CAUSES OF WAR

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 196, 20 August 1934, Page 11

CAUSES OF WAR

ECONOMIC OR POLITIC ? A DIVIDED PEACE CONGRESS. BRAILSFORD’S SURVEY. Delegates to the National Peace Congress at Birmingham engaged in a discussion of the economic foundation of peace, says the Manchester Guardian. It was a spirited but good-humoured and orderly discussion. At a late stage Mr. L. H. Behrens expressed a fear that some workers in the peace movement were so deeply concerned with particular social theories that a united front against the forces that make for war could only be attained with difficulty. He confessed to a suspicion that there were Communists present who put their Communism first, but he met with such an emphatic disclaimer from a large section of the delegates that he added in a tone of relief, “Well, perhaps I am wrong.” But no one would deny, be continued, that there were people in the country who looked to the catastrophe of war, which peace lovers were anxious to avert, as the means of bringing about the state of society they desired. No one in the meeting countered this challenge, and with a plea for the cooperation of all schools of social theory, Mr. Behrens said, “I am anxious for peace for my children, and I cannot afford to wait until there is a new order of society.” There was some difference of view between a section of the meeting and one of the platform speakers, the Rev. P. T. R. Kirk, secretary of the Industrial Christian Fellowship, concerning Russia. Mr. Kirk’s leading critic was a brother clergyman. Mr. Kirk had said that the Russian Communists professed to be seeking to achieve the world aim of Christianity while rejecting the supernatural as irrelevant or pernicious. Communism was a world menace because it is as atheistical. He did, indeed, make the same criticism of Fascism and Nazism, and went so far as to say that even the approach of the economic experts and the politicians to the problem was “fundamentally atheistical, because they allowed God to have no say in the economic activities of mankind.” But it was specifically the reference to Russia which aroused protests. He could not admit that Russian Communism was essentially religious. He admitted without reserve that our present economic organisation of society was all wrong, but contended- that no system of economic organisation could bo satisfactory permanent unless it. were based upon the recognition of human values as revealed in the incarnation. Maladjustments. Mr. Will Thorne, M.P., in his own characteristic way, “rubbed in” a conclusion reached by Mr. H. N. Brailsford after elaborate argumentation that the great cause of war lay deep down in economic maladjustments and in certain property institutions of society. ‘ ‘ Have you got economic peace in your own household?” he asked. “You know you haven’t. I am one who believed that if the Great War had not come in 1914 it would have come later and before now. In the same way the general strike, if it had not come in 1926, would have come later because of the discontent which the present system, creates.” From an Austrian delegate, Dr. Karl Polanyi, there was a suggested explanation of the failure of the Cobdcnite conception of Free Trade to bring peace. There had been too much emphasis, he contended, on the idea of national sovereignty. As will be seen, the discussion justified the anticipation of the chairman, Mr. Geoffrey Mander, M.P., that sharp differences of opinion would be revealed. But it should be said that it was conducted in admirable temper, and as chairman, Mr. Mander had an easy though interesting task. He himself did not hesitated to drop a gauge at the very outset. He declared roundly that. | he did not think peace ••’depended so much upon your economic system as upon your political system.” This dictum caused Mr. Brailsford to say later, “Now 1 am going to disagree quite violently with my chairman.” He and the chairman exchanged the broadest and most pacific smiles, and Mr. Brailsford then turned to the assembly and added. “I shall probably antagonise at different moments every section of the audience.” And with a touch of the delightful irony which flavoured his speech ho asked, “I wonder if the discussion is going to be like a disarmament conference?” This frank and genial acknowledgment of differences of opinion gave the right tone to the meetings from the beginning. Mr. Brailsford's thesis was that the main causes of war were economic. Germany’s Aim. There were, he said, two Powers disturbing the peace of the world at the moment, Germany and Japan. During the Great War the main purpose of the Germans, as it became clear in the minds of the nation or its ruling classes, was the foundation of a great economicempire, an empire of Middle Europe. He believed the same influence was at work in Germany to-day. The indus trial capacity of Western Germany, and particularly the Ruhr, had been developed to such a pitch that only a small proportion of its products could find a market in the German Reich. It must export at an incredible rate. But the world put up its tariffs. Then the arch-captain of the Ruhr Industry hired the Nazis, contributed lavishly to their funds, overthrew the German Republic, smashed the trade unions and the Socialists, and gained orders for armaments. Once more German foreign policy aimed at a Middle European empire. “Let us look at ourselves.” he continued. We, of course, were an unaggreasive Empire. (Laughter.) In the words of the late Lord Salisbury during the Boer War, “We did not want territory, wo did not want goldfields.” Of course wo held about a quarter of the earth’s surface and we had got all the goldfields. (Laughter.) We had recently put on a 75 per cent, tariff in India against Japanese goods. He would not discuss whether this wa? right or wrong, but to have the power to do it must we not arm and must we not have a Singapore base? In the White Paper on India one would find that it was proposed to authorise the Viceroy to veto any proposal of the Indian Federation Minister of Finance which might forfeit the confidence of the world’s investors. “The world’s investors” was a euphemism. All Indian loans were floated in London, and, with characteristic British modesty, when he said the