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Western Mail, Thursday, 28 November 1929, p. 2.
The Great Lesson.
A London cable last week stated that, from the same platform, to a crowd of 3,000 people in the Reading (England) Town Hall, the one-time commander of a British Q ship and an ex-captain of a German U boat pleaded the cause of the League of Nations. The story of their meeting on the deck of the submarine after it had sunk the mystery ship and the courtesy of the German to the Englishman during the latter's three weeks' cruise in the under-water craft, explodes the carefully nurtured war-time fallacy that U boat commanders were incapable of any better feelings than a lust for murder. In their sojourn together the two men found that, as individuals, they had much in common. They learnt to understand each other, and "peace would have been concluded immediately had it rested with us, but, unfortunately, we were not authorised to do so." Those two men were simply victims of circumstances; of the base passions of mankind which are the prime causes of war, and which had set in motion the military monster which threatened to engulf the civilisation it was designed to protect. Enrolled under the banner of the League of Nations, these former enemies were testifying that the great lesson of the war was the supreme necessity of peace. I am sure that most fighting men will concur.