PEACE EFFORTS

Wairarapa Daily Times, 20 July 1934, Page 3

PEACE EFFORTS

RUSSIA’S PART. DR. MITCHELL’S ADDRESS. “Nationalism and the League of Nations” was the subject of an address given in St. Matthew’s Parish Hall last night by Dr. C. Mitchell, of Wellington. The meeting was convened by the Masterton branch of the League of Nations Union and there was an attendance of about thirty. The chair was taken by the president, Mr H. B. Tomlinson.

Mr Tomlinson said this was the second of a series of addresses arranged by the branch in order to raise interest in the League of Nations Union and the ideals it stood for. He felt there was an apology due to Dr. Mitchell that the audience was not larger. The importance of the subject should have packed the hall to the doors, but they knew only too well the apathy of the general public on many matters. Mr Tomlinson stated that Dr. Mitchell had spoken that day at the Rotary Club and to the pupils of the Wairarapa High School and Solway College. Dr. Mitchell, .he said, was an Australian who had spent ten years in America and fourteen months in Russia and had travelled extensively throughout the world. “I think the root of our trouble, the cause of war, lies very much in the fact that we do not understand each other,” said Dr. Mitchell, who asserted that the Japanese menace was a bogey in our own mind. They could not have war without hatred and hatred was not natural to the human being, he said. Dr. Mitchell proceeded to refer in some detail to the important part that Russia had played in the setting up of international machinery for real and lasting peace, making extensive quotations setting forth the Russian viewpoint. As far back as 1899 the Emperor of Russia had called together 27 or 29 nations, at which he propounded the wisdom of trying to settle international disputes by arbitration. The Russian people were the pacifists of the world par excellence and believed they had something for the benefit of the world. The psychology of it was that they were not trying to keep a goo.d thing to themselves. Passing on to speak of the ideals of nationalism and internationalism, Dr. Mitchell contended there was no contradiction. The people of the different nations had the same moral bond and the same moral rights. Jesus had said very wisely that the Kingdom of God was 'within us and had told us to foster the ideal of kindness and benevolence. There was nothing so revolutionary in the world as kindness. Everyone should love another as he loved himself. They could not have world peace until they had peace in the people’s hearts. He was quite sure that if all the people of New Zealand took up a kind attitude towards their enemies the latter could not help but feel the influence of it. Moving a hearty vote of thanks to the speaker, Mr G. W. Morice said Dr. Mitchell had attacked the question from a different standpoint from that to which they had been accustomed. The address had enlightened him com siderably about the attitude of Russia and he felt that in the past they had been duped and befooled on the question by the world-unde organisation for the distribution of such news as was suitable to large vested interests. It was a refreshing breeze to have Dr. Mitchell blow away some of these myths.