WAR RESISTERS

Grey River Argus, 2 May 1932, Page 6

WAR RESISTERS

LCRD PONSONBY S PRESIDENCY. Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, has been elected Chairman of the War Resisters’ International, a movemerit which is established to prevent war by personal and mass refusal to assist in it. This International Movement, which has its sections in twenty-five different countries, stands for total disarmament by example, and will have its special representative and office in Geneva during the Disarmament Conference. Professor Albert Einstein, who has been associated with the War Resisters’ International for many years, has established the “Einstein War Resisters’ Fund” in conjunction with the International which has its head office at 11, Abbey Road, Enfield, Middlesex, England.

Lord Ponsonby, who is at. present the Leader of the Labour Party in the House of Lords, has had a distinguished career. Educated at Eton, and Balli ol College, Oxford, he became in 1882 Page of Honour to Queen Victoria. Ho served in the Diplomatic Service at Constantinople and Copenhagen ,and in 1900 he went to the Foreign Office. Later he became principal Private Secretary to Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman, while he was Prime Minister. After sitting as Liberal Member for the Stirling Burghs for ten years, he joined the Labour Party, and was Member for the Brightside Division of Sheffield from 1922 till 1930. In 1924 he became Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs. In the late Labour Government he held successively the office of Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Dominions, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport, and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. As a member of the Union of Democratic Control, he opposed the war from its commencement, and in 1929 inaugurated the Ponsonby Peace Letter Campaign, an example “which was followed on a large scale in Germany, and in the United States. Among his numerous publications, his book entitled “Now is the Time” stands out for its championship of the cause of absolute war resistance. Arthur Ponsonby is a man who will not hesitate to make any sacrifice for the cause he places above all others—the establishment of peace between the nations and the building up of a new social order of co-opera-tion for the common good.