The Christchurch Star. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1929. “AN ARMED PEACE” AND ITS DANGERS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18938, 7 December 1929, Page 8

The Christchurch Star. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1929. “AN ARMED PEACE” AND ITS DANGERS.

ii AN ARMED PEACE ” was one of the phrases in which President Hoover reminded the world recently that the men under arms in civilised countries were ten millions in excess of the pre-war total. Mr Lloyd George has referred to President Hoover’s courage in making the statement, and indeed it does require some moral courage nowadays to face up squarely to the unpleasant facts of the world’s preparedness for war. Mr Hoover pointed out that there were fears, distrusts and smouldering injuries among the nations which were the tinder of war, and nothing in human experience could warrant the assumption that war could not occur again. As Mr Lloyd George has put it, picturesquely, the chariot of peace cannot advance along a road that is littered with cannon. Unfortunately, as Mr A. V. Alexander said in replying to the debate in the House of Commons yesterday, the sacrifice of armaments by one country alone cannot solve the problem of armaments. Mr Hoover said the same thing in his Armistice Day speech. We must reduce and limit warships "by agreement only. I have no faith in reduction of armaments by example alone. Until the nations can build agencies for the pacific settlement of disputes on stronger foundations, until fear has been proved groundless by long proof of international honesty, until the power of world public opinion as a restraint of aggression has had many years’ test, there will not have been established that confidence which warrants abandonment of preparedness for defence among the nations. To do so may invite war. And even Mr Hoover, when he speaks most feelingly of disarmament, has touched only on the naval aspect of the question, leaving out of his calculations the splendid air services of which his country is so proud, and the land forces that are being added to, year by year. Expediency, indeed, or rather a degree of self-interest, must always tend to retard the millennium, as may have been noted in the somewhat inconsistent manner in which Mr Lloyd George coupled an eloquent plea for disarmament with a warning to Britain on the need for greater co-ordination and efficiency in the interests of national defence. We are, indeed, a long way from achieving what the leaders of thought in the Englishspeaking wo”Id have acclaimed as an ideal, but it is still a hopeful sign that two great nations which have much in common, but also much that divides, should have come to any agreement on the subject of armaments, and thus paved the way to a better understanding among all the nations. PICTURESQUE BUT DANGEROUS. IT IS NOTORIOUS that young people must often be saved from themselves. That is certainly the case with pillionriding. A very proper prohibition of the practice was withdrawn recently on the mistaken plea that it was a form of class oppression—an effort, in fact, by the four-wheeled road-burner to interfere with the simple pleasures of the more humble motor-cyclist and his Sunday sweetheart. But ever since then, accidents have been of very frequent occurrence. “If the pitcher quarrels with the well, it goes hard with the pitcher,” and so it is that the pillion-rider always comes off second best in any encounter with other road users, or even with the road itself. There was a period in which the chief motor inspector of the city kept a tally of accidents—fatal and otherwise—that befell pillion-riders, and the figures were staggering. But now that the prohibition has been withdrawn the tally of accidents has reached such proportions that the motor inspector has despaired of keeping up with it. It is a pity that he has not done so. In the interests of these riders themselves, the inherent risks of the practice should be emphasised. Motor-cycling is safe enough, but there are riders who, when they have a passenger behind them, are neither safe nor sane, and become a menace to themselves and other road users. AUSTRALIA FACES A CRISIS. THE BEST PRESCRIPTION for the economic ills that beset any country is work, as President Hoover has reminded his countrymen, and New Zealand can congratulate itself on possessing, first of all, a national will to work, and secondly a Government in office that does more than merely preach the gospel. Australia, unlike New Zealand, has become the happy hunting ground of agitators, who have been encouraged to a considerable extent by constant political changes, and by the ever-present prospect of a government surrender to the claims of militant Labour. The flaring up again of the miners’ strike, for instance, with the threat of a stoppage throughout the Commonwealth, is probably due to the expectation that the Federal Government will concede the miners’ demands. But such an ending to the present deadlock could hardly appeal to Mr Scullin and his Ministry—least of all as a matter of self-interest—-and would not help to extricate the coal industry from the difficult position in which it finds itself to-day. Indeed, Mr Scullin is hardly likely to be pushed into a false position by the militant section in the Labour movement, because his election to office was attributable entirely to a national determination to guard the arbitration system from interference, whereas the present troubles are far removed from any desire on the part of the strike leaders to observe constitutional means in the settlement of industrial disputes. What Australia is facing to-day is the possibility of complete paralysis among the transport workers of the Commonwealth, and there was probably never a time when such a crisis could be viewed with graver misgiving.