THE TRUE PEACE-LOVERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23558, 22 July 1938, Page 6

THE TRUE PEACE-LOVERS

World problems should be studied impartially years before they reach a crisis, says a correspondent of Headway, the journal of the League of Nations Union. Thus the position of the Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia is something more than a minority problem. It is a highly complex question which cannot be solved by the simple declaration that the League will not tolerate any act of aggression by Germany. Such declarations, whethe- in regard to this problem or to British conversations with Italy on the position in the Mediterranean, satisfy the conscience of purists, but by slamming the door on negotiations, they defeat the real purpose of the League. I would finally point out that it is very easy for countries like Great Britain and France, which have grabbed all they want in the past, and for Russia, which possesses a self-contained and selfsufficient empire, to describe themselves as “ peace-loving.” Other nations regard this attitude as hypocrisy. I venture to suggest that the true peacelovers are those who, like Mr Chamberlain and his supporters, strive earnestly both by word and deed to promote that “good understanding between nations upon which peace depends.”