PACIFISTS AND THE NAVY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22205, 4 September 1935, Page 15

PACIFISTS AND THE NAVY

Sir, —M:r. C. E. Archibald complains that I received from the Rev. F. Wilkinson, the Dominion president of the League of Nations I[Jnion, an appeal for prayer; "instead of accepting it in the spirit in which it was intended, the archdeacon rushed into print, condemning tho wording of the appeal." That statement is not true. I did not in any way condemn the appeal for prayer. I did condemn something very different —an appeal jfor action, and, as Mr. Wilkinson had, a few days previously, explained that the action he desired was the enforcement of the obligation!! under the Covenant of the League of Nations, which involved an act of war, I deemed it my duty to make my protest. I based my objection oil the very sufficient ground that Britain's obligation under the Covenant was to share in the collective action of the nations against an aggressor—not to act as the sole policeman of the League. A further reason in my mind, though I did not express it, was that, owing to the influence of pacifists, the Navy had been cut down to the edge of risk—and if our Navy in. the narrow waters of the Mediterranean lost a couple of battleships by submarines the result would follow that the very existence of the Empire would be imperilled. In Monday's Herald we read of H.M.S. Resolution going to Port Said, and H.M.S. Revenge going to Alexandria —but we also read of 69 Italian submarines going to Sicily to prepare for any war movement by Britain. The possibilities of Sir Norman Angell's proposal for Britain to cut Italy's communications are too serious to be overlooked. The British Navy in its present depleted condition cannot afford to risk an acceptance of the great pacifist's! naval strategy. That the Auckland League of Nations Union is a party to the policy of cutting down the Navy to its present dangerous condition can be showti by the action of its president, Mr. W. T. G. Airey, who in May, 1934, attacked Rear-Admiral Burges Watson for pointing out in an addresis the needs of the Navy in order to be sufficient for defence. It was this aggressively belligerent attitude of a pacifist which drew me into the controversy, and I wrote an article for the Herald of May 19, 1934, pointing out that it was the duty of the admiral, with bis full knowledge of the facts, some of which I set forth, not to be silent in a matter jio essential to the safety of the Dominion and Empire. Mr. C. E. Archibald then can e to the help of his superior officer, in a letter to the Herald on July 2, 1934, in which he said, "For the Church to breathe a suggestion that the peace of the world is dependent on armaments is an absolute contradiction to the sentiment im 'Give peace in our time, 0 Lord, for there is none other that fighteth :For us, biiit only Thou, 0 God.' " Thrt ancient arrow seems to be the only one in Mr. Archibald's pacifist armoury, as he used it again last week, when I showed that God in Holy Scripture, and God in the nation's history, works through human instruments. When men have the means of defence provided for them, and will not use them, they have no right to expect Godt to work miracles for them. Mr. Archibald taunts me with not being in touch with modern thought. I pass that by in silence. He concludes by describing the League of Nations IJnioci as a voluntary organisation, whieh is endeavouring to put into practice nhe. neglected gospel of peace, goodwill toward men. Surely the urge of the Dominion president to enforce the obligations of the Covenant by an act of war —to be undertaken by >i navy cut dow r n to the edge of risk—is a very strange method of practising this gospel. Geokoe Mac Murray.