OUTLAWING WAR

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 1 December 1927, Page 4

OUTLAWING WAR

GENERAL VON SHOENATCH, who is described as the idol of the, German militarist press during tho war, has joined hands with Field-Marshal Sir William Robertson in condemning War. 9hoy both consider that it lias ceased to ho a soldier's game, and has entered tho category of assassination and wholesale slaughter of women and children. Said the German General: "The next warwill nob he a soldiers’ war. It will be a war on women and children in London, Paris and Berlin. We must fight lo> tho last against war.” But how is war to he made against war? General von Shoenaich would advocate the general strike, his idea being that a general strike would so paralyse a country that it could not wage war. That might lie so: but what if the enemy country making war against tho striking country did not adopt a general

strike? Evidently the country suffering from, the general strike would be at tho mercy of the enemy. Supperring all the countries of Europe, but. one-, were agreed lo use the general strike as n means to prevent ,_war, then that ono would be able to make war witli impunity and with positive nssuranco of sue- , cess. Thera are at least two European countries where general strikes are im- ; possible—ltaly and Russia—therefore until they of their own accord disarm, the strike weapon becomes useless in other, European countries as a means of enforcing peace. There is much truth in President Coolidge’s saying, “There is no more a short cut to peace than to salvation.” And yet it becomes more and more plain that unless Europe discovers some formula, wnose adoption will insure tho maintenance of peace, another such war as that of 1914-1918 will reduce her to barbarism and desolation. If Signor Nitti is correct in saying that there are in Europe to-day one million more men under arms than before war broke out in 1914, surely the first movement towards maintaining peace is to annihilate the distrust which causes such huge armies to be. maintained: the reduction of armaments would then follow as a natural sequence. Tho will to peace is essential to the maintenance of peace. Unfortunately it requires but one bellicose nation ,to create-war. There is such a thing as a nation beirig armed merely; for self-pro-tection and to enforce peace. We believe France to be such a nation. It will be conceded that Britain maintains her navy merely as an instrument of protection. France is not likely to disband her army, until it is Safe for her to do so; and similarly Britain is not likely to disband her navy while there are in existence other navies which might prey upon her trade-routes. It was evidently in the mind of the late President Wilson, when he drew up the Covenant of the League of Nations, that, while the League should be primarily a league to promote peace, it should also bo a league to prevent v/ar —by force, if necessary. Unfortunately, his own great country was in the hands of politicians of limited outlook, and so it refused to endorse its great President’s plan for promoting universal peace and suppressing war. The League, even with the United States outside, is still a powerful combination of nations. If completely organised it should be able to dictate to any nation or to any possible combination of nations m Europe. And it is only in Europe that war on the scale imagined by Sir William Robertson and General von Shoenaich is to be feared at the present time. Why then cannot the leading nations of Europe, acting under the League of Nations and with its authority, form themselves into a body to enforce peace and outlaw war on the , troubled Continent?

Disarmament, unless it is complete and universal, is not the solution. Ententes and Alliances, made with a view to preserve the balance of power —as in the Europe of pre-war days—do not provide a solution. The denunciations of such men as Signor Nitti and M. de Jouvenel will not outlaw war. But we say emphatically that if Britain and the United States were to combine in a union to discountenance and prevent war, if necessary by force, there is not a nation in Europe which' would not hesitate to create war, especially if the English-speaking nations were joined by France, Italy, Germany and Japan, in the determination to preserve peace. A great President of the United States might do much in such a manner to prevent European civilisation from being wrecked by: war. Has America such a President in Mr Coolidge? That gentleman has supplied an answer to that question in his recent utterances, in which he advocated tbe traditional policy of isolation as the best policy for the United States.