Buried Treasure

Buried Treasure

Buried Treasure

70 years ago: HATE is prescribed, but ­–What is the correct dose?

2 July 2012Comment Albert Beale

PN columnist “Owlglass”, one of a number of powerful writers in the paper in the midst of the Second World War, takes a biting approach to both the war mentality in general and the war’s more extreme and barbaric methods.

Despite the abandonment of “Hate Training” by the military authorities, the nation is still confronted with the difficult problem - Exactly how much hate ought we to have?

There is a lamentable divergence of opinion on this matter. At one extreme we have the Archbishop advocating no hate at all and exhorting us to love the enemy while killing him. At the other extreme, the Marquis of Donegal advocates 100 per cent hatred and “German justice for 90 million German vermin”.

Both…

30 years ago: Waste dumping in Wales – a campaigning success

31 May 2012Comment Albert Beale

Arguments about nuclear power stations and nuclear waste were prevalent 30 years ago, as now – and PN played a key part. Ex-PN-staffer Paul Wesley tells of a campaign that succeeded.

The government’s abandonment of the nuclear waste burial programme is a fine victory for anti-nuclear campaigners generally and for Welsh groups in particular. For Madryn [Welsh anti-dumping group] it was the unexpectedly early culmination of two years’ campaigning which provides some valuable organisational lessons.

During the early public meetings it became clear that people felt it would be very wrong for any campaign to simply oppose dumping in this area alone, and so a policy of…

30 years ago: Opposing the Falklands War

27 April 2012Comment Albert Beale

PN was a leading voice in the radical opposition to the Falklands War; though there was plenty of reactionary opposition too – from both ends of the orthodox political spectrum.

The stated British policy to regain control of the islands by backing up diplomatic pressure with military might, in effect using the task force as a political weapon, is bound to lead to confusion.

When does a military engagement leave the political arena and become a political weapon? ... Military means subvert the political process, and then, with the weakening of non-military action, an increase in military action becomes…

30 years ago: Stop This War

31 March 2012Comment Albert Beale

PN was naturally a leading voice in the opposition to the Falklands War, both in terms of its own editorial line and in its promoting of the views of the main British pacifist organisations and the international networks to which they were affiliated.

The prospect of war over the Falkland Islands has been viewed with enthusiasm by headline writers, and politicians of all persuasions have been competing in jingoistic declarations that Britain should show it is still a great power. They entirely miss the essential point that the outbreak of violence can only lead to deaths and casualties among the Falklanders themselves as well as servicemen.

This is the central argument of the statement by British pacifists we reprint here. It…

60 Years Ago: PN and the King's Death

1 March 2012Comment Albert Beale

PN had made brief mention of the death of King George VI, saying – amongst other things – “Peace News records its deep sympathy with the Royal Family so suddenly bereaved...”. The item generated a lot of correspondence on subsequent letters pages.

Peter Green: We expect this dope from the capitalist press, but not from a paper which is “international” and “pacifist”. It does not help the cause of pacifism or internationalism to salute the head of a military and imperialist state.

Ethel Mannin: The king was probably... a good father and husband, and, according to his lights, what is commonly called “decent”. However, those lights and that decency are not our pacifist conception of goodness... The most astonishing assertion in…