The End of the Rainbow
324 THE COMMONWEAL July 3I, x929 and the pulse of the world another. There exists a will for peace, but it is too passive to be an affection. We are merely eager to muffle the drums in order...
...A sum equal to five dollars for every American citizen raised in this fashion would be almost as effective as the despatch of the Rainbow division itself to France, and its beneficent effect cannot be estimated...
...They involve economic and financial problems of the greatest importance...
...It is simply that great energy of public opinion which the Rainbow did not represent...
...And therefore Poincar~ is very correct and practical in realizing that immediate, unconditional ratification of the Mellon-Berenger debt agreement is the only possible French policy...
...We have all been pleased to note signs of a new vigor, courage and independent intelligence in China, but the pity is that it seems to have been accompanied lately with a spirit of hostility and suspicion...
...That would dispose of political difficulties no government can circumvent, and would reap a heavy interest of gratitude...
...Accordingly one feels it well within the range of possibility that something like a "volunteer capital levy" be raised to pay off a generous part of the French debt...
...We are merely eager to muffle the drums in order that our peace and our possessions remain undisturbed...
...Particularly must Japan, watching every development in the situation as having a possible bearing on the future of the South Manchurian Railway, regard the Chinese interpretation with distrust...
...Is it out of place to suggest that one reply might be found in an application of the Rainbow principle...
...The factors in the situation are exceedingly vague, and the news is mostly rumor...
...There are those who do not wish the richest nation in the world simply to increase its wealth at the expense of another which sacrifice has made poor...
...Numerous industries and individuals profited greatly by the war, and are now anxious to safeguard acquisitions of commercial power and good-will...
...And so America, like the rest of contemporary humanity, feels no lilt in the communal step, no dream of giving past the brim of the cup...
...Would it not make for a better world, they argue, to adjust the financial balances accruing from the war on the basis of that very generosity to which we once looked for the conquest of militant nationalism...
...They involve possibly the peace and security of the entire world...
...324 THE COMMONWEAL July 3I, x929 and the pulse of the world another...
...The difficulty is to discern a proper method...
...One confronts, for instance, the baffling business of the debts, so hard to ignore and so impossible to cancel...
...Could this government be formally invited to consider the problem...
...Everybody realizes now the vast popular tide which moved silently against the entry of the United States into the war, and which eventually overwhelmed too eager attempts to weld the nation with Europe...
...Russia has made an effort to invade China with economic and propaganda agents, Britain has been greatly disturbed, and Nanking has finally repudiated Moscow...
...These queries are not merely idealistic...
...But there are a few sober facts which seem ominous...
...Can any preventive measure be taken...
...And how can they be answered...
...The United States is not on speaking terms with Russia, and the hands of Great Britain are tied...
...WEEK BY WEEK HAT some manner of a fight between Russian and Chinese troops has occurred at a point along the route of the Chinese Eastern Railway in Manchuria seems undeniable...
...One also Skirmishing hears that excited civilian crowds in both countries have been gossiping in Manchuria about mobilization, national honor and sundry ultimatums...
...It may yet develop that this naive diplomacy has been suggested by not uninterested western powers...
...Why not raise it...
...Might not a less harassed France deal leniently with a harassed Germany and thus restore normalcy to Europe...
...The query is important precisely because the situation is dark and because ugly conflicts have, in the past, arisen out of similar darknesses which might have been dispelled by foresighted, mediatory action...
...EARLY as it is, the anti-war treaties have already lost some prestige in the Orient because of the curious utility to which China insists on putting them...
...On the other hand, the old generosity, honor and willingness which found such resplendent emblems ten years ago cannot be satisfied with mere acceptance of the courageous ~lan with which Poincar~ and Briand have persuaded their country to assume the burdens and the risks involved...
...In answer to the admonitions of Secretary Stimson, the Nationalist government says, "As signatories of the Kellogg pact we shall not resort to war unless necessary m selfdefense...
...We may see a move diametrically opposed to the spirit of the Kellogg treaties...
...In effect, then, its whole policy in the affair has been to take what it could get and then invoke the treaties to preserve peace...
...In all likelihood funds might be obtained on the basis of a conditional bond issue, the terms of which called for a return of the capital given if budget circumstances eventually warranted it...
...We suggest that the German government is in the right position to act as mediator and representative of the neutral powers...
...War and serious war at that is, therefore, far from being out of the question...
...This tide is not ungenerous, is certainly not compounded of hard-fisted misers...
...Nobody knows much about the size and quality of the army which Stalin controls, and it is admitted that, as such excuses go, his justification for a martial step might be fairly impressive...
...For the present all that can be said is that it contrasts sadly with the rhetoric of fairness and peace as uttered at Nanking...
...Others are actuated by a genuine, humanitarian interest in Europe, or more generally in mankind...
...But in seizing control of the Chinese Eastern Railway, it had already used force to settle, in its own satisfaction, a dispute which might so easily have been submitted to friendly neutral nations for arbitration...
...There exists a will for peace, but it is too passive to be an affection...
Vol. 10 • July 1929 • No. 13
