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Hokitika Guardian, 22 August 1939, Page 4

Observer. The Peace Front is an alliance of Powers for defence against another alliance—in fact, a return topower politics and competition in armaments which the founders of the League hoped to supersede by an organisation of all or the great majority of Powers for the mutual assurance of peace. As they stand, the two tilings are as nearly as possible opposites. To realise the League ideal both Peace Front and Axis would have to be abolished and all the Powers brought into one association, as originally intended. This is not a matter of words and names. The League method is that of the administration of justice. The l eague Powers find one of their members guilty of “aggression” and impose the penalty of sanctions. From that moment negotiation and compromise are ruled out. There is no halfway house. The aggressor must make complete submission, or, if he succeeds in defying the League, win a complete victory. In the ease of Italy the Hoaro-Laval compromise was ruled out as condoning crime and the Italian victory became complete. The truth is that the League idea of a high authority passing judgment oil offenders and imposing its will on those who resist cannot be applied to a world divided into approximately equal groups, eacli of which challenges the right of the other to lay down the law. Some day we may get back to this, hut in the meantime wo have to seek peace through negotiation, compromise, give and take. This is the method of the* “old diplomacy,” and none other is possible in the world of power polities in which we are now living.

Fon inv own part I am not. in tho loast afraid of tlio name “League of Nations, ” but to speak of tho Peace Front as if it wore tho nucleus or foundation of the League seems to me to point in the wrong direction, writes Mr J. A. Spender in tho Yorkshire