THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS MONDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1939 A PIONEER OF PEACE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23276, 20 February 1939, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS MONDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1939 A PIONEER OF PEACE

Into a time so much disturbed by wars and rumours of wars that faith in international law has almost suffered eclipse has stepped, in the fashion of an austere, reproving ghost, Hugo Grotius. A tablet to his memory was unveiled last week in the Dutch Church at ' Austin Friars. The Earl of Athlone performed the ceremony, and speeches on the work of Grotius and its meaning for the modern world were delivered by Viscount Halifax and the Netherlands Foreign Minister. Lord Halifax well expressed the wish of many: "I should r be happy to think the celebration 1 to-day, in honour of one of the world's noblest citizens, would have the effect of turning men's minds to the work he accomplished for • humanity and moving them by the . force of a great example to do likewise." No words can be too ardent in praise of this illustrious • man of Holland, • who made within , the span of his life, 1583 to 1645, an epochal contribution to the cause of peace among nations. Those dates recall the fact that he lived in an age of much strife yet " strove to bring the influence of calmly persuasive reason to bear upon prevalent evil. The conflicts were bitter, and his own countrymen were as zealous in participation as any others. Dreadful deeds, unmatched in the atrocities of all former time, blackened the prolonged struggle between the Netherlands and Spain, and that of the terrible Thirty Years. He seemed, indeed, "a root out of a dry i ground," and his scheme for an enduring peace no more than a foolish dream lacking touch with | contemporary reality. The marvel of his memorable legal and literary achievement becomes a little less surprising when it is remembered that similar ages of fierce struggle have produced magnificently human protests, but the glory of his deed is its acknowledged power to call a halt to reckless fury. That influence lives on, in spite of all slippings back to the inhuman horror. Fa,ther of International Law is the name he won. The sixteenth century was not without other gracious incitements to peace. In the devastation and licentiousness of war then vexing Europe was much to make even soldiers of fortune willing to listen to pleas for the mitigation of its severities. Scholars urged this, not merely as a flight from peril and terror, but as a bounden duty imposed by a law written indelibly in the human heart. They wrote much of "the law of nature" as a binding force amid the nations. They were mistaken in much; criticism in later years has left scarcely a stone standing in their dialectic edifice. But their instinct, deeper than their scientific knowledge, was sound. It is the eminent distinction of Grotius, however, that he was not content to launch a rhapsody devoid of practical content. Accepting "the law of nature" only as a basis of appeal, he propounded a code of international observance. He would have the nations be at peace; if they felt constrained to fight, he would have them fight as gentlemen —not that war might get an attractive veneer but that a sincere spirit of honour might be bred. In this way, as he unerringly saw, they could be brought first to displace brutal murder with something of more practical value than the older chivalry and then I to adopt reasoned parleying. It is easy to scorn this remedy—until the substance of his famous treatise, "De Jure Belli ac Pacis," is examined. Amid all subsequent discussions of the (subject is none that does not rest upon it. Take the doctrine of the independence of sovereign States. Thanks to Grotius, for in his day the notion | was novel, it has become a commonplaces ; modifications are urged, but they pi'oceed upon it. Then the prevailing idea was a hegemony in Christendom, one authority being superior over all the rest, and impressing its dictation upon them. The newly-born Powers, France and Spain and the England of Elizabeth, were but fledglings; Italy, Germany and the United States were not out of the egg. Placing the principle of sovereign independence in the forefront, he was a real pioneer. This truth is not vitiated by any reappearance of the ambition to dominate; in every thoughtful condemnation of it Grotius still speaks, pleading for the co-operation of recognised equals in right, although not in might. So also, in enunciating rules of warfare, Grotius went a long way from practice then accepted. He insisted that war should not involve all and sundry in its ruin; and in this he pointed the path to its complete outlawing. Details of this progress he patiently expounded. That it has not come to pass is no disproof of his wisdom; the path will have to be trodden, whatever present forebodings may suggest. To Grotius is owed also the doctrine of "the freedom of the seas," with its limits in territorial waters; his "Mare Liberuiq," published in 1600, gave in outline all that has since been traversed in international debate. His classification of contraband dealt enlighteningly with a subject then troublesome; it is troublesome to-cla.y, and will be until war itself vanishes. Nevertheless, to this pioneer is due gratitude for his resolute endeavours to bring order out of chaos. Not all the fruit of his toil has been harvested —he cherished no illusions on that score—but to his valiant planting is surely due the survival of hopes that abide in the face of disappointments!) it .