--Says Catholic Professor
Front a C.H. Reporter The ways of preparing during the
war for a just peace were discussed
by Professor A. C. F. Beales, of King's College, Loudon University, at a meeting of the Pax Society at the Devereux, Strand, London, last
Friday.
He surveyed the present trends of public opinion in England. " At one extreme there are people with an almost religious zeal for the breaking up of the Reich and of the imposition of a peace through victory which will efface the military power of Germany and consequently guarantee the supremacy of the Allies for ever, or at least—as they claim in more guarded moments—for fifty years. At the other extreme are the people who want the war to end now, Pacifists, Faacista (who under Sir Oswald Mosley have adopted a strict isolationist attitude), Communists and members of the Independent Labour Party.
"In between is the mass of British public opinion which is tending to crystallise around well schemes of peace like Federal Union or Mr H. G. Wells' charter of the rights of man.
"It is curious that whilst the international outlook is far more rudimentary than in 1818, the plans for a new order are a good deal more subtle and advanced."
" Religious Journals Annoy"
There was criticism and praise for certain religious journals. "Too often when religious weeklies
and quarterlies talk of world organisation they dismay and annoy many who would otherwise give them a sympathetic hearing, by speaking with a lamentably insufficient knovvledge of the intricate mechanism necessary for such organ IsatIon.
'v Yet the religious Journals have in this war performed a good service be hammering out again and again the obvious bet easily forgotten truth that no form of rule however perfectly devised ie of use unless there is the will to operate the rule as it should be operated.
"Unlesa certain moral principles are recognised, agreed to, and afterwards upheld 140411 parties making the pewee, it is a waste of time forming the mechanism of a settlement."
Basis for Just Peace Needed
Professor Beales said that with the exception of some of the people connected with Federal Union he had not noticed that this truth was being stressed by many of theme people working out a concrete plan for peace. He asked what guarantee there was that Europe after this war would be better than after the last.
He suggested that at least as an attempt to effect such a guarantee the
Allied Governments should pledge themselves to be bound by some declaration, such as that printed in a Ceramic Haitian editorial of February 9, which gave a minimum basis for the drawing up of a just peace. Such a pledge would prevent the litigant at the end of the present war " ueurping the Parts of advocate, Judge and jury in Its own cause."