PRAYERS FOR THE PEACE PACT.

Evening Star, Issue 19952, 23 August 1928, Page 6

PRAYERS FOR THE PEACE PACT.

Sunday next will bo a day of special prayers in nil the churches of Great Britain tor Mr Kellogg’s Peace Pact, which is to bo signed on behalf of fifteen nations tho next day in Paris. “ Tho occasion is a great one in the history of the world,” tho Archbishops of Canterbury and of York have said in a joint appeal for this accompaniment of it. Archbishop Averill has suggested that there should be thanksgiving and prayers also in New Zealand. Nob improbably they will be held in churches of all denominations in most countries of the world. Tho prayers may bo more important than the pact itself. That may mean much or nothing, according to the spirit in which it is signed and kept in remembrance by nations as well as Governments. Thanksgiving is appropriate to the making of a good resolution, which is all that this pact represents; but far more essential is prayer if the pledge made is to have vital and lasting power. We feel that these prayers should not be limited to the week when the pact is signed. When tho World War was uestroying its millions, once a year in ©very British country tho pledge was repeated: "We will not sheathe the mxd until -ccrtaia great objects of

righteousness had been obtained. Once a year, in future, a day might bo set apart for the world to say as solemnly: “ We will not draw tho sword as an instrument of national policy.” It would bo as.fitting; it should not bo less practicable. Tho pact, it has been pointed out, is only a beginning. Its value in the future will bo just that which its signatories are minded to give it. Its certain value cannot bo counted large. Mr H. Simouds, one of tho hard-est-beaded as well as one of the most experienced of American observers, has been writing ou how tho pact is viewed in Europe. Ho does not find that it has filled Europe with any excitement. “Manifestly,” ho points out, “every lime any nation takes a pledge not to make war there is a certain moral gain. The Kellogg proposal carries this profit. But it docs not change tho fact that if there were an attack in Europe made by one Power upon another all member nations of tho League of Nations would have a moral obligation to go to war against tho aggressor.” And this pledge, iu so far as it roaches, is not new, except for tho United States itscli. All the Powers that will sign it in Europe signed it before when they joined themselves in the League of Nations. Tho now pact docs not carry with it the modification of a single agreement mado in Europe since 1919.

All that is incontestable. Mr Simouds may bo right in saying that the pact docs not touch any of tho situations in Europe which aro actual menaces to pcaco. It is a shock when wo go on to read that, during months when ho was on the Continent at a timo when the Kellogg proposals were being generally discussed, lie never found any European who took them seriously in themselves. But that was not to say that no value was attribute 1 to them. Europeans saw in them a gradual abandonment of tho policy of isolation, and an indirect return to world association, on the part ot America, and they were very willing to endorse tho peace pledge, and to do their best with it, in tho light of their owu interpretations, for tho sake of benefits which that return might bring. Tho threatened collapse of the Dawes payments by Germany made the strongest reason for their wishing to please America. But their chief hope for security would rest still in llio League's Covenant and in other treaties, all of which Had tho idea of force as a last guarantee. America does not need those for herself, but European conditions aro more complicated. “To tho European,” writes Mr Simouds, “wo seem, in many of our proposals, like inhabitants of a torrid zone, trying to convince the people in Arctic lands of the cost and lack of sanitation incident to furs.” The reservations to the pact mean that, “while they lavish praise ou tho design, cut, and appearance of our tropical garments, they continue to wear their furs. ■When in Iceland do as the Icelanders do is their firm mental resolve.” The pact may mean that wars of all kinds will some day bo eliminated from tho earth. But it has still to be made into that.