“ALMOST A MOCKERY”

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19456, 15 October 1937, Page 2

“ALMOST A MOCKERY”

REFERENCE TO PEACE WARS IX SPAIN & CHINA BISHOP WILLIAMS’ APPEAL The feverish production of armaments, the conflicts in Spain and China, and the indiscriminate use of munitions of war against non-com-batants, women and children, were referred to briefly by the Bishop of Waiapu, the Rt. Rev. H. W. Williams, in addressing the Waiapu diocestm synod in Napier vesterday. It seemed unlikelv that the efforts of the League of Nations would be effective in regard to the wars in Spain and •China, His Lordship stated. “It seems almost a mockery to talk of peace with civil slriio raging in Spain, which threatens a conflagration in Europe, and a ruthless war being carried on in China with a weight of men and armament out of all proportion to any reasons which have been put forward by the aggressors to justify their actions,” Bishop Williams stated. “Such steps as the League ol Nations has been able to take seem no more likely to be effective than they were in the case of Abyssinia. Instruments of Death -What can be done for peace when it is computed that more than twenty millions of persons in Europe are feverishly toiling to speed up the production of the instruments ol death and mutilation, instruments which are being turned indiscnminatelv upon non-combatants, helpless women and children? War. in spite of its false glamour, is always detestable, inhuman; and now the application of the discoveries of science have removed even that false glamour by eliminating as far as possible the personal element; the soldier kills ox may be killed by a foe whom he lias never seen, and who may actually bo miles away. , "We may not yet be able to do without war; certain abuses may require to be suppressed by 101 ce A 1 arms, but is it too much to hope foi that the ethics of Christianity may vet be applied to regulate the conduct of nation to nation, just as they should apply to that of man to man. Why should it be thought that the sovereign rights of the state override ‘the demands of truth and honesty, unselfishness and love in our dealing. with another state? The nations will have to learn to know themselves and their fellow nations better than In the oast.”