| Main Performers | Reverend H R L 'Dick' Sheppard (presiding),
Lord Ponsonby,
Mrs Barton,
Captain P Mumford,
Siegfried Sassoon,
Brigadier-General Frank P Crozier,
Reverend Donald Soper,
Aldous Huxley,
Rt. Hon. George Lansbury - speakers |
| Secondary Performers | Dr G Thalben-Ball - organ |
| Set List | Speeches,
Poem - 'A Prayer for 1936', S Sassoon (Siegfried Sassoon),
'Jerusalem', Parry,
'The Men of The Future' |
| Performance Notes | Siegfried Sassoon wrote a poem especially for this event which was published in the programme. The programme for the event has a cover designed by Arthur Wragg (1903-1976).
The event was sold-out and the audience heard Lord Ponsonby argue against the policy of collective security, while Frank Crozier praised Liddell Hart's articles in The Times (for which he had now become military correspondent), in which he feared that a British expeditionary force might find it impossible to get across the English Channel in a future European war - part of his developing doctrine of Limited Liability, which called for no ground forces to be committed to the Continent, only air and naval elements.
"Lord Ponsonby of Pacifism - "Whom Are We Going To Fight?"
Every seat in the Albert Hall was occupied last night at a meeting arranged by the Peace Pledge Union.
Lord Ponsonby said that, whereas the world was growing more warlike, the opinion of people in this country was becoming more and more pacific. What was this coming war of which people are speaking? He did not believe in it, Whom were we going to fight?...
Mr Lansbury MP, said it was objected by some people that their proposal was visionary and must fail. But the trouble was that it had never been tried. The statesmen of the world had never sat down to consider how they could share the world with one another, that nations really could not live apart. If a tithe of the energy and enthusiasm now devoted to inventing gas and bombing machine and organising methods for nations to assist one another when days of destruction came were devoted to the problem of how to share the undeveloped parts of the word, how to share raw materials and markets, a way out would soon be found. Great Britain, the U.S.A., and Russia owned nearly all the world. If these three nations pledged themselves together to take the lead in proposing that all that was essential in the world should be shared for the service of mankind no one would say them nay."
(The Times, 28 November 1936)
Liddell Hart (1895-1970) was in the audience. |
| Related Archival Material | Programme (RAHE/1/1936/63) |