HAMILTON HIGH SCHOOL

Waikato Times, Volume 104, Issue 17533, 15 October 1928, Page 8

HAMILTON HIGH SCHOOL

Mr F A. do la Mare addressed the pupils of Urn Hamilton High School on "Citizenship and the League, of Nations." He pointed out that the Romans began by identifying citizenship with their relationship lo their Eternal City, but one of their .Emperors, Marcus Aurelius, had reached out towards a wider conception, one in which all were bound in a universal law. A universal domination, such as the Roman Empire had in part achieved, contained the seed of failure. With the development and consolidation of nations during the past 500 years there had developed advanced systems of internal law and justice, but war had remained as the international arbiter. Ordeal by battle had held its ground until the world had been partitioned, but now, by reason of intercommunication, by reason of vast international commerce anil interdependence, it was forced upon the world that war never pays, that the dreamers of Utopia were in the right after all. The Covenant of the League of Nations aimed at making war impossible, and it provided definite machinery for that purpose. The attempts to extend the covenant were steps towards establishing all-in .arbitration. These had failed so far, but if the Kellogg Pact, signed this year, were ratified by the United States Senate, it would mean that war would to all practical purposes be outlawed as an instrument of national policy. Fifty-seven States were pledged, and the adherence of the United States of America removed the possibility of any Slate being able lo finance a war of any scale whatever. Then would come, possibly slowly, (he process of disarmament. The submission of all international disputes lo the principles of universal law and justice made, citizenship in Its highest and widest meaning, not merely the dream of poets; it imposed a practical duty upon every man and woman to adjust life and thought to great issues; to give expression in each country to some reasoned conception of the brotherhood of man; and to give every help in forming that public opinion without which the best political machinery fails lo effect great moral and spiritual purposes.