DESIRE FOR PEACE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 22 December 1927, Page 5

DESIRE FOR PEACE.

BRITAIN’S POLICY. OUTLINED BY MR. EALDWIN. Press Association- Electric Telegraph-Copyright LONDON, Tuesday. Mr Baldwin, replying to the. letter Mr Arthur Ponsonby presented to him, and signed by 128,700 Britons, refusing to support or render war service to any Government which resorts to arms, says lie has given the matter most careful consideration. It should not bo necessary for him to say that the Government is as earnestly desirous to preserve peace as any signatory to the petition. The support of the League of Nations has been the constant preoccupation of the Government, but the petitioners should rcilect that if the British navy and army ceased to exist, an inevitable result would bo the collapse of the League. No greater incitement to war could be- imagined. Without arms Britain cannot honour the sixteenth article of the Covenant, which details the armed forces with which the Powers support, the League. Britain then would be obliged to leave the League, and gone would be the immense influence we wielded in the Council and Assembly in the cause of peace. He adds that the same reasoning applies to the Locarno treaties. Mr Baldwin proceeds: “The effectiveness of the League depends most largely upon the knowledge of all parties that in the event of an unprovoked attack the mighty weight of Britain would be thrown into the scale against the aggressor. You cannot strengthen the League by weakening the British Empire. England disarmed would be an easy prey to hostile forces. Nothing would be more likely to excite cupidity and hostile intention. If we sink to the level of a fifth-rate power the colonies will be stripped from us, our commerce will decline and famine and unemployment will stalk the land. Wc are pledged by the Covenant to reduce our national armaments to the lowest point consistent with national obligations. That pledge wc arc determined to carry out. We hope to reduce armaments still further by means of an agreement with other Powers. “Einallv it is the privilege as well as the duty of Englishmen to take up arms in defence of homo and country. A war of aggression is an abomination and a horror, but a war of defence is very different. Terrible and ghastly as were the horrors of the last war, could we have dishonoured our pledge and word? Would the world be better if wc stood idle while France was invaded and Belgium destroyed? I have yet to learn that the cause of peace can be served by rendering our country impotent.”

Mr Bonsonby, in a brief reply, says the signatories to the letter do not consider that security based on. or that tin: ultimate sanction of force, is likely to succeed or strengthen the League's authority.