The Southland Times SATURDAY, JUNE 23, 1945. The Organization of Peace

Southland Times, Issue 25706, 23 June 1945, Page 4

The Southland Times SATURDAY, JUNE 23, 1945. The Organization of Peace

THE final plenary session of UNCIO will be held on Tuesday next. Mr Stettinius, leader of the American delegation, was reported yesterday to have said that the date had been fixed “with entire confidence.” The charter is already in draft form, and “only technical and formal steps remain to complete our great enterprise.” It will be easier to estimate the value of the conference when the charter has been presented and signed, though the final speeches may divert attention from notable omissions and deficiencies. There can be little doubt, however, that pjiblic interest in the proceedings has been lukewarm. Many people who hoped and believed that the conference would establish a world organization, with both the machinery and the authority for maintaining peace,’ were quick to realize that the “principle of unanimity” in the Security Council kept authority rigidly within the hands of the Big Five. They saw, also, that the spokesmen for a new League of Nations were engaged in an unequal fight. The plans outlined at Dumbarton Oaks were intended to remain the basis of the new organization, and only minor deviations from those plans have been permitted. It will be easy, therefore, to claim that idealism has been defeated, and that national interests have been placed before the general welfare of the peoples. To a certain extent this is true. The proceedings have been limited by the intention of the major Powers to make no real surrender of authority. Their attitude has ensured that the advantages and responsibilities of the Big Three—who between them are the real architects of peace —will remain the decisive factors in world politics. There will be regret in liberal circles at the failure to make an advance towards more civilized methods of control. But the advance could not be made unless Britain, the United States and Russia were all ready to surrendei - a part of their sovereignty. The limitations imposed on UNCIO became inevitable, not merely at Dumbarton Oaks,, or in the preliminary discussions in Moscow, but at the vital conference of Teheran. It was then that the British and American plan for federalized groups of nations in Europe (which could have been used as the basis for a genuine world council) was discarded in favour of the Russian theory of spheres of influence. There is no need, however, to blame Russia for what now seems to have been a failure in collective security. Soviet policy comes from a realistic conception of world politics. The Russians do not believe that the nations’have had their last lesson in the war against Germany. They are by no means convinced that mankind has achieved a sudden and complete regeneration, or that the tides of history, after flowing boisterously through ages of violence, can pass at once into a state of uninterrupted calm. Dangers of Pacifism

Although democratic peoples may dislike these ideas, the quietness with which they have followed the proceedings at San Francisco may mean that they are less in the mood for illusions than were most of the nations in 1919. The full nature and extent of the illusions which were fostered after the last war has been revealed in a remarkable book. “World in Trance,” by Leopold Schwarzschild, was mentioned some time ago by Mr Churchill. An Australasian edition has just been printed by Simpson and Williams, Christchurch, from whom we have received a review copy. This book cannot be too widely read at the present time. Although it deals with pacts and treaties and international negotiations, it is written with a firm control of the materials, and with a clear logic that makes it as easy to read as a novel. Schwarzschild describes the way in which the Germans, quick to sense the growth of pacifism outside their own country, systematically exploited the fear and hatred of war. There grew up everywhere a belief that wars could be prevented if the statesmen came together and signed treaties of nonaggression and mutual co-operation. The one fact which nobody wanted to remember was that treaties are merely as good as the intentions behind them. Further, intentions are affected by military strength. If one nation becomes stronger, while others voluntarily become weaker, the strong nation can proceed without interference to acquire political and territorial advantages. Germany signed the same pledge—to abstain from aggression—three or four times; and on each occasion the democracies were asked to believe that new positions had been won in the cause of world peace. The awkward fact was overlooked that every time Germany made a new promise to behave herself she was granted further concessions. It was a story of blackmail, a deliberate playing upon the fear and credulity of peace-loving peoples; and it ended, inevitably, with Germany’s open espousal of violence. The significant feature of the story is that the Germans won the time they needed for intensive rearmament by playing with treaties. It should not be necessary for the world to ..learn this lesson twice in the same century. The technical machinery for collective security may be elaborate and imposing. But it becomes valueless if it is used for discussions and agreements that are separated from military realities. A day may come when force will no longei' be the decisive argument, though it still lies remotely in the future. In the meantime the clear duty of those who work for peace is to make sure that their nations are strong. Only then can it be said that treaties and charters are remedies in which hope can be found by a war-weary world.