PEACE

New Zealand Tablet, 3 July 1919, Page 28

PEACE

The Dunedin Evening Star published on Monday evening a number of pronouncements made by prominent citizens on the signing of the Peace Treaty. One man had the courage to face the facts and to express his views candidly. Father Coffey said: .-" "The treaty has been signed by the Germans," so runs the official cable to-night. We cry 'Peace, peace," but there is no peace. True, the war, in the sense in which we have learned, in the form of bitter experience what a cruel war means, is ended. We are very glad to have seen the end of this, the cruellest war in history. : Has its ending brought peace? We survey the horizon in vain for those signs which alone can indicate true peace. In the terms of the Allies, as far as they have been revealed to us, we see force and might taking the place of true justice. These may be necessary, and I am not disposed to sit in judgment on those on whose shoulders rests the responsibility of laying down the terms, but they are not indicative of permanent peace. No nation can be kept in peace by force. The spirit of 'avarice is too apparent in the inordinate desire of each nation to extend its boundaries at the expense of its neighbor, on the plea of self-protection. Such extensions will be in the future as they have been in the past, running sores, which will cause inconvenience for the present, and will surely lead to trouble in the nodistant future. There are signs of internal disturbances, which have been encouraged during the war, and how, like the boomerang, have the unhappy knack of recoiling. Russia was encouraged to overthrow its Government, and is left a seething mass of discontent. Italy has overthrown its Government in the hour of its triumph, and'no one can predict what the future has in store for that country, whose co-operation was obtained by a bribe, and the downfall of whose Government is apparently now caused because the bribe was not big enough, indications show that France has not been purified by the war. A mass of discontent in that country is kept under by military law but this cannot last; like a ; volcano, the heavier; the present pressure the more terrible will be the explosion. England has trouble at home, and trouble at her gate, and what is worse there are no indications of real honest efforts 'being made to settle these troubles. Mammon sits undisturbed in the driver's seat—result, exploitation, excessive profits, discontent, hatred between class and class, between man and man. We shall never have true lasting peace till nations are satisfied with what they have got, and are content to develop their own resources" for the common benefit of all the people, till

Governments are fathers of their people. The people, like children, may have ? different characters, likes and dislikes. These things the Government, like the father, will have to study; and provide for each class in the spirit of kindness, helpfulness, ? and play—the days of force, ;r coercion, and forcing all subjects into a common ' mould are ended. "y The employer, must regard, the employee as his equalhis brother—not as a machine or chattel to grind r money out of. ) ; He j is;. "His brother's keeper." All men .are" sons" of the same Father, and brothers of , His , Son. % "When , nations and: Governments and people recognise this truth, not in a hypocritical sense, but " in r the , true sense of self-sacrifice in the interest of one's brother,'. of , mutual 1 help, of bearing one' another's burden, then, but not till then, shall we have lasting peace. Treaties and peace terms presented with a threat of starvation and accepted and signed as the less bitter choice, can never be regarded, as other than "scraps of paper'-' to be torn up on the first hopeful opportunity. lam truly grateful to God that the terrible slaughter of the noblest of our young men has ceased, and I hope that the men who are now engaged in settling the problems between nations will make an earnest effort to settle the no less difficult internal problems at present clamant for settlement in their own countries.