SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 32, 6 August 1936, Page 4

SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

INTERNATIONAL CONTACTS

Outlining the war and post-war international activities of the Society of Friends at a lecture given under thp auspices of the Club for the Study of International Relations last week, Mr. J. Herbert Crosland, of England, gave an impressive account of Quakerism in action since 1914. The president (Miss England) was in the chair.-

The international'work of the Society of friends, said Mr. . Crosland, sprang from the belief that war, in all its forms, was utterly wrong and that pacifism involved an active search for ways and means of overcoming international misunderstandings and distrust.by creating mutual understanding through personal service. At the outbreak of war in 1914 the young Quakers in Britain found themselves faced with the problem of how to serve in a time- of national crisis. Some, seeing no other way, enlisted' in the forces. The vast majority cither suffered imprisonment as conscientious objectors or found themselves impelled to undertake voluntary ambulance or relief work in the devastated areas in France and Serbia and among refugee Belgians in Holland. In England the -wives of enemy aliens were cared for in their homes and prisoners of war in the internment camps. The international repercussions of this work were felt in Germany, where. groups of like-minded people began to care for interned British prisoners at Ruhlaben. After the Armistice, relief work was undertaken in Austria, Russia, and Poland. Speaking from personal observation the lecturer told of the distress in Central Europe which resulted from the blockade. In dealing with the difficulties of these times the Quakers found that the wartime friendships formed with enemy aliens paved the way'in a remarkable degree.

Referring to. the present position in Germany, Mr. Crosland told of work done through the Paris centre and in England in aiding refugee Christian Jews. In Holland the Quakers have established an .international school where children of German parents who do not want their children trained along Nazi lines are sent to be educated with children from other countries.

The position of Quakers in conscriptionist countries was, said the speaker, extremely precarious and the future hard to predict, but the Friends held that it was rigil io go on in the faith that one could, and should, appeal to the element of goodness found in all people. Despite the terror that existed in parts of Europe, the fevered armaments race, dictatorships, and revolution, there was much that was sound and true. To this they must appeal and on it base their policy of international relationships.