“PEACE NOT BE SO EASY"

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19199, 16 December 1936, Page 19

“PEACE NOT BE SO EASY"

REPLY TO CRITICISMS ALL MUST SHARE IN TASK LONDON, Nov. 1. Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, Lord President of the Council, in an address to the Wolverhampton Brotherhood Movement yesterday, stated that he could not agree with some of his old friends on the line to be. taken to establish peace. He referred to peace as “that recondite problem,” and went on: “l would like to ask you, do not be too clever in criticising failure. Peace is not going to be so easy, especially in a world divided between liberty—the liberty of expression, liberty of criticism, liberty to' be perhaps a little bit slow of men who are keeping their souls —and the other division of great masses of people who love to obey, who love to march, who love to drill, and who are governed by the selfwill of an individual. “Peace can be made secure only when it has become international. One nation alone cannot make peace. “I am sorry I cannot agree with some of my old friends who believe in the absolute abstract doctrines of Christianity. I .respect them, I hcciour them, but I cannot quite see how, if one nation were to take up the absolute pacifist line, its influence is going to continue.” The fundamentals of brotherhood required freedom and freedom required democracy. “I can tell you benefits superficial, temporary, and apparent, but not real, that would conic to you from dictators, perhaps making the slacker lift up his head and put his back to work, but I would remind you of a rather trite and somewhat overworn saying : Von can gain the whole world, but if you lose your own soul, where does the balance lie: Against you every time.”