The Struggle For Peace

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peoples of the world are asking themselves this same question :
* Are we to be allowed to live our lives in peace or are we to be
plunged against our will into war ? '
" When I look round the world I must say I am appalled
at the prospects. War, accompanied by horrible barbarities,
inflicted either wittingly or unwittingly upon civilian popula-
tions, is going on to-day in China and much nearer to us in
Spain. Almost every week we hear rumours of war on this
question or on that in other parts of the world, and all the
principal nations are spending their precious savings on
devising and manufacturing the most efficient instruments
for the destruction of one another. I wonder whether, since
the world began, has it ever seen such a spectacle of human
madness and folly ?
" During the last twenty years we and our allies and asso-
ciates have been telling ourselves that we won the Great War.
There have been disputes about the man who won the war
and even about the country that won the war, but nobody
has ever doubted that we were the winners.
" Well, we fought to preserve this free democracy from
foreign domination and dictation, and to maintain the rule of
order and law rather than the rule of force. Certainly we
succeeded in preserving our freedom, and if our liberties
were in danger again, and if we were sure that there was no
other way of preserving them except by war, we would fight
again. But think for a moment what the use of force involves
us in.
" When I think of those four terrible years and I think
of the 7,000,000 of young men who were cut off in their
prime, the 13,000,000 who were maimed and mutilated, the
misery and the suffering of the mothers and the fathers, the
sons and the daughters, and the relatives and the friends of
those who were killed, and the wounded, then I am bound to
say again what I have said before, and what I say now, not
only to you, but to all the world—in war, whichever side may
call itself the victor, there are no winners, but all are losers.
" It is those thoughts which have made me feel that it
was my prime duty to strain every nerve to avoid a repeti-
tion of die Great War in Europe. And I cannot believe
that anyone who is not blinded by party prejudice, anyone