PEACE IN OUR TIME.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20868, 9 May 1931, Page 9 (Supplement)

PEACE IN OUR TIME.

GETTING TOGETHER. "The 'World—Our Neighbour," by Vernon Bartlett. (Eikin Matthews and Marrot.) " European Encounters," by Hubert Griffith. (Bodley Head.)

A year of two ago the League of Nations decided to carry out sonio experiments in short wave transmission in order to sec to what extent words uttered in Geneva could reach the remotest parts of tlio earth. But in this temporary studio no precautions were taken to ensure the absence of any distracting noises, and people came in and out of tho room while tho messages were being transmitted. Presently answers began to come in, and ono message ran: "Java says, for heaven's sake tell those fellows in Geneva to keep tho door shut." And the moral of that story is, as Mr. Vernon Bartlett points out, that when people in Java can be annoyed because someono in Geneva slams a door, it is no longer possible for any one country to bo indifferent to the doings of others. Broadcasting, then, is one method by which nations can " get together." But getting together is not necessarily a prelude to friendship. Thero are two opposing tendencies in human nature, tiie individualistic and the co-operative, and closer communication between countries may only mean improved opportunities for quarrelling. To proximity must be added understanding and it is to this that tho efforts of the League of Nations are most effectively directed. Mr. Bartlett, who has a wide experience of journalism and foreign affairs, includig three years as special correspondent of tho 1 imes in Switzerland and Rome, has been since 1922 the London representative of tho League of Nations. The Work of the League. The greatest mistake, Mr. Bartlett thinks, in tlio general conception of the work of the League is to imagine that it deals solely or mainly, with tlio political problem of preventing war. Tho greater part of its work is connected with the attempt to develop international co-opera-tion in every field, so that there shall be fewer of those little causes of friction which may so easily lead to war. " There is indeed hardly any branch of human activity which has not outgrown national frontiers. • • The old narrow claim that a nation had the right to behave exactly as it liked regardless of the feelings or interests of its neighbours will soon bo as out-of-dato as the purely' selfish conception of man as an individual instead of a citizen." General Smuts said on a recent visit to Oxford that the extent to which Governments have abandoned tlio old idea of national sovereignty in order to club together against war is " one of the greatest miracles of history." ' The result," ho went on to say, " is a foregone conclusion and war will inevitably disappear from the civilised practice of tho world."

Yet this recognition of all the world as our neighbour does not necessarily lead to a kind of milk-and-watery internationalism. As a matter of fact, nationalism has been intensified since tho war and the efforts, however partial their success, of the peace-makers to recognise the rights of small nations. But just as a good Briton, may be proud of his Scottish blood, or think that no place can compare with his birthplace in Yorkshire of the West Country, so a good citizen of the world may keep his local patriotism .without wishing to fight those who do not share his national prepossessions. United States of Europe

The same note is sounded in Mr. Hubert Griffith's," European Encounters," though his range is not so wide. Mr Griffith's book is made up of travel-notes written as a special correspondent for the Daily Chronicle. The editor, in his preliminary instructions gave his correspondent a free hand except that he urged him to keep off politics. So three-quarters ol tlie boon is a brightly-written and entertaining account of the writer's superficial impressions of Eastern Europe, of Riga, Warsaw, Cracow, Vienna, Belgrade and Constantinople. But in the end lie finds it impossible to " keep off politics. All that lie has seen of this post-war Europe,

" still an armed camp forced by fatigue and poverty to an uneasy peace, but always bearing within it the seeds of war and dissension,"—all this compels him to preach the gospel of a " United States of Europe." Mr. Griffith spent four years of bis youth in the war. The army stands, he thinks, for much that, at its best, was self-sacrifice and courage and loyalty in an older world than ours. But that world has passed. A present peace-time army is the idlest, most mischievous and most dangerous thing in creation. . . "You say that the idea of a " United Stales ot Europe " is a dream? . . . "iou tell me that war is human nature, ami that human nature is unchangeable! I have beard that stale, weary, childish and disastrously false catch-phrase from writers, politicians, brilliant journalists, from editors and owners of great papers, from everybody save only from those who actually did the fighting in the last war. The cumulative effect of such books as " The World—Our Neighbour " and " European Encounters,"' —and the number is daily growing—cannot be disregarded. However black the outlook lor worldpeace may seem to-day, the will to that peace is steadily becoming stronger, and the day may yet come—and sooner than some of us think —when from cast to west the civilised nations shall realise the truth of the Italian proverb " Tutto il inoudo e pacsc."—All the world s one country.