WINNING THE WAY TO PEACE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 255, 27 September 1932, Page 8

WINNING THE WAY TO PEACE.

FOREIGN SECRETARY ON NEW OUTLOOK. ADDRESS TO LAWYERS. “We are reaching a time in the history of the world when there is some practical sense to be attached to the idea of being a citizen of the world, said Sir John Simon, Foreign Secretary, in a sneecli at Oxford in August. He' was addressing leading lawyers from many countries at the thirtyseventh biennial Conference of the international Law Association. THE ONLY HOPE.

“The time is at last coming nearer,” he said, “when, even during the dangerous period which is the precuisoi or the outbreak of another war we may hope that the good sense and calmness of ordinary men and women may be enough to curb the awful temptation which would otherwise rush us into another war. “The conception of world peace is not only a practical creed for the working man and woman but it is, under modern conditions, the only hope for the survival of civilisation.” LESSONS OF THE CRISIS.

Lord Blanesburgh in his presidential address said: “'ine general reaction of international lawyers before lbi4 to questions of peace and war can no longer avail us. Can we have any assurance that in any future war the belligerents will abstain from using any weapon of destruction, howevei infernal, when we consider the extent to which chemical warfare, solemnly proscribed before 1914, was resorted to finally by all the belligerents in the last great outbreak P “Tbe bare possibility of such another overhanging humanity is unthinkable. Our civilisation cannot survive such another calamity.’ The world crisis, said Lord Blanesburgh, was teaching its lesson. “We have awakened to the fact that exaggerated nationality is bringing about widespread economic ruin. World order will not be restored until war debts and reparations are settled, until a great measure of disarmament is made effective, and until existing tariff walls are broken down. A RULE OF LAW. “The task to which we are called is that of establishing a rule of law in place of a rule of force in inter-State relations, a consummation which can only be achieved if nations, lor the sake of that peace which is essential to their existence, arc prepared to renounce many of the privileges hitherto associated with independent sovereignty.”