“NO MORE WAR”

Manawatu Times, Volume LIII, Issue 6670, 25 July 1928, Page 2

“NO MORE WAR”

A Striking Lecture - “New Zealand has accepted the pact to outlaw war/' the cables ,tell us.—What steps then is she going to take to demonstrate the sincerity of her action?" was the question put bj 'the speakers to a keenly attentive audience in, the Palace Theatre on Sunday night. “Can wo renounce war and go on spending £3OO a day preparing for it? Above all, can we- be honest in our renunciation of war while” we go on ranking as criminals lads whose only Crime is that they have genuinely outlawed it? Can we continue to line, to imprison them, to deprive them of their civil rights?" The.speaker stated that he was there to represent the New Zealand No' More War Movement, the New Zealand section of the War EesistCrs’ International,, a world-wide organisation of men and women .united in their irreconcilable opposition to war. , The New Zealand Movement jin order to be in line with the Movements in England, America, Prance, Holland, Pinlaqd and Germany, was conducting a peace campaign which aimed at destroying, the apathy that will allow us to drift into another war 100. times more ghastly than the last, and at awakening people to (I) realisation of the inconceivable .horrors of -another war and its inevitability 'present national policies are continued, and (2) faith in total •disarmament as the only way of ensuring security and peace. , i - ■: The No More War Movement . based its position on three premises, viz.:—; ~(1) If war continues,. .sooner or

later mankind will bo destroyed? » (2)’ War will inevitably; continue as long as armaments remainj and, , (3) '.Universal disarmament ‘ is the ... only way to abolish, war, and univers- ■ al. disarmament will come’ in time 'only by some one nation taking, the - seemingly desperate' stop p|; -.getting the example an(i disarming, first,. , ‘“Surely/' Mr. Page declared, the experience of the last war. makes the truth of the fiist contention -obvious.'’' He went oil to-show that not only was there, appalling suffering; a,hd loss of life—a total of 30 million lives lost .Through : the ■ more ■ 'serious i Hho;- economic'; - chaps .and, ruin ifrom which, it; is .-touch ; apd go ,whether the , ,rld will recover. The.first’World War is?estimated to. have cost £80,000,000,000. in property. With £80,000,000,000 this is what could have been done. A new house of £SOO, a £IOO section, and £2OO of. furniture could have been, given to every-.family in Great, Britain, - Canada,. Australia, New Zealand/Prance, Belgium, Germany. and/ .Eussia... .*ln addition ; ja, £1,000,000 library, u £1,000,000 hospital, and a £2,000,000 University could'have been .given to every great- city in the countries ; named/land. thOre wotild/htill baye been left over enough to '.buy up Belgium: iandYevdry'.bit of real property in those two countries. .The, English national, debt •'was £703,000,000 in 1914. In 192di it ;'was £7,879,000,000. England spends every yehr ( over £050,000,000 in paying for wars, past, present and future. Out of 'every £1 of England's national expenditure 14s 7d goes for war, arid’Ss sd' for home needs. . New Zealand's 'debt before the war (1913) was £90,000,000. In 1027. it’ .was nearly £246,000,000 and we were still going to the bad at the rate of some £5,000,000 a year. Taxation before and after the war was) per head of population: I 1913 : 1927 Great Britain .. £3 114 £ls 2 8 New Zealand £O-18 2 £l6 6 7 (Germany ..... £llO, 8 £3 8 9 i It makes one wonder who. hud reajly won the war. And if that was the result of the previous war what would be the outcome of a future one? , . / The speaker quoted eminent author-, ities.to show that if another war. came, civilisation could scarcely: escape, “Who in Europe does not know/' had declared so unbiassed a witness as the' British Prime. Minister, the ,Et. Hon. Stanley Baldwin, “that one more war in the West and the civilisation of the ages will fall with as great a shock as that-of Borne?'' Moreover, there could be no security for any one—the war would be as, much on non-combat-ants, on women and children as on the soldiers at the Eront. War was inevitable as long as armaments remained. This was'not a world of chance, but a worm wonderfully regulated in accordance with law. Wo did not understand those laws —wo could only say that the sun would rise in the cast because it had always done so, that a stone would fall down and not up because that was. what had always happened in the past. So' With human behaviour Preparation for war had inevitably brought war in the past.. In the last 3000 years there had been 8000 wars. Never in history had preparations been so complete or so widespread us during the 60 years previous to 1914, and yet never had wars been so frequent as in that period. The at-* tempt to prevent war by preparing for it had-resulted in the years of war being to the years of peace as 13 to 1 during the past -30 centuries; Wo could, therefore' only cbnclude that preparedness' "would continue to produce -.wars in'the future. “Sow armaments

and reap war ” was as surely a, law of nature as sow acorns and reap oaks. War, then, meant race suicide. V Armaments meant war. What was the unescapable conclusion? 'Universal disarmament was the only way to peace; and how could .thati,come in time? . Not by the nations to disarm together. . The .failure' IfiO.sessiohs of the League 'of Nations bn disarmament. The scorn-ful-rejection of Eusgia’s disarmament . proposals showed that; The only way was for one nation to have the courage to take the lead. And immediate disarmament on the part of one nation would not only pave the 1 way for gen-eral-t-disarmament, it -would' confer greater security in the meantime on the pioneer nation than guns and battleships' ever could.

:i It .was a law-of human nature that trust begets trust, just as surely as hate and suspicion beget hate and suspicion. -. t ; Jesus was not enunciating an impractical abstraction, applicable only gome hundreds of years' hence, when ha told us to love our- enemies, to- overcome evil, not with more 1 evil—bigger guns-and bombs and battleships, but with good. The .ethics -of the New Testament was not trlie because Christ said, it, Christ said-it because it was true, it worked where. - all other ways .disastrously failed... • .. v !' jj. Defencelcssness was far more likely to give security than armaments. But what if another nation should attack us ? ‘ There was not the least likelihood that'another nation" would attack us. A policy of disarmament would necessitate a'foreign policy-based on trust and r, justice. Tho suspicions and antagonisms of other countries would be removed. Goodwill and, sincerity on our part would evoke a like Spirit on ■theif’s. Would wo consent to be sent to invade a country that was entirely disarmed? And if we wouldn’t, why -.should others. Human nature was the same wherever met with. It was unthinkable that any people would support their government if it meditated an attack on an unarmed neighbour. Our. bombs and airplanes and battleships, instead of protecting our women and children,, were a fiendish, unjustifiable menace, to them.

“Fo.dare not take so drastic a step as immediate disarmament,"' it' was often declared. “If wo knew the fact?," the speaker maintained, “we should realise wo dare not wait one day longer before taking it. Until wo do every day brings its appalling menace. Wo don’t know when the scheming and blundering of governments will plunge us again into war, and wo never shall know while tho world remains piled full of fiendishly modern instruments of barbifism." . ' Mr. Pago ended with an appeal to all those present to sign the petitions to Parliament and to become members of the Kb More War Movement by giving their names to him or to Mr. Colo, secretary of the Palmerston North branch of the Labour Party.