21 JUNE 1968, Page 7

A hundred years ago From the 'Spectator, 20 June 1868—The

Inter- national League of Peace and Liberty holds its annual session this year at Berne. This League is an informal Parliament of Red leaders, and its meeting at Geneva last year was followed by the attack on Rome. This year it lays down as its programme that "religion must be excluded from politics and public education, in order that the Church may interfere no longer with the free development of society:" that the European States must be federated; and that the present social system must give way to an "equal division of wealth, labour, comfort, and education,"— decidedly not a peaceful programme. The League wishes, however, to substitute national militias for standing armies.