THE PREVENTION OF WAR

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 2 April 1930, Page 8

THE PREVENTION OF WAR

A. SCHEME SUGGESTED Addressing the Royal Society of Arts, Sir Thomas Holland, Vice-Chancellor and Principal of Edinburgh University, proposed that the signatories to the Pact of Paris should prohibit the export of mineral products to any nation which violated the multilateral treaty. Tho scheme could be initiated, he said, by agreement between the British Empire and the United States, which between them owned some two-thirds of the known workable deposits of minerals and 'commercially controlled some threequarters of them. During the war those who were responsible for our mineral supplies were made painfully conscious of the. circumstance that not even tho resources of the -whole Empire were sufficient, in variety or in quantity, to meet the ultimate military demands; and a post-war review of the Empire's resources, undertaken in the hope of finding if to be self-contained, soon proved the hope to be futile. No single country was self-sufficient as regarded the variety and quantity of the mineral resources that were required, either for the maintenance of civil activities in peace time, or therefore, for meeting the much greater requirements of war. Some instrument of prohibition was needed as simple as taking away the sparking plugs of the road-hog motorist without damaging his car; something that could temporarily paralyse the most powerful navy, if necessary, without interfering with trade, or otherwise damaging tho fleet; some embargo so\obviously effective that no nation would even attempt mobilisation. It would be a rash venture for any Power to undertake war if either the British Empire or the United Stales refused to permit tho export of minerals to it ; and any country that attempted to break: the Pact of Paris would be paralysed if these (wo agreed to withhold mineral supplies. He suggested, therefore, that each country should add a simple rider to the Kollogg treaty, giving ils Government the power, if and when necessary, to prohibit the export of mineral products to any country that broke the peace with any other member of the Pact The very existence of any such power would lie, in itself, sufficient automatically to enforce submission of lhe matters in dispute to the' Inlernation Court of Justice.