DISARMAMENT APPEAL

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 42, 2 February 1932, Page 10

DISARMAMENT APPEAL

ARCHBISHOP’S ADDRESS HAUNTING SPIRIT OF FEAR NATIONS’ SOLEMN PLEDGES London, December 21. A great congregation, headed by dis. tingulshed leaders in Church and State, assembled in St. Paul’s Cathedral for the national service of prayer on behalf of the World Disarmament Conference. “The world is spending on armaments no less than £2,000,000 a day; we in this country £2OO a minute.” These impressive facts were quoted by the archbishop. The lesson of the Great War had shown, he said, how great armaments could only lead to war, and who could doubt that in another war civilisation itself might perish? Ten years had passed, and the level of armaments remained as high as ever. It remained for the fateful conference next February to effect a progressive reduction by general agreement. “Our own country, we may honestly say, will enter the conference in a position of strong moral authority,” Dr. Lang proceeded. “She has already made more substantial reductions than any other country. Indeed, there are many who think that she has already reached the lowest point consistent with her safety and obligations. This very fact creates a difficulty which her representatives at Geneva will have to face. It may not be possible for them to accept some general reduction by a fixed common percentage. But within classes of armaments there are possibilities of reduction which she must be willing to offer. CONSEQUENCE OF FAILURE. “Assuredly the consequence of failure cannot be contemplated without dismay. It might mean the withdrawal of Germany from the League; even her determination to begin the increase of her own armaments. It would cer tainly mean a most serious blow to the authority of the League and to all its efforts to hold the world together by an international rule of reason and justice. “It would be a set-back to all the hopes of a period of settled confidence essential to the recovery of the world from its present confusion and distress. Yet we cannot shut our eyes to the immense difficulties which stand in the way. The spirit of fear is still haunting the nations. It is this which makes them cling nervously to their armaments.

“Yet since the war a great structure of arbitration treaties, some 300 in number, has been built up. Nay, (il nations, and among them all the most powerful, have bound themselves by the Pact of Paris to renounce war ns an instrument of national policy. Ar» not such solemn pledges enough to banish fear? “There is another and kindred disease of which armaments are a symptom—the disease of a selfish nationalism, which moves one nation to press its own advantage without regard t’> the needs of the others. This is the ultimate cause of the vast economic depression which has come over the world. All the perplexities, apprehen sions, confusions which surround the words reparations, war debts, tariff walls are growths which spring from this same root of a self-seeking nationalism.” NOTABLE CONGREGATION. In the notable congregation the Prime Minister and Mr. Baldwin headed a large group of Ministers of State and their ladies, including Sir Johu and Lady Simon the Marquis of Londonderry, Earl Stanhope, Sir Herbert and Lady Samuel, Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Thomas, Sir Donald and Lady McLean, Sir Archibald and Lady Sinclair, Lord Stanley, and Major W. OimsbyGore. There were also a great num her of members of both Houses of Parliament.

Eighteen foreign countries were represented, and the Lord Mayor and sheriffs attended, with the civic officers, in full robes, the Lady Mayoress, members of the city corporation, and 15 metropolitan Mayors. Many public organisations and religious bodies were also officially represented.