[PAX MUNDI]: [GREAT BRITAIN] Selection of Autograph Statements Signed by a variety of famous individuals from Great Britain, each one page, large folio, various places and dates, including Oliver Lodge (1851-1940) British physicist, stating, in part, 'If humanity would agree to dispense with continually improving instruments of destruction, what energies & material means would be liberated for beneficial activity! We are so used to the present extravagant precautions against the fear of attack, that we fail to realise the wealth of our opportunity. Every nation's insurance policy is too great a burden. Posterity will look with pitying eye on our & Europe's distressed & poverty-stricken condition…..we have to labour hard without enjoyment in the work - and all in order (to) pay for madness in the past & to provide against madness in the future….'; Beverley Nichols (1898-1983) English writer & playwright, stating, in part, 'I believe that permanent peace is possible - but only by an educational revolution - a revolution in which the word “patriotism” will be degraded from its false and high estate, and in which the word “pacifism” will be exalted to an equality with “Christianity”….'; Gilbert Murray (1866-1957) Australian-born British classical scholar and public intellectual; Austen Chamberlain (1863-1937) British politician, Nobel Peace Prize winner, 1925; Oliver Baldwin (1899-1958) British politician, son of Stanley Baldwin, stating 'Peace can only be assured by inculcating into the minds of Youth that war is murder: & the more dastardly a murder if camouflaged by the waving of flags & beating of drums'; Eric Drummond (1876-1951) British diplomat, the first Secretary-General of the League of Nations 1920-33; Arthur Pugh (1870-1955) British trade unionist; Michael MacWhite (1883-1958) Irish diplomat, the first Irish permanent delegate to the League of Nations; Herbert Dunnico (1875-1953) British Baptist minister and politician; Cecil Hurst (1870-1963) British international lawyer, President of the Permanent Court of International Justice in The Hague 1934-36; Godfrey Locker-Lampson (1875-1946) British politician & poet; Viscount D'Abernon (1857-1941) British politician & diplomat; Marquess of Crewe (1858-1945) British politician and writer; Margaret Kennedy (1896-1967) English novelist & playwright; stating 'To any mother the cause of World Peace must be supreme: she has risked her life in vain if the children that she bears are doomed to the horrors of modern warfare', etc. Some light age wear, generally about VG, 17

 

The present statements were prepared for publication in the Pax Mundi book; an anthology of sentiments on peace published in Switzerland by the World League for Peace. Between 1925 and 1932 many notable persons from around the world were asked to comment on the prospects of world peace and the volume included contributions from Marie Curie, Guglielmo Marconi, Albert Einstein, Rabindranath Tagore and many others.