PREVENTION OF WAR

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIV, Issue 94, 4 April 1934, Page 5

PREVENTION OF WAR

Students Take Radical Step EXHIBITION ORGANISED To rouse England to action in the cause of peace, Cambridge University has organised an ambitious anti-war exhibition which it is intended to send on tour through the principal towns of England. The exhibition is arranged in seven sections. » Tho first section is entitled, "The Prelude to 1914,” and by moans of photographs of serajevo and pre-war press cuttings on the Hague Peace Conference, together with many cartoons, a general impression is given of the then European situation, which is conceived of as being “ a collection of open gunpowder barrels among which people walked continually striking matches. ’ ’

The next two sections deal with the war itself. They are divided into three sub-sections, in which the mental development of the war spirit is revealed. First there are recruiting posters, enthusiastic and cheery, showing tho glories and honours of war. together with posters in France and England proclaiming that the war is against “Prussian Militarism.” There are German posters proclaiming that tho war is “against the yoke of the Tsar.”

The. second period is one of propaganda against the enemy, saddling him in poster and cartoon with every kind of bestiality and savagery. Thirdly, about 1918, there is shown the growth of a temper of weariness typified in tho front pago of a London newspaper which asks in heavy type, ‘‘What are we Fighting Fori”

The fourth section shows tho aftermath of war—revolution in Russia and Germany, and has many photographs of the starvation periods in both countries. These sections, having shown the

nature of war, and its results, the fifth part of the exhibition is devoted to explaining what the technique of another war would be like. This part has been organised by members of the Biochemical and the Cavendish Laboratories, Cambridge, who state that they take scientific responsibility for what their exhibits depict. They deal with the developments of airplane, tank, and chemical warfare, and their main aim

is to demonstrate that a future war would be directed just as much against civilians as against combatants. Tho sixth section is designed to show what danger of war exists today, attention being concentrated upon the manufacturers of armaments. The final department of the exhibition reveals the slowly gathering strength of the anti-war movement in several countries. There are examples of the work of such various institu-

tions —all aiming at the preservation of peace—as the League of Nations Union, the National Peace Council, the Friends’ Peaee Council, the Ligue de la Jeune Republique, the War Resisters’ International, and the Amsterdam Anti-War Movement. Finally it is emphasised that it is on the masses that the preservation of peace ultimately depends.