WAR NOT INEVITABLE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23083, 8 January 1937, Page 5

WAR NOT INEVITABLE

Many people were making prophecies that a world war was inevitable. said Sir Samuel Hoare at a luncheon of the Foreign Press Association. That was not the view of the British Government. They realised the complexity and danger of many current problems, but were not prepared to accept this dangerous and pathological prophecy, and, they were determined to take every action in their power to make it impossible of fruition. Intellectually Great Britain was still an island, and London was much more than a Continental capital. What concerned Great Britain most was her position as a world State, and she was increasingly subject to influences that arose from the fact that her Government was one of many coequal, independent Governments. This meant that certain extra-European views were brought to bear on European problems that might in the long run be useful for their settlement. Their intellectual detachment from the Continent meant that they could take time before making up their minds. Their isolation meant that they had no traditional prejudices, and liked to let bygones he bygones. That must be accepted as a British characteristic which, he thought, would remain constant. For these reasons they refused to enter into the wars of ideas that seemed so prevalent at the present time, just as they had refused to enter into the wars of religion in the seventeenth century. The fact that they could take time to make up their minds on great questions made it all the more important that when they were made up they should have behind them the power of action. They could not have two time lags.