Where the News Ends

...I sometimes think of starting a department entitled: errors of fact by those who should know better...

...The cynics) repudiation of the Atlantic Chsrter by Churchill and Stalin, the contemptuous exclusion of the smaller nations from any effective voice in world affairs under the Soviet plan for security, the refusal in the British plan to assure either the independence or the territorial integity of other states, the complete hiatus in sll the plans of the Big Three for any agreed submission of their own actions to outside rontro'—all this speaks a language which only the stupidly or wilfully deaf can fail to .understand...

...This is all too suggestive of the position which Germany, Japan and Italy would have occupied if their mad dream o' world dominatipn had been realised...

...y There are all too manyjnUjaOTt'iona that the American l>eople will be asked to support snd assume responsibility for this second kind of settlement...

...It will sanction ruthless grabs of territory, irrespective of the desires ef the peoples concerned...

...em men t should press vigorously for the seceptanee st the proposition that an act of aggression, committed by any state r.gninst another, should be s cause ef consultation, with a view to preventive action, assent all other governments...

...Aggression ess be n •ogiiD.ed and can be defined...

...In the last relatively free German election, in Mai i h. 1933, the Nszis polled s minority ot votes, and even s large minority cannot be accurately called "an overwhelming majority...

...Indeed, future historians will probably characterize as one of the curious illusions of our time this widespread belief that the main energies of the powers in the victorious coalition will be occupied for an indefinite period with the "policing" of a defeated Germany and Japan...

...The American Gov...

...It would eliminate censorship in time of peace by international convention...

...The Dssted gtetea hoe boon guilty of aggression against Masses, Colombia and other Latin American countries...

...Where the News Ends By WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN True Peace—and False THE Dumbarton Oaks conference is being held in line with certain bad precedents that were established at Teheran, with a maximum of secrecy and an exaggerated display of armed forces...

...It would include provisions for all-around limitation of armament, with sanctions in the form of air policing against a revival of German or Japanese militarism...

...Even after the last wsr, when the maintenance of peace in Europe rested largely in the hands of Great Britain and France, there would have been no German rearmament and no Second World War if those two powers had acted firmly ss soon ss Hitler violated the disarmament provisions of the Vetsailles Treaty...

...The first condition of a permanent worH settlement, that people, so far as is geographically feasible, live, under the sovereignty which they prefer, will apparently be violated much more flagrantly than was the ca.se in 1918...

...The most worthwhile thing thst Tom Dewey has said since he became a candidate for the presidency was his blunt challenge to the idea of an Axis-in-reverse Big Four domination of the world, expressed in the following terms: "The fact that we four have developed overwhelming power as sgsinst our enemies does not give us the right to organise the world so that we four shall always he free to do what we please, while the rest of the world is made subject to our coercion:*' The pity is that Mr, Dewey and his advisers did not follow up this statement with a demand for an Atlantic Charter type of peace...

...It will take no steps to prevent an unlimited srmsment race...

...It would provide for an international charter of civil liberties...

...th* 1'iiiltd Nation* hold together, no renewal of ¦ German ter Japan*** aagi eiiion i* thinkable...

...This should not, however, prevent the American peopli from considering very seriously the alternative types of settlement which the happily approaching end of the war in Europe places before the world...

...Another helpful step would be the conclusion ot allaround srbitration treaties, under which every country in the world would be obliged to resort to conciliation and arbitration procedures before employing force against another...

...A most dangerous Luggestion, snd one that should be flatly rejected by the Senate, is the acceptance of a security scheme before the terms of the final panes settlement sre known...

...The, declaration of Mr.^Dewey's adviser, John Foster Dulles, about methods of policing Germany and Japan was an anticlimax after the challenge of Dewey's statement...

...And within tea yesrs, or twenty years, or thirty yesrs, 'his false peace will lead to a third and far more terrible world war...

...The British Empire was not built up aa a basis of general consent...

...Disregard of such procedures should be considered prima facie evidence of aggression...

...There could be a true peace, based on the principle of equal rights and equal obligations for all nations, large and small, on respect for the principles of the Atlnntic Charter, for self-determination, for equality of economic opportunity...

...Over a large area of Eastern Europe peoples will apparently be handed about or moved about like cattle, without the Slightest regard for the first three self-determination clauses ef the Atlantic Charter...

...ApEAt E settlement much worse than thst of Versailles may well be in the making...

...It would aim at a transformation of imperialist relations into cooperative relations between the countries of the West and of the East...

...It would stress functional, rather than repressive measures, with impartially administered relief measures for the countries that will be moat ahattered after the end of war, evolving into a program of large-scale common economic enterprises, designed to raise the standard of living everywhere...

...and his cohorts were placed in supreme authority by the will of the overwhelming majority of the German people...

...To aasuine that no one of the "Big Three" would be capable of aggression implies a hac'.ground either of dense ignoraaee or of shear hypocrisy...

...Equally open to criticism by all who sincerely desire a lasting peace is the "above the law" status which is apparently designed for the leading powers in the United Nations coalition...

...If they de net hold together Germany and Japan will be taught as allte* ».« future emtagouietit combinations, and no prevition* for diearmmment will have any permanent egeel...

...Such a peace would be positive rather than punitive in chnracter and would aim at an elimination of the basic causes of war...

...It will leave the roots of imperialism untouched...

...It would leave no large block of people under undesired alien sovereignly and would alleviate the strains and stresses of the mixed nationality situations that exist in soma parts of Europe by s wide application of the federal principle, accompanied by implementation of cultural autonomy...

...Ths latent candidate ia tha syndicated statement ot Sussnor Welles: "Hitie...

...Uafortaaately, there ia another kind of settlement that may follow the war which »ill not be peace at all, evea though it may give itself this name...

...It it, of course, much cosier fo reetrain a eonenerti *n*my than a vieteriou* ally* Yet it would be easy t* think of devices which would mitigate the danger ef a "Big Three" tyraany and pave the way for a store universal type of world organisation...

...A true peace would be liberating in character...

...Thia settlement will divide the world into ¦rst, second and third-class nations...

...geviet Union, much snore recently, has broken treaties and committed acts of aggression againat its wests** neighbors, Poland, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania aad Estonia...

...The character of the settlesaent is all important in determining the proper answer to the question whether America should rntify it...