WORLD AFFAIRS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23020, 23 April 1938, Page 10

WORLD AFFAIRS

'AMERICA'S ATTITUDE

ISOLATION CONDEMNED I 1 ' SOURCE OF INSECURITY STATE SECRETARY'S SPEECH In the course of an address to the 'National Press Club at Washington on March 17 the Secretary of State, Mr. Cordell Hull, in outlining, the position of, the United States in international affairs, said:—"ln a world in which the rule of force has not as yet been firmly and surely supplanted by the rule of law, it is the manifest duty of a great nation to maintain armed forces adequate for its national defence.

"No policy would prove more disastrous than for an nation to fail to, arm adequately when international lawlessness is on the rampage.

"It is our profound conviction that the most effective contribution which •we, as a nation sincerely devoted to the cause of peace, can make —i n the tragic conditions with which our people, in common with the rest of mankind, are confronted to-day—is to have this country respected throughout the world for integrity, justice, goodwill, strength and unswerving loyalty to principles. Policy in Regard to Pacific Area "What is most of all at stake to3ay, throughout the world, is the future of' the fundamental principles which must be the foundation of international order as opposed to international anarchy. "If we and others were to abandon and surrender these principles in regard to the Pacific area, which is almost one-half of the world, we would have to reconcile ourselves to their certain abandonment and surrender in regard to the other half of the ;world. / / "It would be absurd and futile for us to proclaim that we stand for international law, for the sanctity of treaty obligations, for non-interven-tion in internal affairs of other countries, for equality of industrial and commercial rights and opportunities, for limitation and reduction of armaments—but only in one-half of the world, apd among one-half of the World's population. "The triumph of this seclusionist viewpoint would inescapably carry the whole world back to the conditions of medieval chaos, conditions toward which s6me parts of both the ijastern and the Western worlds are already moving. /;

Isolationists' Blind Extremism "Such is the fate to which extreme isolationists- —isolationists at any price —all those who contend that we should neither protest against abuses nor co-operate, with others toward keeping principles alive, those who eay that under no circumstance;! should we insist upon any rights beyond our/own territorial waters—such is the fate to which blind extremism of this type would consign this country and the, world. "Thrown back upon our own resources, we would find it necessary to reorganise our entire social and economic structure. The process of adaptation to a more or less self-contained existence would mean less production and at higher costs, lower living standards, regimentation in every phase of. life, economic distress to wageearners and farmers, and to their families, and the dole, on an ever-in-creasing scale. "All this we would be doing in pursuit of the notion that by so doing we would /avoid war. But would these policies, v?hile entailing such enormous sacrifices and rendering the nation more and more decadent, really give us any such assurance?

"Reason and experience definitely point to the contrary. We may seek to withdraw from participation in world afffdrs, but we cannot thereby withdraw from the world itself. Isolation is not a means to security; it is a fruitful source of insecurity."