DEPLORABLE AND MOST DISTRESSING.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 13 June 1936, Page 5

DEPLORABLE AND MOST DISTRESSING.

MR. CHAMBERLAIN’S NEW LEAGUE ATTITUDE.

COMMENT BY DOMINION’S LEAGUE LEADER.

The statement by Mr Neville Chamberlain, Chancellor of the British Exchequer, that sanctions had failed and that the policy of the League of Nations should be modified in future, was commented upon by Professor E, L. \Y. Wood, lecturer in history at Victoria University and Dominion president of the League of Nations Union, when speaking in Palmerston North last night. “In my own opinion the statement is deplorable,” stated Professor Wood“and not so much-because of the practical policy affected as the reason he gave. If Mr Chamberlain is correctly reported, he said the policy of sanctions has failed and, therefore, should be abandoned. The point, to my mind, is that the policy of sanctions has not been tried and, therefore, cannot be said to have failed. The sanctions that wore enforced have been extraordinarily effective as far as they could possibly go but for various reasons, sanctions have never been applied in the sense they were intended to be applied. Consequently it is wholly false reasoning to say sanctions have been tried and have failed.

Mr Chamberlain stated that it would be necessary to confine the League to such things that it could accomplish, which means taking from it all hope or ambition of being able to prevent wars in the future. That is a very serious thing to say. It means that we will have to go back to pre-war conditions and a policy of national armaments wlncli throughout history have tailed to preserve the peace. “I deplore what Mr Chamberlain has said, especially when it conies from a man prominent in a party whose platform supported the League. 1 find it more depressing as regards international affairs than anything else that has happened for many years.”

During the course of his address on the activities of the League, Professor Wood stated that the League should not be judged on the failures in respect of Japan, Italy and Paraguay, but on its many successes in preventing other wars. He was also of the firm opinion that had there not been a League, Germany's entry into the Rhineland last March would have resulted in another world conflict.