BISHOP'S PEACE PLAN

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21880, 16 August 1934, Page 5

BISHOP'S PEACE PLAN

"BRITAIN SHOULD DISARM" DR. BARNES' PROPOSAL FELLOW PRELATE'S DISSENT [from oun own correspondent] LONDON, July 10 A plan for securing peace in a startling way receives publicity because it was suggested by Dr. Barnes, Bishop of Birmingham. He was delivering an address in Birmingham at a service in connection with the National Peace Congress. He argued that Britain should disarm, even though universal disarmament is not achieved.

Bishop Barnes said: "If all attempts to secure disarmament fail, I would have my own country disarm, and for its safety trust to a policy of international righteousness, of co-operation with other nations so dangerous as to seem quixotic. Such a programme would plainly bo dangerous. It might end in disaster. But any alternative policy, so far as I can conceive, will lead ultimately to large-scale war and will put an end to Western European civilisation.

"You will perhaps ask me what I mean by a policy of international righteousness. I would, so far as this country is concerned, reverse the injustice of the Treaty of Versailles. I would, so far as such action depended upon ourselves, restore to Germany the colonics handed at Versailles to our control."

The bishop said he would give to India self-government, withdrawing all control save such as was needed for the maintenance of order during the period of transition. In a policy of international righteousness he would include a readiness on the part of our own country—even if no others were t-o follow our example— to submit all international disputes to some international tribunal, with a promise to abide by the decision given. "I do not believe," he continued, "that economic rivalries and trade disputes are the main causes of large-scale war. Jealousy, national pride and fear are probably more powerful factors.

"The nation which renounces armaments woidd not incite fear nor be offensive to the national prido of other nations. Even their jealousy would probably diminish in the face of a policy which steadily sought co-opera-tion and friendly understanding. Only by mutual trust, co-operation and goodwill, manifested through some such body as the League, can world drder be established." ,

" Intrigues " at Geneva At Geneva intrigues behind the scenes, said Dr. Barnes, discredited tho working of the organisation Which was President Wilson's legacy to mankind. Such intrigues were elements in a struggle for the balance of power. "I do not desire," he said, "to see the League with an army, a navy or even an air force of .its own. Intrigues to control such a force would be incessant. Sooner or later the group of Powers whose nationals failed to secure control would become suspicious and afraid. They would leave the League and war would result. "Whatever some of our militarist clergy and ministers may say," he concluded, "there was nothing in Christ's teaching that excused the cruelties of war. He believed that non-resistance was a practical ideal for tho individual, and no sentence of His can be quoted which implied that the same ideal would not also serve the nation. War is of the devil, not of Christ."

There has already been criticism of the bishop's statement. Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd, M.P., at a meeting of Conservatives, said he had a right, as a Birmingham member of Parliament, to address some plain words to the ißisbop of Birmingham. It was easy for Dr. Barnes, he said, to air such extreme views when he had no direct responsibility for the safety of the country. That responsibility, however, fell upon the Government and upon Parliament, and they could not avoid it. Dr. Barnes himself said that nothing could excuse war unless the certain alternative was loss of freedom, but the effect of his programme was to place British freedom at the tender mercy of the European dictators who openly derided liberty and often glorified war. That was, indeed, taking chances. The bishop, in effect, proposed to gamble with British liberty and British safety. Another Bishop's Criticism

The Bishop of Winchester, Dr. Cyril Garbett, speaking at Bournemouth in connection with the annual meeting of the Council of the League of Nations Union, urged that in the present state of the world the disarming of any one nation might promote war.

H© said that deep in the hearts of the people of many nations there was a determination to refuse to take part in a war of aggression or a war which was not plainly and unmistakably one of defence. So long as there were 1 some nations which did not share that hatred of war and made it plain that they still regarded it as an instrument of national policy, and wore prepared to resort to it if they could not find peaceful means to attain their ends, it would bo foolish and unreasonable to expect any one nation to remain defenceless. Unilateral disarmament on our part, or on the part of any nation with great possessions, might haston the war which they were anxious to avoid.