The Hawera Star. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1924. THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 6 September 1924, Page 4

The Hawera Star.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1924. THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

Otrivorfed e'sry evening Dj- 5 o'clock in Hawera. Manaia. Okaiawa, Elthami Patee, Waverley, Mokoia, WbakAmara, Ooangs,, MeremePs. Fraeer Road. and OtaketK, Manutahi, Alton, Hnrleyville, Mangatt.ki, Kaponga, Awatuna, Opunaks,

The cable news tells us that- this year’s meeting of the Assembly of the League of Nations at Geneva is causing great interest, and there can be no doubt that there is in the world to-day a very great desire to lay' down foundations for permanent peace. The views-ex-pressed by Mr Ramsay' MacDonald upon the League and the question of disarmament show' clearly that he is intensely' interested, and is a strong believer in the League. We may' be sure that Mr MacDonald will do hip utmost in the interests of peace, but it is interesting to note that he is not blind to facts concerning the very difficult problem of disarmament. He does not argue, as so many' people professing to be Labour stalwarts do, that by' some Coue process war can be ended. Everyone with sense hates and loathes war, and no section of people can claim a monopoly’ of that feeling or of the desire that w T ar should be banished from the earth. British people the world over are keenly' desirous that peace shall reign, and if the British will for peace were alone sufficient there w'ould be no more w r ar. But peace cannot be assured unless and until there is security for it. Mr MacDonald is not blind to that fact, and he is desirous that .first the nations shall find a true foundation. “The vague expression of such, a word as ‘security’’ may mean many different things to different people,” he said in an interview'. “It is no use trying to build upon a foundation of such differences. If you build on a false foundation, in a decade people will be arming to the teeth as the only means of keeping peace. Meantime it is possible to go forward by means of arbitration as the surest method under the present conditions.” The League of Nations is the great hope of arbitration being successful as a keeper of the peace, and. with the encouraging support which it is receiving it seems likely that the hopes of those who have worked so hard in its interests will be realised. With such an immense task before it when it was first set up the League of Nations has had to proceed very carefully and endeavour to gain the confidence of the world. At times it has looked as if its influence was on the wane, but fortunately it has continued its work, and its prospects appear to be much better than for a long time past. Meantime the desire is being expressed for another conference of Powers to go a step further in the matter of disarmament, and both Mr MacDonald and President Coolidge. are awaiting a favourable opportunity for calling it, but no one nation can go in for wholesale disarmament until the others are prepared to do likewise. Some people think that the sight of war material and the reading of the deeds of a nation in wartime encourage the spirit to fight, but on might as well argue that the sight of bottles labelled poison in a chemist’s shop is an encouragement to suicide, or the sight of surgical instruments tends to make one want to undergo an operation. Our war memorials and the history of wars should impress upon people the awful .price paid to uphold our nation’s principles and should encourage them to work to -give the Empire greater strength to lead the world in peace. War is horrible and it is an evil, but out of evil good may often come, and the fact that such great efforts are being made by the statesmen of the civilised world to build up the League of Nations and to bring the nations to an agreement to reduce armaments is surely one of the results of the war. It is hoped that definite progress will be made and that within the next few months another conference on armaments will be held and prove even more successful than thatat which the Washington Agreement was reached.