PROBLEM FOR DIPLOMACY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23577, 13 August 1938, Page 32

PROBLEM FOR DIPLOMACY

We may be wrong. But, as things are, we emphatically do not agree with those alarmists who tell us there is no middle policy between complete submission to the dictators on the one hand and a European war on the other, writes Professor Gilbert Murray in a letter to The Times. Recent experiments in aggression are not encouraging to the aggressors, and we have Ludendorffs authority for holding that, under the conditions of modern warfare, it would be madness for any nation to attack an adversary of approximately equal strength. The vast majority of mankind who desire to live in peace and obey the law can surely, however reluctant to organise, produce out of their immense resources something a good deal better than that. Unfortunately, to quote The Times itself, " the leaders of certain States are always ready to exploit the wholesome reluctance of most countries to go to war." The problem of diplomacy is to check the exploitation in time, not by resorting to war, but by showing clearly beforehand that, with England and France as a nucleus, the League members have both the power and the will alike to remedy real grievances and to resist unprovoked aggression.