“If we go on turning ploughshares into swords how can we expect a harvest of peace?”

“If we go on turning ploughshares into swords how can we expect a harvest of peace?”

This quote, attributed to T. Edmund Harvey, alludes to the idea that society will reap what it sows, and that violence will never lead to peace, but only to more violence. Read on another register, images of Spanish peasants and workers forming militias with any available instruments as weapons also silhouette these words. T. Edmund Harvey, a Quaker and Minister of Parliament in Great Britain, was an advocate of humanitarian work during the Spanish Civil War and served on the International Commission for the Assistance of Child Refugees in Spain (IC), which was an international effort that collected funds from twenty-four counties. Friends’ work and organization was central to the IC. In 1938, in a report given to the House of Commons, Harvey spoke about the relief effort to help Spain, arguing that, “It will bring good will into homes where there is darkness at present, and hope into hearts where there is now nothing but hate.”

Northern Friends Peace Board and Friends Peace Committee

1938

Poster