NOT QUIXOTIC

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 124, 21 November 1935, Page 4

NOT QUIXOTIC

ADHERENCE TO LEAGUE THE PERIL OF ISOLATION (From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, November 2. In his first platform speech in the General Election campaign, Mr. Baldwin made it quite clear that' our adherence to the League was not quixotic. Can we live in a state of isolation from the world? he asked, "There are those, not many, who believe that such a thing is possible," he said; "that you can watch if war breaks out between two nations; that possibly you may be able to trade with both, that the war is guarded, as a football match is guarded, by touchlines, and if the players cross them they are ordered back. Believe me, such a belief, incredible in my view, is impossible to hold. Modern war is not of that kind. Modern war is like a convulsion of nature that spreads through the world, that turns the world upside down, that pays no respect to civilians as such; and at the conclusion of which the very map of the world has to be redrawn. But, mark this, that if the people of this country desire to remain in isolation— I do not say it cannot be done—it can only be done at a price that neither I nor you would pay. "A man who is a friend of none is very apt to find in a critical-period the, need of those friends whose 'absence 1 he would then realise, and if these islands were isolated and refused to play their part in the world they would have to make an armed camp of these islands and give up all hope of that social progress which is now making such strides in this country and which we hope, if we are entrusted with power, we may see advance yet farther and farther. Believe me, cooperative effort for peace is not a dream. It is not quixotic. It is hard common sense applied to things as ithey are. Alone we cannot find peace. We seels it with the other nations of | the world, and that is the basis of the League of Nations."