WORTHY WAR AIMS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23599, 7 March 1940, Page 13

WORTHY WAR AIMS

Sir,—So far, the call to arms has been rather too much confined to the pedestrian level of self-preservation. There are more dynamic ideals. The best slogan of the Great War was "The war to end war," but we did not then realise that the Great War was only the first phase of that stupendous undertaking. Thomas Hobbes, in "Leviathan," says: "As the nature of foul weather lieth not in a shower or two of rain, but in the inclination thereto of many days together, so tin 1 nature of war consisteth not in actual fighting, but in the known disposition thereto during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary. All other time is peace." Judged by that penetrating analysis, we have had no peace these 25 years, nor shall we have any real peace until the world government is set up. Glance back on history, and we know that no people but the British could have smashed the Spanish Armada of 1588. Again, without the power of Britain, no combination of nations could have brought the military domination of Napoleon to a close, and the same applies to Germany of 1914-18. Yet again v it has fallen to our lot to bring tyranis to their knees. The obvious lesson is that world peace demands that, under, British leadership, a world government: shall be set up. with its court of justice and world police force, thus providing adequately for tbe settlement of disputes between nations exactly as- is" done within nations to-day.

Let us couisider it our mission, our destiny, to crush the evil forces of international hate and strife, pool all forces into thie world government plain; and, having established the reign of peace, march on with our measures for human justice, inspired bv the ancient vet evergreen ideal of that which is meant by the Kingdom of God on earth. T. K. McMillan. Matamata.