The Wanganui Chronicle. "NULLA DIES SINE LINEA" SATURDAY, JANUARY 31, 1920. THE SCIENCE OF PEACE.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 17780, 31 January 1920, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. "NULLA DIES SINE LINEA" SATURDAY, JANUARY 31, 1920. THE SCIENCE OF PEACE.

“Knowledge comes but wisdom lingers,” said Tennyson. And it is even a truer word to-day than when it was first spoken years ago. Mr. J. L. Paton, an English M.A.. who in a London periodical has gone to some pains to expound the science of peace, tells us that the modern world is lop-sided in its development. It has, he admits, attained knowledge of matter beyond all the dreams of a previous generation; it has applied its knowledge and won power over material things. The mind of man is fully grown and splendid furnished. But, he adds, “wisdom lingers”; the spirit of m;.u lags behind; in moral statute he is still immature and undeveloped.. Man is like a tree that had grown on one side, and not grown on the other —and such lopsided trees sooner or later collapse. That collapse has happened. There has been a great outcry about the neglect of science, but it is not physical science fox* lack of which the world is perishing. It is the science of Peace. Science deals with causes. The Science of Peace is a science which first diagnoses and then destroys the causes of war, and, having destroyed these, in their place it sets into operation the causes of peace. This is the problem to which statesmen have addressed Themselves. With many others, Mr. Paton holds that the Congress ot Peace will have been a failure unless it succeeds in establishing a permanent instrument for the settlement of any disputes which may arise in the future. That instrument will be an ixUernational, or rather a super-national tribunal, to which all disputes must in the first instance be referred, and it will require in the last resort au international force, both by land and sea, sufficient to coerce any such recalcitrant State. That is what is meant by the League of Nations. The general acceptance of the idea embodied in the Peace Treaty is a proof of a new pan-humon consciousness begotten of our world struggle, which, like previous wars, has served to intensify national consciousness, but, unlike previous wars, has broken down in an unprecedented measure national exclusiveness. Nevertheless Mr. Paton realises the need for a word of caution. It has to be remembered that the idea of a League of Nations is not new to history; the effort to achieve it is not new either. The failure of the past must be the warning for the future. The maxim of science is “Never make the same mistake twice.” The fact is that no political system, however' carefully balanced and devised, can be effective unless it has the intelligent and whole-hearted support of the people whom it affects. Our judicial system is effective because tlje people accept it, support it, are convinced that., with all. its pains

and penalties and jails and scaffolds, it. exists for the benefit of the common safety and well-being. What hinders a man from stealing a turkey from the open shop? It is not because there is a policeman gua.di;ig that shop. Usually there isn’t: he is round the corner. It is because the man who would like to steal knows full well that directly he lays hands on the turkey everybody will be against him, and uphold the lawful rights of the shopkeeper by arresting him. In ex[actly the same way the League of Nations will have no authority unless all the constituent nations loyally support it. It is not in Itself a “Morrison’s Pill” guaranteed to cure all the ills that our body politics is heir to. It can only cure I those ills and solve those problems if the different hations intelligently and whole-heartedly co-operate in their solution. That is why it must be a league of democratic nations. A people, that is governed by an autocrat is not encouraged to study political questions; it is not asked whether it consents or dissents. It just opens its mouth and closes its ears and sees what its autocrat will send it. And so this world problem resolves itself into a question ot individual intelligence and individual character. In this it resembles all the great world forces. In other words, it. resolves itself into a question of education; and, because it does. Mr. Paton looks to women as the saviours of the world. Education, it reminds us. begins before school. The person who directs the forces of life is the mother. In the mother you have the antithesis of war. War destroys life, woman bears it. War maims, woman heals and cherishes. War wrecks the home, woman makes the home. War deals with masses of men, woman deals with units. The great women of history have been saviours. Joan of Arc saved France. Genevic. o' saved Paris. Florence Nightingale saved our army. When the Abbe of St. Pierre submitted his gre.t scheme for the abolition of war to Cardinal Fleury, the Cardinal la'onically observed, “Admirable, save for one omission. I find no provision for sending missionaries to convert the hearts of princes.” The princes of our time are the men and women who control the State by their votes. It is these men and women whose hearts must be converted if our League of Peace is to be stable and effective. The only missionaries who can effect this conversion are the mothers. It lies in the first instance with them. The school must follow up the work begun by the mother. The science of peace cannot be taught by any set lessons, any chalk and blackboard demonstrations, or any text boo.k. It is a science which is taught by breathing the spirit of a common life where each is giving his best for the sake of all. That spirit will be learned without teaching at every football game. The fellow who plays for himself plays bad football. It is the team work which tells. No individual player can win the game, though any individual by selfishness may lose the game for his side. The boat which wins is the boat where they all pull best together. In the same way the whole atmosphere of the school should train the boy or girl to function as members of a society. It should say to a lad “Put your school first and yourself second. Look outside and beyond yourself. L<t your aim be to help your school, and your reward to have helped i. Never mind your precious self. Live for your school, and you’ll find yourself in doing that; and the self you’ll find will be so far superior to what it is at starting, that you’ll l ardly know it again.” That’s the public spirit you find in every good school of whatever^ grade. It should be in in alt, and it should be in every Scout troop or Brigade which takes on and follows in the work of the school. The boy who has learned to be a good citizen of school will go on to be a good pub-lic-spirited citizen of his city and cf his country. Nor will he stop there. The habit of co-operation widens out, and commonwealths whose citizens nave that habit ingrained will be ready to co-operate with eac.i other towards the larger good which includes them all. We speak of the family of mankind. The phrase is just. But a family does not live bycompetition; it lives by mutual service based on mutual goodwill.