SELFISH ISOLATION

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 12751, 6 January 1936, Page 2

SELFISH ISOLATION

DENOUNCED BY AIR BALDWIN

BRITISH MUST, SHOULDER. RESPONSIBILITIES.

LONDON, Nov. 2

“Cloistered- lienee” is an impossibility for Britain,, according to Mr Stanley Baldwin, Prime Alinister, speaking at a recent meeting of the Peace Society.

Some people, said Air -Baldwin, called this policy “ ‘splendid isolation.’ I offer as an alternative of this nice derangement of epithet • a much truer description—‘selfish isolation.’ Why is it more splendid to he by yourself than to lie with other people? Wo might as well speak of ‘brilliant collective security.’ Let us keep our feet out of these adjectival enticements and walk the way of truth unvarnished.”

SELETSH GA.R DENING

“Everything we have and bold and cherish,” ho said, “is in jeopardy.” Ho went- on to declare national isolation impossible. “To turn inward upon yourself, to cultivate that small private garden ofyou.r own personality enriching it- doubtless with many flowers, but shutting out all thought of what may be passing outside the wall,” might, lie said, be feasible for an individual but not for great nations of to-day. “We cannot,” he declared, “choose that fugitive and cloistered peace, unexercised and unbreatlied if we would.”

The reason, he explained, was clear. “I am told,” he said, “the brbils of other nations are not. ours. Does anyone think that a war between great nations, whoever they are and wherever their boundaries, can lie limited with someone to stop them when they go over the touch line, and that, meanwhile we can trade profitably and happily with both .belligerents alike in a prosperous neutrality? Modern war between any two Powers is like one of the great convulsions of nature in the early geologic ages. The map of the world has to be redrawn in the end ...

WORLD RESPONSIBILITIES

“The man who makes no friends has no friends. We should have none by our side. .. . A\ T e cannot- bolt ourselves into an armed citadel and survive. ... A co-operative effortfor peace is not Quixotism; it is plain common sense. . . . We are a world power and we have responsibilities to the world. Power and place and possessions bring their duties as well as their rights and privileges. Alone we cannot- find permanent and universal peace, and no other peace in the end will be worth having.” Going on to refer to the Covenant of the League of Nations as an instrument for maintaining peace. ATr Baldwin said that by the law of the Covenant the member-states were bound to enforce peace But. they could not do this alone. “It fakes two,” he said, “to make a quarrel, and itwill take all to make the peace.” Declaring himself “an impenitent patriot,” Air Baldwin declared that England was not less England because it was a member of the Leaue. It surrendered nothing by its determination to make peace prevail.

LEAGUE WILL GROW

The League, he also claimed, will grow in strength. “I am certain,” ho said, “that there are millions of American citizens who are watching with lively sympathy our efforts to make the League an instrument of world peace. Germany has left the League. We regret it, hut the future is open, and I trust that solution may not- he impossible. “Japan is a world power who has turned her back on the rest of the world. We must look fairly at her reasons, for they lie deeply in the criticisms of the League. “If the League only existed to keep things as they are, it would become desiccated and crumble into dust-.' But change must come primarily from within the League; it must bo an ordered evolution.

“The League is living, and it gains adherents. Not long ago it was strengthened by the advent of the Soviet- Union. . . .

DIFFICULTIES

“There are elements in France that have not seen eye to eye with us, but. there is solidarity between the two Governments as loyal members of the League, and that is what really matters.

“The dispute between the League and Itay is real, hut it is not more real than our friendship. “We believe that Italy is rashly departing from her own great traditions, but we are moving, in no .spirit of national antagonism against Italy.

In being true tc our pledged word to the League wo also wish to preserve an old friendship. Do not fear or misunderstand when the Government say they are looking to our defences. I give you my word that there will be no great armaments.” Mr Baldwin concluded with the declaration that making peace ‘ “may not bo an easy task, but we accept it.” •■■■ *:■ v “ ' ' -“H’