Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, MONDAY, APRIL 13, 1936. PLANS FOR PEACE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 18988, 13 April 1936, Page 6

Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, MONDAY, APRIL 13, 1936. PLANS FOR PEACE

The breach of the peace committed by Italy, the repudiation of treaty obligations by Germany, and the general feeling of insecurity among other European nations, most of which arc at present engaged in a desperate endeavour to rearm themselves against real or imaginary dangers, have resulted in the preparation of various new schemes designed to maintain peace in future. Each of these schemes is naturally devised to meet the special requirements of its sponsor, and each seems to fail to contain the essential feature of meeting the needs of all; yet it is only upon this basis that any form of lasting agreement is possible. Nothing that has so far been suggested oilers a satisfactory substitute for the covenant of the League of Nations, and although all the plans produced no doubt have some merits, none can hope to succeed unless it adopts the covenant as a foundation. The maintenance of peace must rest uiion some mutually acceptable code of international laws and, equally important, some means for enforcing them. Such a code is defined by the covenant which also provides the machinery for dealing with breaches, but the present difficulties have been created through a tendency on the part of some nations to seek the protection of international law without regarding it as binding upon themselves, while law-breakers have been dealt with, not according to the law, but according to the particular circumstances. The League itself cannot lie absolved from blame, but what the League has done, or has failed to do. has been the result of weakness on the part of individual members. Until each member State is prepared to accept the. League as a governing authority and to abide strictly by its decisions it cannot hope to succeed, and unless the nations are prepared to enter the League on these terms the sooner the whole structure is scrapped the better. The most practical test of the League's efficiency occurred when Italy, in defiance of her pledged word, invaded Abyssinia. The League could have dealt effectively with this dispute had its members seriously wished to do so. 'Die main difficulty was the opposition of France to the imposition of sanctions against a country whoso support she might need in the event of danger nearer home. In short, France is a staunch supporter of the League of Nations when she herself is threatened, but loses much of her enthusiasm when the dispute does not directly concern her. Nor is France by any means alone in this attitude. Italy is a believer in the League when there is fear of unrest in the Balkans or against the Gorman menace, but when she herself has designs on a League member in another sphere the League has no right to interfere. Even Germany, to whom international laws are made only to be broken at her discretion, is prepared to support the League while it is protecting her interests, but easts it aside when its decisions conflict with her own ambitions. Finally, the conduct of Great Britain is far from being beyond reproach. She opposed sanctions against Japan, supported them- against Italy—when

,er own north African interests appeared to be jeopardised—and is doin" her utmost to avoid the imposition of them against Germany; she fought determinedly for a Western security pact covering territory that was within striking distance of her own territory, but saw no need for involving herself in a similar pact dealing with the more distant, eastern Europe, ft is clear that so long as the problem is approached by the various nations according to their own interested motives no solution will be found. Any form of international law, it' it is to succeed, must he binding on all and must apply equally to all. How many nations have disclosed a willingness to accept the League covenant on such terms'? At the present time the Powers are considering rival proposals, all aimed at the preservation of peace, but so divergent in their details as to be almost impossible of general acceptonce. The reason for the many obvious complications is that the desire to serve tho common good has been subordinated to the desire to serve national interests, and until this def,cct is removed peace and security vv ill remain, as far off as ever. The best that can. he said of the present

situation is that an open breach has been avoided and that the nations have expressed their willingness to confer with a view to effecting a compromise. It is not possible to view the future with optimism, but it is still permissible to hope that in a world that is so .sorely Jacking in the spirit of peace the fears of the grave consequences of war will provide a sufficient motive to drive the nations closer together for their mutual protection. In the absence of the will for peace, the organisation of collective security provides the only alternative to war, and it has yet to be shown that this can be obtained more satisfactorily than through the League of Nations. The covenant of the League, nothwithstanding the strain that has been imposed upon it, still stands as the ideal of international law, but it can only succeed if it is whole-heartedly supported and rigorously enforced.