I believe that to bring international morality into conformity with the code of faif-d< nling which is acknowledged in private life and to resist the whole body of pestilent doctrine that tenches that there are two different and conflicting standards of conduct in private and in international affairs is the only way to bring order into the world and eventually to save civilisation. writes Mr .J. A. Spender in the Yorkshire Observer. “Boycott all treaty-breakers,” say some. which means dividing the world into saints and sinners, and putting ourselves on the side of the saints, adds .Mr Spender. There will then be an impassable gulf between ourselves and three at least of the Great Bowers. There wiil also be no way of winding up any of tii % questions on which the League of Nations has failed, unless tin* sinners publicly repent, which they are very unlikely to do. Even so, it would not be easy to keep a consistent line. For example, I am always being asked by my French friends why we accepted so complacently the flagrant breach of treaty by the Germans when they remilitarised the Rhineland, and yet were so angry when the Italians marched into - Abyssinia—a question which it is not very easy to answer to the satisfaction of Frenchmen. To some extent we must pass a sponge over the past, unless the quarrels of these times are to be interminably prolonged. Treaties and negotiations there must be unless we give up the cause of peace in despair.”
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/HOG19380623.2.15
Bibliographic details
Hokitika Guardian, 23 June 1938, Page 4
Word Count
252Untitled Hokitika Guardian, 23 June 1938, Page 4
Using This Item
The Greymouth Evening Star Co Ltd is the copyright owner for the Hokitika Guardian. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of the Greymouth Evening Star Co Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.