INTERNATIONAL POLITY

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 48, 25 August 1914, Page 4

INTERNATIONAL POLITY

ATCD'THE FOUNDATION S THEREOF

Here is a i passage from Norman Alugell's^latest book, "This Foundations of International Polity" (Heinemann), the object of which is to show that the political ideas which at present shape the conduct and determine the attitude of one State to another in Europe, and give to international relationship its present character, are ernsneous, despite their general acceptance as self-evident and axiomatic j that theW are the outcome of certain abstract iJheories at variance with, the facts : — Now., the whole point of my indict'rdent of most pacifist propaganda is this : that it has not ia the past clearly and simply challenged these fundamental 'assumptions ; nor does ifc do so to-day. It does not consistently urge and make 'plain to the common mind that the whole dispute about military power and. con-j quest is irrelevant to- these needs of the German people; that if the matter is in reality,, as alleged, a "struggle for bread," if Germany needs the wheat of Canada wherewith to feed her people, she can have it now by paying for it, and would atill have to pay for it if she "conquered 1 . 1 Canada ; that military force has aothin y g to do with the problem on the one side or the other ; that military conquest couM not secure food for Germany's expanding population, could not help her expansion, nor even extend the area of Her speech and social institutions ;. that if, for insl<ance, "the Prussian ideal" is to be imposed on Europe, the greatest problem dl its advocates is to overcome its enemies in Germany, and- not abjoad ; that conversely — to meet the case of Lord Roberts, Mr. , Churchill^ and' Mr: Pxederic Harrison — ii ever Britain is to see her trade or colonies transferred to other hands, it will not Be as. the result of naval disasters ; tHat if ever her population are faced' with starvation or emigration. — which in some circumstances is an arguable proposition — it will not be because , trade rolites blockaded by hostile cruisers; that the loss of trade and the possibility of starvation do represent dangers, but that they could be fought by the provision of battleships as little as you coulbVdestroy ihe bacilli of typhoid , fever with 12-iobh guns ; that, in other words, military force has become irrelevant to the struggles, whether material lor moriil) of civilrsisd nations ; and that the effective fbeces foi- the accomplish- , menf of* the aims which men desire — 'whether well-being or the achievement of some" moral! Idea — have shifted from the plane' of military force to another.