the desire for peace and build on prine.pies which are tile only basis for permanent peace. "Il is becoming increasingly clear that peace by fear lias no higher or more enduring quality than peace by the sword. There can be no peace if the reign of law is to be replaced by a recurrent sanctification of sheer force. There can lie no jieace if national policy adopt., as a deliberate instrument the threat of war. There can be no petice of national itoliey adopts as a deliberate instrument the distiersion all over the world of millions of helpless persecuted wanderers with no place to lay their heads. "There can be no peace if men and Women are not free to think their own thoughts, to express their own feelings, and to worship God. “There can be no i>eace if economic resources that ought to be devoted to

social and economic reconstruction ar, to be diverted to intensified competitioi in armaments. which will merel;

heighten suspicious and fears and threaten the economic prosperity of each and every nation. “Speaking for the United States, of America, which has no interest in war, we desire nothing but good relations with our neighbours and recognise that the world today has become our neighbour, but in the principle of the good neighbour there are certain fundamental’reciprocal obligations involved. There must be a deliberate conscious will that such political changes that changed needs require shall be made peacefully. That, means due regard for the sanctity of treaties. You cannot organize civilization round the core of militarism and at the same time expect reason to control human destiny.” Disarmament, After stressing that the United States of America has been seeking disarmament for 12 years, .Mr. Roosevelt emphasized that neither the Untied States nor any other nation could accept disarmament while neighbour nations armed to the teeth.

"But,” lie added, “we still insist that an armament race among the nations is absurd unless new territories or new controls are coveted. We are entitled I think, to greater reassurances than can lie given by .words—the kind of proof that can be given, for example, by actual discussions leading to actual disarmament. In no other way can we be relieved of rhe necessity of increasing our own military and naval establishments. "While we refuse to accept as a permanent necessity the idea of force, and reject it as an ideal of life, yet we must be prepared to meet with success —assured success—any application of force against us.” "If the Test Comes.”

Reaffirming the faith of the American ]>eoplc in the American democratic way of life, lie said: — We are determined to use every endeavour in order that the western hemisphere may work out its own interrelated salvation in the light of its own interrelated experience, and we affirm our faith that whatever choice of a way of life a people makes, that choice must not threaten the world with the disaster of war. The impact of such a disaster cannot, be confined. It releases a floodtide of evil emotions fatal to civilized living. That statement, applies not to the western hemisphere alone but to the whole of Europe, Asia, Africa, and the islands of the seas. The President concluded with a plea for greater unity for peace among the nations of the world and also at home, so that "we may, if the tost ever comes, have that unity of will with which alone a democracy can successfully meet its enemies.”