Peace Makers and War Makers

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 169, 13 April 1935, Page 20

Peace Makers and War Makers

, . , , ■ he particular reason why the Peace Settlement of 1919 has been | * unsatisfactory was special to the occasion; for the settlement of | the peace terms by the victors alone, separately, was a break away from diplomatic tradition,” writes Professor Arnold J. Toynbee, in “The Treaty of Versailles and After.” “This was not how the Peace Settlement after the last great war had been arrived at a hundred years back. “At the Congress of Vienna in ISI4-15, one of the leading parts was played by Talleyrand, who was the representative of the defeated Rower, France. And Talleyrand’s share in the making of the Treaty of Vienna had an important influence on both the terms of the treaty and its consequences. In its treatment of France the Vienna peace settlement was so moderate that the French nation never rose up in revolt against it.” “The statesmen who come to tbe top during a war,” adds Professor Toynbee, “and eventually win it, are naturally men who possess the special gifts which waging war requires. They are men who, above all, can and do make quick decisions and rapid improvisations, and are always ready to try new experiments and to scrap one experiment after another until they stumble on the key to victory. But these gifts that win a war are not the gifts that are wanted for making a peace settlement . “The second general cause of the unsatisfactoriness of peace settlements is the shadow of the past, which keeps the statesmen’s minds fixed upon things that were important before the war and hinders them from opening their eyes to the things that are going to be important after peace has been restored.” “In trying to bring our internal relations under the reign of law, v/e

have undertaken an ambitious enterprise in self-discipline,” Professor Toynbee comments later in his chapter on “The League of Nations.” “We have undertaken it because we cannot any longer afford to leave the Old Adam unredeemed in any sphere of human action. The redemption of our international life is what the Covenant stands for, and this is why I personally believe the Covenant is likely to outlast everything else in the peace treaties.” Sir Norman Angell, who contributes the first chapter of the book, says:—“Sometimes men ask me: ‘Do you think the days of war are done?’— much as they might ask whether the rain, or the drought, will stop. 1 reply Ido not know. If you ask me whether men can make war stop, lam of the very definite opinion—they can. Whether they will or not I cannot say. Men do not make the rain, but they do make war. “I do not profess to be able to forecast the degree of folly which may mark the political conduct of nations. One sees to-day whole nations possessed by a sort of madness, much as one may see panic possess a theatre audience on the cry of ‘fire,’ or a panic of ship’s passengers rushing to tbe boats. “The course of wisdom in those circumstances is not to speculate as to whether we may expect the crowds to behave reasonably, but to take what precautions we may against the panic, and to rally those who have kept their heads to the task of stopping it. If Western civilisation is to save itself it must create an organised society. It may not be wise enough to do so. The shouting of panic, and the exploitation of prejudice, may be too much for those attempting to create some sort of order. Very well, that will be the end of the Story, the end of civilisation. Our business is to prevent that inglorious conclusion if we can.”