LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

Timaru Herald, Volume XCVIII, Issue 18084, 4 June 1923, Page 5

LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

The attempt to settle international disputes by killing off opponents is a barbaric survival, totally unworthy of the grade of civilisation which we have attained. The beauty and peacefulness of our surroundings ought to make ■ sanguinary conflicts disgraceful as they ' are futile. And for civilised nations to I bend all their energies and ingenuity j and enterprise to works of destruction, is a terrible and a suicidal proceeding. | The conunonsense of mankind is slowly , but surely beginning to realise this, j Statesmen cannot make war, or allow j themselves to be dragged into war, but j they have, always failed to make peace, real peace, after war, notwithstanding J all their promises to do so. Their fail- j ure in the past in this respect is such j that only a world peopled by fools, ! could trust them in the future. The people must have new leaders, leaders who will prepare for peace instead of ivar, and who will employ some of the . reasons now being used for war prepar- i ations, for the purpose of helping the people' of the world to understand each I other; to instruct them as to the causes of war, to inform them that all wars are engineered by a comparatively small number of men who belong to no nation in particular. THE NEXT GREAT WAR. Of course no one could possibly predict witii any degree of accuracy wnat the next great war will be like, but that it will be something to make the bravest and even the most mckless j shudder, there can ba little douot. Just think wliat this means: “Hr | Jiradner, Uhiei of the He- 1 partment or me United States Cherni-j cal Warfare Service, says that since the j late Avar, a liquid has been produced, three drops ot which, tailing on a man’s I skin, aa ill cause his death; and that this liquid can be manufactured at the rate ot several thousand tons per day.” j Think, then, Avhat a fleet ot aeroplanes uroppmg this poison over the cities in a country, could do. Some of the poisons likely to be used in the next Avar Avill retain their deleterious pro-1 perties, and lie in wait in an odourless ' state, ready to destroy anything which . thereafter comes in contact Avith them, j I see no reason Avhy, by secret nrepara- ■ tion, and sudden attack, a Avlioio population might not be annihilated —men, Avomen and children, animals and vegetation, too. (Sir Oliver Lodge.) T'lio aim of the Leaguo of Nations is to prevent such a calamity, and it Avill do so if tlio people help it, but only if | the people help it.