A JUDGE'S PLEA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23882, 9 August 1939, Page 7

A JUDGE'S PLEA

AMERICAN POLICY ABANDON NEUTRALITY SOLUTION OF WORLD PROBLEM A stirring plea that the United States of America should abandon her attitude of neutrality and throw in her whole weight unequivocally on the side of democracy and the rule of law, was made by Sir Hubert Ostler, when speaking at a dinner tendered by the Auckland University College in honour of Dr Roscoe Pound, of Harvard School of Law. one of the world's leading jurists. "Speaking to a distinguished American," said Sir Hubert, " to one who for many years has been and still is in a key nosition to influence national thought, I should like to assure you, sir, that we New Zealanders look forward hopefully to that day, which we trust will be in the near future, when our two nations will unequivocally and without any reservations stand out together as the champions of right and a= the protectors of the little nations, which, as with you, long only for neace and the rule of law. Neutrality in Vain " For you may depend upon it, should war come, all your forethought in building round your country a stockade of neutrality will be in vain. As it was in the last war, the law of self-interest, and, indeed, of self-preservation, will inexorably sweep aside the law of neutrality, and you must eventually fight on the side of the democracies in order to ensure that government of the people by the people and for the people shall not oerish from the earth. If that is so, how much better it would be, instead of waiting until the explosion has occurred which will endanger civilisation itself, to save the situation and prevent the catastrophe which hangs with such menace over the world by a firm declaration beforehand that the United States of America will be there on the side of justice." Sir Hubert said he trusted Professor Pound would not think he had been treading on too delicate ground, but in these times which tried men's souls he spoke the thoughts that were uppermost in the minds Qf his countrymen when they thought qf the professor s great nation.

Dominion's Outlook

Earlier in his address, Sir Hubert said that New Zealanders were only a little nation and could exercise but small influence on the preservation of peace and the rule of reason in the big world, but he thought that Professor Pound would find that we had the same outlook on life as he had and were bound together in a common bond of ideals. " Our unity of race and language," he said, "and the fact that we are both descendants of ancestors who migrated to a new country which they found in the rough and inhabited by savages, and who tamed the wilderness and built up a nation with the love of liberty and respect for the law, have given us common ideals and a bond of understanding. Now in this anxious period of uncertainty through which the world is passing, when the dark shadow of the fear of war is hanging over the minds of all just men like a threatening thunder-cloud, we members of the British Empire look to your great country with hope, but. nevertheless, I must say, with a tinge of disappointment. The Deciding Factor

" Your country is, or could be, the deciding factor; in you resides the balance of power. If your country would but unequivocally join the freedom-loving democracies who are striving so strenuously to build up what has been called a peace front, and make it plain to the predatory nations that you also are prepared to throw your great weight into any conflict against the principle of aggression, that at once would give so great a preponderance to the side that believes in right and reason that that firm declaration alone would be enough to make the world safe for democracy, and to banish the fear of war which hangs so heavily over the earth. "If you, sir, only realised our sense of depression when it was announced that your Senate had refused to allow any abrogation of your Neutrality Act, and how, on the other hand, we were cheered bv the act of your Government in denouncing your treaty with Japan, you would realise how we long for the moment when your nation, built from the same blood, and moved by the same sense of fair nlay, our cousins in race, sprung from the same country, will feel able to range yourselves without any reserve on the side of right against the side of force. An English-speaking Union "As I have said, we are only a little nation, but I trust you will find us not unintelligent,'' Sir Hubert said in conclusion. "We see, or we think we can see, so plain a solution of the problem if we had a sincere and wholehearted Englishspeaking union of our races, so that we could stand together in the world, able to defend ourselves against any direct aggression, but using our combined force not for the sake of seizing power or coercing small nations, but for the protection of the weak and of those fundamental rights of men and nations in which we both passionatelv believe." " The question that seems to you at this distance a question of American particioation or non-par-ticination," said Professor Pound in reply, " seems to a great manv people on the spot a question d committing to the executive something that we have all regarded as a matter for the legislative department of the Government. There are many who would have felt very much as Sir Hubert Ostler does, but the question has presented itself as one of granting to the executive powers which the American people have always believed should not be reposed in one man It is not a question of any narticular policy in our externa] relations, but one of our internal policy."