INTERNATIONAL ORDER

Greymouth Evening Star, 30 October 1939, Page 4

INTERNATIONAL ORDER

HUXLEY ON WAR AIMS. LONDON, September 23. An important contribution to the discussion on Britain’s war aims and the future of the world when Hitlerism has been defeated was made this week by Professor Julian Huxley, the famous scientist who is now head of the London Zoological Society. In a letter to “The Times,” London, he declares we must plan now for a new international order. “The dismemberment of Germany can be ruled out,” he writes. “By itself, it could only postpone the emergence of new anarchic crisis. The alternative can only be some move in the direction of federalism-

“Long-term war aims should therefore include the setting-up of international economic agencies, designed to promote the increased consumption and better distribution of raw mate- ' rials; of unified transport institutions, notably pooled civil-aviation; and of educational and cultural machinery including provision for large-scale educational and research exchange, inter-availability of medical and other professional qualifications, facilitation of travel). They should also include the setting up of health organisations (based presumably on the health section of the League, but with much greater powers, notably for improving nutrition); of a population section, to deal with migration, including refugee settlement; the pooling of tropical colonial posessions, with the eventual establishment of an international administrative staff; and, of course, the strengthening of existing arrangements for settling international disputes (Hague Court). “Another aim should be the establishment of a political federal centre, with powers of federal taxation and with control over some international armed force (accompanied by some considerable measure of purely national disarmament). “The fate of the League need not deter us. Its failure seems at bottom to have been due to its concentration on the purely political aspect of internationalism, to the neglect of economic and social machinery; and to its tie-up with the principle of selfdetermination and consequently of unrestricted nationalism. “We have no territorial ambitions in this war. We are fighting for the future order of Europe and the continuance of Western European civilisation, which still embodies the world’s highest and most influential culture. “That, being so, our statement ot war aims must provide a platform on which neutral countries, too, can take their stand with a view to playing an . active part in the eventual settlement. ( “Is the new Europe we envisage one ; which they will wish to see established, will work to secure, will cooperate, in maintaining? “That is perhaps the first criterion of tho rightness of any war aims we put forward- ‘