THOUSAND AND THRICE TOLD TALES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 228, 28 September 1935, Page 11

THOUSAND AND THRICE TOLD TALES

(By “Silent Peter.”) Dear People,—Suffused with a deep sincerity and a passion for justice (says a noted scientific writer), Binsi ein regards the world as a painful place, not merely because of the unnecessary suffering that abounds in it, but also because of the latent possibilities for pood that man creates and ignores or abuses. Einstein sees the dignity of civilised human beings humiliated and their bodies physically maltreated for their political views or for their racial descent; and, as a sensitive human being he suffers with i hem in shame. Time after time, wars arc permitted to outrage the world; art slips into decadence, science is circumscribed, political leaders lose their independence of spirit and the ordinary citizen his sense of justice; and masses of men, worked into fury by their leaders, don uniforms to kill or be killed for aims which, if worthy, may be attained by Jess wasteful and I barbaric methods by the reduction of so much human flesh, blood and nerves into heaps of useless garbage. All this Einstein secs and it tortures him. So far as hatred of oppression, in jus ticc and undeserved and unnecessary suffering is concerned. Einstein is a true follower of the Dove of Peace and is ranged irrevocably upon the side of those to whose efforts through the centuries World Peace will eventually owe its birth. Strong Man of Peace. Fighters for peace and for the welfare of mankind generally have never been mealy-mouthed. “In the middle of the nineteenth century,” said John Morland, in 1915, “There were those who spoke of the outbreak of cholera as a visitation of God; but Charles Kingsley and others who were afraid to go to the root of the matter said

“No! Cholera is caused by foul living and dirty ways;” and should clerical dignitaries prate nowadays of an inscrutable providence that decrees war or peace, the answer is that the nations have sown selfishness and greed and that they are naturally reaping way; that they have failed to use their God-given intellect to devise ways of peace, and that therefore |he catastrophe has again descended upon mankind. War is not the outcome of difficulties raised by the magnitude of the issues involved, but of the absence of the machinery needed to keep the peace. The provision of a central authority is now (1915) essential in the interests of world peace. This central authority must be provided with courts empowered to adjudicate on all international causes susceptible of decision by law. Further, it must set up a Board or Council of -Conciliation, whose duty it shall be to arrange international matters not capable of decision by law, and, failing a settlement by consent, to decide on these matters also.” Need lor Sanctions.

Morland goes on to quote Oppenheim on international Law and draws attention to the fact that the law of nations must inevitably be a weaker law than municipal law as there is no international government above the national governments which could enforce the rules of international law in the same way as a national government enforces the rules of its municipal law. But (says Oppenheim) a weak law is nevertheless still law, and the law of nations is by no means so weak a law as it sometimes appears to be. in the central authority for the establishment and maintenance o£ world peace suggested by John Morland, he prophesied that the judicial judgments of the

courts and the decisions of the councils would both need sanctions in order that they might be obeyed; and whereas the Hague Conventions (fie states) had supplied some basis for the formation of a central authority, in the future such a boy must always be in existence and always prepared to act promptly. Morland’s central authority was to be in touch -with all nations, also to be in a position to understand all problems in a just and impartial manner, in order that the individual states of the world might learn to honour it and accept it as part of their own code. “Each nation,” says this gifted prophet of world peace, “May doubtless at times be called upon to yield for the good of the whole world some portion of the special advantages which it possesses over other nations, and those which possess most may have to give most. Confidence and trust in the central authority may be slow in growth, but it will be sure, if it endeavours to act with strict impartiality; for to put down war for ever is the grandest attempt ever made to realise the Kingdom of God on earth!”

John Aforland’s vision has materialised; the dreams for which Wyclif, Erasmus, Cruce, Grotius, Fox and hosts of other believers in the Brotherhood of Alan worked and suffered have been realised; the Central Authority for world peace is a thing accomplished, and works at high pressure in an effort to translate into fact the reign of that fuller, freer and more abundant life that the soul of man—be he an Einstein or merely a relief worker —longs with an unutterable longing to see established in this war-torn world. The work of the League of Nations has its roots in the centuries; the soil from which those roots now send upward the Tree of Peace was dug and watered by the conscientious life-work of Just men, by whom impartial laws were given. And saints, who taught and led the way to Heaven. Men and women of 1935 dwell beneath the protecting branches ol the great Tree of Peace; they lean against its solid trunk and pray that the blast may not uproot it; but are they—you and I—doing anything to help to strengthen it'? Parliament. (Applause). “Another alarming thing is the health of the country. Twenty-eight people out of every hundred die of either cancer or consumption. Representations were made to the Government to institute steps to deal with this dreadful state of affairs, but the requests were declined on the grounds of economy. Tn the same session, the Poultry Act was passed by which inspectors were appointed to prow I round the country to find a new kind of louse on your Buff Orpingtons.” (Laughter and applause).