THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS MONDAY, APRIL 20, 1936 "THE BLACK SHADOW"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22398, 20 April 1936, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS MONDAY, APRIL 20, 1936 "THE BLACK SHADOW"

Again Mr. Baldwin has spoken in grave tones about the urgent issues of peace and war. His words are clear, direct and practical. They leave no room for doubt as to the policy of the Government. They will carry weight abroad. There some will scan them for hints that Britain is becoming weary of service in the League. They will look in vain. Loyal nations getting fainthearted in this sei'vice can be glad in the assurance that Britain will not desert them. Those tempted to be lukewarm are given no encouragement to hold obligations lightly, Any eager for the League's downfall in this crisis—wishing this for their own selfish ends—will rightly read a warning. While with frankness Britain's Prime Minister reviews the difficulties besetting the League's path, he utters no syllable of approval of defection from its aims. Britain, he would have it plainly understood, will not run away. His reply to Italian attacks on Mr. Eden as allegedly speaking for his own plans or prejudices is complete : the Foreign Minister has expressed the considered policy of the British Government and the British people. Whatever horror may lurk in "the black shadow hanging over Europe"—Mr. Baldwin has never uttered a word minimising the gravity of the situation or its possibly evil outcome —Britain will abide by her pledge to other members of the League. They alone can absolve her from it, and she will not ask that freedom. So far from seeking it now, she is determined to look to her defences, that she may duly play her part in the League and maintain her position in the world. Thus the significant absence of weakening in the national resolve is confirmed by forthright declaration that Britain will stand to her troth, come what may.

This timely utterance is rightly marked by a serious acknowledgment of the perils that are faced. To blink these would be both foolish and dishonest. The black shadow is no figment of fancy. Densest over Europe, its threat is almost everywhere. Spreading across Asia by the long road of eastern Russia, it deepens in the Orient and passes on down the Pacific to our own British lands of the South Seas. Yet to be immediately mindful of its menace in Europe is inescapably the duty of British statesmanship. Central in Mr. Baldwin's thought, as they must be in the mind of *,every man and woman intelligently aware of the omens, are the complexities arising from Germany's rearmament under Nazi rule and from the League's attempt to enforce the Covenant against Italy as an unprovoked aggressor. These complexities are equally sinister in their pitting of lawlessness against international decency. Both challenges can be explained. Indeed, it is becoming a dangerous fashion to offer explanations as excuses. Reasons for Germany's action and for the League's comparative nonsuccess in a major task can be formulated without much effort. Mr. Baldwin himself, in touching the latter phase, has recalled attention to the slow operation of sanctions, the peril of their involving war, and the difficulty of making them effective without the aid of Great Powers whose membership was optimistically assumed when the Covenant was written. There can be added to these disturbing factprs the special disability occasioned in any initial endeavour to invoke the penal clauses of the. Covenant, particularly in an instance so critically exacting. Nevertheless, Mr. Baldwin has refrained from seeking refuge in such untoward facts. British eyes are open to them, but British hearts will not run cravenly to them for cover. Policy at Geneva may be guiltlessly shaped to circumvent the difficulties met, yet no forsaking of principles is to be given a thought. What Mr. Baldwin evidently realises, and what every open-eyed comment on his words ought to admit, is that the shadow of trouble would still lie across the world had the League not existed. If, to use his words, any nation determined on war will not submit a dispute to discussion ajad arbitration, there can be found no effective way of preventing an outbreak. The creation of the League cannot be blamed as provocative of conflict, nor can there be reasonably attributed to it any hampering of efforts to assuage ft. Should the League vanish from the international scene, what machinery for organising peace would be left? The simple fact is that no comity of nations can achieve more than the dominant units in it are prepared, in spirit and ability, to attempt. And at this point Mr. Baldwin unerringly places his finger on the spot—the emergence oE dictatorships prone to pursue bellicose purposes. Much can easily be said for the influence of the •spirit of peoples—as in the habitual French fear of Germany—in providing an emotional condition favourable to strife; but it is obvious that with Governments rests the main responsibility for any exploitation of this spirit, and that when this responsibility is persistently in the hands of a dictating personality or coterie it can be used with terrible facility. That is the position to-day. To dictating personalities or coteries the black shadow can be definitely traced. Mr. Baldwin makes no apology for the hard things he has said about dictators. He has no need to withdraw a word. History will justify his opinion. At the moment, interest centres on his appeal to Herr Hitler as able to do more than any other living man to lift the shadow.