Peace in Instalments
PEACE IN INSTALMENTS A WISE soldier will look to his hardtack rather than to his cartridges. Shall one say that a lover of peace ought to emulate that example ? Witness the London...
...The law of nations can treat of rights, of precedents, of existing political treaties...
...To some extent they have, indeed, already been found...
...And, from another angle, we can notice that the development of 'big business' may cut across frontiers to the lasting benefit of us all...
...But it is committed to the side of justice and of a fraternity which is more than fraternizing...
...There is nothing which can create this ability excepting public opinion, and public opinion, though in the main pacific, is constantly swayed by economic happenings...
...For the same reasons, ratification of the Young plan must be termed a great Briand victory...
...Spokesmen for the extreme Right desire the maintenance of a strong military...
...This was the burden of Mr...
...The sovereignty of France is not...
...On the one hand, it controls a large portion of Mediterranean Africa, and on the other hand it is getting reparations which bear heavily on the German taxpayer...
...British imperialism, for instance, is something which a hundred Leagues of Nations could not hope to regulate...
...We see that while such organizations as the Massachusetts Peace Society attained to impressive membership and influence, they stressed "moral and philanthropic" arguments and only gradually conceded the importance of economics...
...What is the moral status of nationalism interpreted as the right to advance one's own country at the expense of others...
...And while the policy of the United States justifiably excludes oriental immigration, it nevertheless remains a possible cause of war...
...Christian ethic is certainly not committed to a wholesale outlawry of war on the ground that war is intrinsically evil...
...advocate constant scrutiny of German politics and business...
...In either case eventual success depends upon the extent to which other world powers see eye to eye with the French...
...For the simple reason that France is trying to maintain a status quo arrived at as a result of colonial expansion and military victory...
...Six months ago the assumption that statesmen could risk using a seven-league boot in their journey toward pacific internationalism seemed reasonable...
...The axiom quoted above seems, however, to have grown more and more acceptable...
...Hoover regarding hunger blockades...
...The Germans could not hope to pay unless the stability of their currency was guaranteed...
...In describing The Growth of International Thought (an excellent little book which almost everybody should read) F. Melian Stawell arrives at this pertinent conclusion : "The cry connected with the Socialism of Karl Marx, 'Workers of the world, unite!' may prove in the end to be a cry announcing a new and wiser order, At present it is used too often as a bugle call to announce a change from national war to class war, a change that would only leave things 'more the same' than ever...
...Though bitterly resented by reactionary conservatives, the signatures appended to this document are worth more than a modest sum to France...
...It is interesting to note the drift from international sentiment to thoughtful consideration of international economics in recent literature...
...The key to the number of ships a nation can dismantle is international ability, exercised through the League of Nations and treaty obligations, to reach a concurrent verdict regarding a given dispute...
...But there are a few things which have become increasingly clear since the conference has been in session...
...and, sometimes, publicly regret the failure of their "divisionist program" in the Reich...
...What remains is to learn and abide by them despite the constitutional illnesses of the world...
...Why...
...If, therefore, M. Briand could get the British ta agree to frown upon any martial attack upon French territorial integrity, he could bottle up, for a long while at least, Italian ambition to change the destiny of the Mediterranean...
...Nothing seems to him more necessary than to strike a balance between America's creditor status and the increase in imports demanded as a consequence...
...Nor has it been robbed of protection when it has been left without a musket...
...According to this doctrine, vast armed forces are no longer essential to victory...
...One must hope, therefore, for a closer and more alert study of world economics, in the spirit of seeking adjustment between conflicting realities...
...It may well be that the true role of idealism in modern society is less a matter of being a herald of universal peace than of being an advocate of social justice...
...M. Briand and his followers, on the other hand, seek to perpetuate the existing arrangement of Europe through a system of "pledges" designed to render war impossible...
...Thus one aspect of French security has virtually been pledged by the whole world, and Germany could not ignore its obligations without bringing its whole economic house down upon its head...
...It seems that answers to these queries are within the reach of reason...
...This new military dispensation may or may not be sound...
...Such a book as Merle Eugene Curti's American Peace Crusade: 1815-1860, provides one with readable lore about the development of hostility to war in this country...
...Paul M. Mazur, whose America Looks Abroad incorporates genuine banking experience, has devoted considerable time and thought...
...Stawell, is not, of course, naive enough to suppose that "economic interests" will keep people good and peaceful...
...the United States, sole power able to guarantee them, had to insist upon the irrational aspects of the Versailles settlement...
...Today it appears to be chimerical...
...But the public which reads such books as his is almost sure to learn that the international issue hinges less upon oratory and more upon financial and economic realities...
...and, therefore, the agreement now in force represents the extent to which the United States is content to endorse the French and other reparations claims...
...The problems involved strike him as difficult but surmountable, if only the race will exercise intelligence...
...It cannot, however, presume to fix the limits within which a nation's business and financial ambitions must be content to reside...
...In the second place, these advocates of peace were always debating the legitimacy of any war-a question which is again to be answered only after one has reckoned with humdrum business facts...
...What can be said of the ethics of the tariff as now used to erect insurmountable barriers between one land and another...
...What matters is to utilize social and economic strength in attacking vulnerable spots in the enemy organism...
...To them Mr...
...It is becoming plainer and plainer that the valuable economies of production on a large scale can only be made effective when the scale is really large...
...but, quite apart from all deductions from current Russian practice, it calls our attention to the fact that a people has by no means been armed when it has been supplied with seventy-fives and tear bombs...
...In the final analysis, what matters is not the number of extant guns but the motives actuating those who possess them...
...Italy is dissatisfied with this status quo because it wants room to expand...
...Shall one say that a lover of peace ought to emulate that example ? Witness the London conference-assembly of delegates yearning to do something, doomed for weeks to the doldrums, and now suddenly beaming with reinvigorated hope...
...None the less it is of extraordinary value as forcing on the attention of the man in the street how clearly connected his main interests are with those of workmen across the frontier...
...We cannot, at the moment this is being written, determine whether France and Great Britain will decide upon a new interpretation of Article XVI, or whether the Japanese doctrine on tonnages will earn the approval of Washington...
...One may disagree with his point of view or doubt the value of his recommendations just as one may disagree to some extent with Lucien Romier or Eugen Diesel...
...Owen D. Young's recent California address, and it also dictated the excellent (at least we continue to think it excellent) statement by Mr...
...In all probability the only way to get anywhere with naval armament is to adopt the same fundamental principle...
...So long as the human race had not reached an ideal solution of the quandary of property ownership and distribution belligerent eruptions seem unavoidable...
...The Reich is irritated because it finds the future hemmed in with constant economic restrictions...
...Recently various journals have been full of discussion of the "strategy" derived by the Bolshevist thinker, A. Swetchine, from, it is said, German sources...
...Realizing all this full well, French statesmen have, during the past years, advocated one of two policies...
...To transpose its teaching to the practical realm of international trade may be difficult but cannot be neglected...
...But he sees that these are the things which virtue and reason must strive to control in so far as that is possible...
...The sovereignty of Switzerland is perfectly safe...
...He is engrossed with the significance of international trade for the post-war world, and with the increasingly evident rivalry between Europe and America...
Vol. 11 • April 1930 • No. 24
