The Wanganui Chronicle TUESDAY, APRIL 30, 1935. PEACE BY ISOLATION

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 99, 30 April 1935, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle TUESDAY, APRIL 30, 1935. PEACE BY ISOLATION

OESPITE the experience of the United States in the last war there still exists in that great country a body of opinion which persists in believing that peace can be preserved to the American Union by its pursuing a policy of isolation. Isolation was in part possible when the United States was more nearly a self-contained unit than it is to-day. During the last century the United States was an expanding economy, the expanison going on within her own borders. But with the settlement of the Cherokee strip in the ’nineties the last frontier was eliminated. America no longer had an expanding agriculture to absorb her increasing manufacturing products. To the existing surplus of agricultural products, chiefly foodstuffs and cotton, has been added the products of the American factories. In recent times the products of the oil fields, the motor automobile factories, the, radio and electrical equipment factories, and the film studios have been added to the export list. These export industries are now so constituted that it is impossible for them to carry their present overheads unless they are in a position to export a considerable portion of (heir output. Whatever war does it alters demand, increasing the demand lor some goods and decreasing or even wiping out altogether some other goods. A country which is dependent upoji an export trade for its prosperity cannot be indifferent to what goes on in the rest of the world. It is not possible for a great manufacturing nation to wrap itself up in splendid isolation like the mountain country of Thibet, on the far side of the Himalayas. It cannot be in the world and not of it. What is true of the United States of America is even of stronger application to the United Kingdom, and more so still to the Dominion of New Zealand. Yet there persists in each country a strong demand that the individual country shall keep clear of ‘'foreign entanglements,” as an intelligent co-operation with the world is dulbbed, in order that the native heath shall be free from the effects of war. At base this is not a reasoned attitude; it is actually the registering of a cowardly mentality. Those who do not desire to come to grips with the outstanding problem of the times, namely the accommodation of the nations in (heir various stages of social and political development in one community. This is a very difficult problem indeed, but the effort to solve it must be persisted in. Complete success is not to he expected, but failure to achieve a reasonable measure of success will be registered in the outbreak of war. The only solvent of war is achieving a measure of international unanimity, and just, as men are more likely to live in peace, one with another, when they cease to carry rapiers or six-shooters around with them, so too are nations likely to settle their difference, pacifically if their armaments are not bristling at every yard of the frontiers. Mr. H. L. Stimson, former Secretary of State, addressing the American Society of International Law, , declared that America “should formally let the world know that in the ease of anything arising which affects or threatens the peace of the world, we should be ready to consult with other nations as to steps for preserving peace and, should we concur with them as to responsibility for any breach of the peace which they may hereafter seek to terminate by collective action, we shall at least refrain from any steps'by the Government for the protection of our neutral trade which would tend to defeat their efforts for restoring peace. ” This is a long way from hearty co-operation, but it is at least on the way to that much-to-be-desired end.