THE WAIPUKURAU PRESS SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1934 SHOULD WE FIGHT FOR PEACE ?

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXIX, Issue 212, 15 September 1934, Page 4

THE WAIPUKURAU PRESS SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1934 SHOULD WE FIGHT FOR PEACE ?

Under the above caption Arthur Mee, the widely known British journalist—a progressive Liberal and a patriotic pacifist—clearly sets forth in his popular weekly newspaper the well-balanced point of view enjoyed to-day by the majority of the Labour Party in the Homeland as to the issues of national defence and world peace, as note: “The Labour Party has been doing some hard'thinking on its Peace policy. Though its Secretary, Mr Henderson, has done valiant service at Geneva, it has long been felt that members of the Party have not made crystal cleai their attitude to this worldwide question. Recent conferences have discussed peace and war in an academic way so that in the end the Party has not stood for anything definite. The leaders of the Labour Party and the Trade Unions have issued a statement of policy which will be submitted to the Trade Union Congress and to the National Conference of the Labour Party. This statement declares that the fundamental idea of Socialism is that Peace must be considered a positive and not a negative thing. There must be a Co-operative World Commonwealth. The statement distinguishes between an aggressive war and a war in defence of the collective peace system. While opposed to all forms of aggressive war Labour recognises that the British Government might have to use its armed forces to support the League in restraining an aggressor nation which declined to submit to the League’s authority. It is a duty to support the Government unflinchingly in such circumstances. Combined with this are two other duties, that of insisting that our Government should settle all its disputes by peaceful means and that of refusing to accept any claim to the use of force without willingness to arbitrate. It is recognised that in the present state of the world the calling of a General Strike against Governments with a view to stopping war is impossible.” It is thus pleasingly evident that the doctrine of “peace at any price” has been cast aside as an unreasonable one—untenable because it takes no cognisance of the possibility of justifiable circumstances arising for forcefully opposing an aggressor.