The Press TUESDAY, AUGUST 19, 1941. The Price of Peace

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23411, 19 August 1941, Page 6

The Press TUESDAY, AUGUST 19, 1941. The Price of Peace

The last, and in some ways the most remarkable, of the eight points in the ChurchillRoosevelt declaration has so far attracted little attention. It is as follows:

They [Mr Churchill and Mr Roosevelt] believe that all of the nations of the world, for realistic as well as spiritual reasons, must come to abandon |he use of force.

The wording is curiously simple and sweeping. If the signatories had said, borrowing a phrase from the Pact of Paris, that the nations must ultimately renounce “war as an instru- “ ment of national policy,” or even if they had substituted “war" for “force,” the passage would be easier to swallow. As it stands, it looks to the time when the policeman as well as the soldier will be abolished and order in civil societies as well as in the society of nations maintained by love and reason. Mr Gandhi will be gratified and the rest of the world mystified. Mr Churchill, who has war in his blood, can hardly have suggested the passage; and it is tempting to suppose that its full meaning escaped him in the flurry of one of the great moments of history. If, as seems probable, the passage can be ascribed to-Mr Roosevelt, it throws some light on the mind of a man who, although he lives every hour of his life in ,a fierce limelight, has yet managed to keep his innermost beliefs to himself. What practical significance must be attached to the passage is a question not easily answered in default of' any authoritative interpretation. It would, however, be a mistake to. dismiss it as an inconsequent and visionary afterthought, for it conforms to a drift of thought which is perceptible elsewhere in the declaration. It has already been noted that the declaration is remarkable for a complete absence of any proposals for a system of international governmeht. This is excusable to the extent that it reflects a general 'lack of agreement on the fundamentals of political organisation. What is less excusable is the absence of any explicit recognition that if there is to be disarmament after the war—and the declaration for disarmament—some system of international government is essential. On that point the lesson of the last two decades is decisive. The world of 1918 passionately desired peace, security, and disarmament; it has arrived at war and chaos because it was incapable of willing the means as well as the end. Excessive armaments, in'spite of all that has been said to the contrary; are not a primary cause of war; they are, like war, inevitable in a world where nations are subject to no law but their own individual wills. The first ■ great attempt to establish peace and security on a permanent basis came to nothing because the nations generally, and the English-speaking nations in particular, believed that aversion to war and unorganised goodwill were, in the society of nations, adequate substitutes for organisation, law, andauthority* Every effort to vest the League of Nations with an authority superior to the sovereignties of its members was defeated, as was every effort to-make the League an in-, strument of peaceful international change. It is understandable that'. Mr Roosevelt, in the.' present .. crisis of American opinion, should i hesitate to commit.his country to. ; support of a new .and stronger League.' Rut, that being so, ■it is a pity he and Mr Churchill did hold out disarmament and eventual abandonment of the use of force by nations as the goal ofAnglo- " American policy. Disarmament and the establishment of a system of international government go together. To separate them is to encourage among Americans, and to a less extent among Englishmen, .the dangerous belief that they can have disarmament and permanent peace without making the sacrifices and accepting the responsibilities involved In the establishment of a supra-national authority;