Evening Post. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4,1934.

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 56, 4 September 1934, Page 8

Evening Post. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4,1934.

"ISOLATION IMPOSSIBLE"

In a letter which appears in another column the Rev. F. H. Wilkinson, Deputy Chairman of the Dominion Council of the New Zealand League of Nations Union, returns to his attack upon our article entitled "Face the Facts" which we published on August 10. Like its | predecessor his letter is distinguished by a looseness in the use and interpretation of language, and a preference for vague and nebulous terms makes it difficult to argue with him. In his first letter he accused us of "suggesting" something that we had not said, and now in attempting to quote the words he blunders again. He also charges us with saying "in effect" something which we did not mean and which our words did not convey. With strict impartiality he even misquotes the letter of his own Council. The responsible officer of an organisation that bears a good name should be very much more careful. Of our correspondent's obviously unintentional misrepresentation of ourselves we need say no more. His equally innocent misrepresentation of the organisation for which he speaks is better deserving of attention because, from our standpoint, it is vital. Referring to the New Zealand League of Nations Union, he says: "It had urged the adoption of this same collective system on our New Zealand Government." There are two mistakes here. The first is in attributing to the Union a suggestion which his previous letter showed to have come from its executive—a mistake which is of no great importance, yet should certainly have been avoided by one who is setting up as a severe and even captious censor of others. His second mistake is in saying that "the adoption of this same collective system" had been urged upon the New Zealand Government when it had actually been urged to support the British Government in its efforts "to maintain the collective system of dealing with international problems." The treatment of "adoption" and "maintaining" as interchangeable terms indicates a confusion of thought which disqualifies the writer for the task he has undertaken. The ] League of Nations has been engaged in the administration of a "collective system" ever since it came into existence, and until a few years ago it had a great success. But when it came into conflict with powerful nations which were ready to fight for what they wanted, while the League was not prepared to resist them by 1 applying the military and economic' sanctions provided by Article 16 of its Covenant, its failure was equally conspicuous. If the League is to "maintain the collective system" on the lines which it followed in these cases, it will be condemned to equal futility whenever the circumstances! are similar. There will still be work for it to do, but its work under Article 16 will be confined to the intimidation of the weak.

Following Sir Austen Chamberlain, the British League of Nations Union was not satisfied to "maintain" unaltered a system which in large measure had broken down. •It declared not that the League of Nations hut that its members "must be ready to co-operate in the defence of a member //ho has wrongfully been attacked," and nobody dissented from Sir Austen's contention that safety lies "in the establishment of a system which makes it certain that against the aggressor there will be mobilised a force which is irresistible." On the face of it, the resolution might be taken for a mere reaflinnation, though with strong emphasis, of the military obligations of Article 16 of the Covenant, but, as the provisions of that Article have been by common consent a dead letler at Geneva, if: was in no idle tautology that Sir Austen Chamberlain and the British Union were engaged. It was not the "maintaining" but "the establishment of a system" for which he argued as an essential condition of safely. Yet a leading official of the New Zealand Union solemnly assures us that the two resolutions passed by the British Union merely "summarise what is known as the 'collective system' of dealing with international emergencies"! If he would only drop these ambiguous phrases which he finds so congenial and candidly study the plainer language of Sir Austen Chamberlain's resolution, he must surely see that in adopting it the British League of Nations Union has gone far beyond anything that has been considered practicable at Geneva. It has affirmed that military force is as essential a condition of the new diplomacy as of the old; that the great ideals of the League of Nations cannot be_ realised with-

out it; and that 1 lie safely of every member of the League depends not upon the loxt of (lie Covenant or of any resolution of flu; League but upon readiness of its members lo help one another against any unprovoked aggressor.

If the New Zealand League of Nations Union agrees willi the parent Union as completely as tlu: Deputy Chairman of its Council believes that it docs, we trust that its faith will bear unmistakable fruit at its coming conference. In order to follow the British lead it will have to declare that "a policy of New Zealand' isolation is impossible and undesirable," and that, as a member of ihe League ol Nations, New Zealand "must be ready to co-operate in the defence of a member which lias Avrongt'ully been attacked." How New Zealand can be ready lo co-opcrcite in a military defence if she is not prepared we are unable to see. Yet the chief recent sign of League of Nations Union activity in these parts was in the attack delivered on May 14 by its Wellington branch on the doctrine "that New Zealand must be prepared to subscribe to the doctrine of preparedness." In that attack we have been unable to discover either patriotism or Imperialism or even loyalty to the League, but only stark pacifism. On every one of these points it is in flat contradiction lo the spirit of the resolutions of the British League of Nations Union. It is for the New Zealand Union not to hesitate- to align itself with the latter.