“GREAT PEACE TREATIES”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24629, 10 June 1941, Page 4

“GREAT PEACE TREATIES”

LECTURE BY DR J. R. ELDER Dr J. R. Elder, professor of history at the Otago University, delivered a lecture last night on “ Great Peace Treaties,” many of the outstanding figures to whom he referred being shown on a screen. Dr G. C. Billing, who occupied the chair, in his introductory remarks, said that the lecture 'was being given under the auspices of the Otago branch of the League of Nations Union, and that the union intended to carry on its activities. Dr Elder dealt with the great treaties which had gradually made and changed the map of Eurone, and spoke, inci- * dentally, of the leading men of the various nations whose ideas had been translated into action and been expressed in the map. Maps were shown illustrating the history of Europe from the founding of the Holy Roman Empire to the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, while the theories of such outstanding -figures as Machiavelli, Luther, Erasmus. Richelieu, and Frederick the Great were- touched on. The lecturer finally dealt with contemporary, theories regarding the making of world peace and the revival of the League of Nations. The times discredited Utopian theories, he said, but few'would deny that a League of Nations Council, could fulfill a valuable purpose as a consultative and educational body. The use of power was a grim necessity, but it served to obtain stability until moral precepts and ideals took root! The hope of the world lay in the recognition by all men of all nations that force could not give- a permanent solution to world problems, and that man should return , to the theocratic ideal of the mediaeval epoch.