WORLD PEACE

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 40, 15 August 1925, Page 9

WORLD PEACE

A PLEA FOR HARD THINKING

SENTILnNTAL. IDEALISM TO. BE

AVOIDED,

More people are probably,; talking ibout ... paace „ .than ever before ,n hiumiii history, declares Philip Kerr .in. ''Headway,"' the official Jrgan" of th e'League of Nations' Union, whose members are everywhere doing so. American idealists are devising fresh plans for producing it every day. The last Assembly of the League made its own contribution to the problem by drafting the abortive Protocol. This is all to the good. But,'so far, the problem of world peace has been< discussed much too much in an. atmos-,, phere of current political feeling or of a somewhat sentimental -idealism. Since the days when the Covenant was drafted little thought has been given to the fundamentals of the subject. Real thinking is very arduous work and people have preferred to shout and intrigue and enthuse about passing questions rather than facing -up fearlessly and patiently to the basic principle on which peace can alone rest.

The United States is still trying to run tie "outlawry of war" and national isolation in. double harness, an obvious impossibility. The Allied nationß in Europe are." trying to convert the League into an instrument for keeping Germany permanently in bondage, and, call the result peace. British supporters of the Protocol are trying to convince themselves and other* that arbitration is the same thing as Government. Ife 1 we are to make any progress we must,think things out more deeply than we have yet dons. People often talk as if the League of Nations can some day itself maintain peace in the world. No League of Nations can ever possibly do that. The very. name is a contradiction in terms. The instrument for maintaining peace in the world is the State. Peace never has lasted and pever will last on any corner, of, the earth's surface except through the fundamental institutions' of the State. Nations have tried to dodge that fact from the beginning of history, but it is as impossible for them to do' so as it is for an accountant to dodge mathematics. The League system, trie Protocol system confederation, as it it technically called, has been tried over and . over again, and it has always broken down. And it has broken down for Ih© simple reason that peoples who are not ready to unite politically invariably fail to live up to their obligations, especially .to provide money or armies, and because the only way in which other members can make them do so is by war-~the destruction of peace. If anybody doubts the truth of this view, let him study theory from the days of Aristotle to the days of Locke or Alexander Hamilton, and" let him look into the history of leagues and confederations from the Confederacy of Deloa, through the story of the growth of Imperial Rome and of the German Confederation and Bismarck, to the long serins of Knglwh-spcaldng experiments, in Great Britain, in the United States, and more recently, in tlie self-governing dominions overseas. In every case he will find that confederation has either onded in complete disruption or moved on to federation, and that the reason why this must have been so is always the same. ■ ' .

This, of course, is no argument against the League On the contrary, the League idea, properly carried out, is the only road towards the ultimate goal. My plea, is, rather, than wo shall get a far better perspective of what the League can do nnd ought lo do, and so be able to develop its usefulness without disastrous mistakes and setbacks if we first face up to what "peace' 1 is and study from both theory and experience how "peace" is maintained.