TOWARDS PEACE

Evening Star, Issue 19127, 19 December 1925, Page 2

TOWARDS PEACE

“ What splendid news this is about the Treaty! It is so great I can hardly yet realise that it is true. France and Germany shaking hands and the other Powers looking on, smiling! I feel inclined to run round to all my friends and shako hands, too. Nothing has stirred me so much for many a day. Surely, we are nearing the dawn of a new era.” Thus an enthusiastic correspondent ends a letter to the present writer. # * * * It would perhaps bo somewhat ungracious to pour cold water on such warm ardor. We wish we could share our correspondent’s golden outlook. But there are certain things, clouds no bigger perhaps than a man’s hand, on the horizon that forbid too sanguine a view of the Locarno Treaty. One of these is Russia. Russia has not come into this League of Nations Pact. And so long as she remains outside of it there will be trouble. Russia occupies a strategic position between the East and the West. Like Belgium, only on a far vaster scale, she is a sort of buffer State between Europe and Asia. She blends in herself the mysterious strains of both, though the Mongolian is perhaps the greater of the two. And just here it is that the peril emerges. If Russia stood alone tho Locarno Pact might hold her in check. But she does not moan to stand alone. She has already taken delinitc steps to make alliance with tho nations of the East. Her Mongolian blond draws her to China. And there is no doubt that her emissaries arc secretly at work paving the way there for such an alliance. For some time it was feared that Germany would go with Russia. But she has been detached from her, and has joined tlie European concert. This makes Russia more eager than over to escape isolation. And to accomplish this she is setting her face steadfastly eastward. * * * * Tho Locarno Treaty, it cannot be doubted, foresaw this, possible new alignment of tho world Powers. With Russia rounding up China, the “yellow peril ” assumes a now and sinister significance. It was doubtless diplomatic for Mr Chamberlain to say that this ulterior issue was not in the minds of those who met at Geneva. One cam hardly think that possible. If it were they must bo strangely blind to the march of events. It is already announced from Japan that arrangements are completed for a Pan-Asian Political Conference, and also a Labor Conference, to be held next year, with delegations from Japan, China, India, ‘Persia, Siam, Afghanistan, Egypt, 'Turkey, and Siberia, and we agree with an American writer that “ it is impossible to understand the realignment at Locarno without viewing il- in the light of this new balance of power on a world scale.” Tolstoi is credited with a somewhat remarkable prophecy near tho close of his life. Ho pictures the nations following commercialism under the guise of a beautiful and baneful woman, carrying three torches—war, hypocrisy, and law. War is to break out about 1912, and continue till 1925, Then the political map will be changed. Only four great races will remain—AngloSaxon, Latin, Slav, and Mongolia!!. Before this consummation is reached, however, “a strange figure from the north, a now Napoleon, will dominate Europe., There will como a great reformer, who will restore tho belief in God and spirit and immortality, which had boon lost during the great wars.” It is significant in Tolstoi's prophecy tho part the North is to play in this great world drama. One or two of tho old Hebrew prophets threw out similar, more or less, obscure references to a mighty conqueror advancing from this same quarter, under the names Gog and Magog. But, this apart, there aro only too good grounds for agreeing with Theodore Roosevelt’s opinion: “No land more than Russia holds tho fate of tho coming years.” i * » #

But though there aro serious reasons against being too optimistic about the Locarno Treaty, there are also grounds for hope. It is, e.g., reassuring to take a long backward look. When we watch the tide coming in, if wo look only about our feet there does not seem much progress. But, Though the tired waves vainly striving Seem here no painful inch to gain, Far back through creeks and inlets making Comes silent flooding in the main. Think of what war was, say, at the beginning of the Christian era. Then with nations it was the chief business of life. The lighting man was the chief man in the State. So Rome’s great poet begins his great poem, ‘ Arena Virunique Cano.’ Arms were primary; the man was counted only as he could use them. Prisoners wore tortured or killed. Herodotus fells us that at the I battle of Platiea the conqueror slew : 250,000 of the captured. Even as late as the Middle Ages prisoners had no rights. Bead, e.g., Motley’s ‘History of the Dutch Republic ’ or Schiller’s ‘History of the Thirty Years’ War,’ and we will have pictures of cruelty to helpless men, women, and children that sicken us with their brutality. One of the great curses of those times was private wars and wagers of battle. These produced a chronic condition of warfare, rending society asunder. -It is |,o the great publicist Grotius that wc largely owe the abolition of this internecine strife. To him, also, is to bo credited the principle of international arbitration, of which the Locarno Treaty is the latest a.ud greatest illustration. But the first to promulgate the principle was He whose advent Christendom will bo celebrating nest week. Bong ago Ho told his first disciples, in effect, if you or a nation have a quarrel with another, try peaceful negotiation—diplomacy. If you can’t settle it that way, call in the advice of other nations—arbitrate. If that fails, then what? Fight? No. Non-intercourse —boycott. That would i be effective, for no country of to-day | is self-contained. Thera are inter-j national needs on which the life of any | given nation is more or less absolutely dependent. If these are withheld no nation can long survive such a boycott, „ „ * *

if vv T ' " In the original state of society each man was a law unto himself. Then came the family, the tribe, the State. The rights of each wore not destroyed, but made subservient to the rights of the whole. Thus, the vendetta, the duel private wars, disputes between families, clans, tribes were gradually taken out of the hands of the individual, or the individual groups, and

made the business of tho entire nation. .The next stage of the evolution is where we are to-day. It is to make a group of nations preservers of law and order, looking at last towards that great international unity when All men’s good Shall be each man’s rule, and universal peace Lie like a shaft of light across the land, And like a lane of beams athwart the sea Through all the cycle of the golden year. * * * *

Bnt there is much education needful before that great goal is reached. Treaties are like laws. They depend upon the public opinion which sanctions them. It is not the gun, but the man behind it, that is the chief thing. And it is not in treaties, but in the character of those in whose name they are negotiated, that oup main hope depends. So we get back to the people—to tho plain you and me—for their sanctity and enforcement. And the people everywhere have a long way to go in the matter of education as to the need and blessedness of peace. It is in vain that we reduce our navies or disband I our armies until we have convinced the common man that force is no final remedy, and that war wins nothing that might not bo gained in less brutal and bloody ways. Wo have hardly yot begun this education. There is still far too much glorification of war in our schools and literature and life. Buskin concluded that if we must have soldiers we ought not to dress them in tho gaudiest attire, but in the trappings and suits of woe. That, perhaps, is Utopian. But what is not Utopian is a sustained effort in the school, in the church, in the State to clothe and equip justice and peace with fascination equal to that of the drum and trumpet. Before the Great War broke out wo had what was cMled peace. But it was a peace resting on bayonets, and,' as Napoleon once put it, you can almost do anything with bayonets except sit on them. Then the explosion came. But wo know now that it was prepared for by a long process of education in the schools and universities of Germany. Could not this sort of education be reversed? Gould not as deliberate a process of training in tho interests of peace he introduced into our schools and seats of learning? We aro having professors for almost every ’ology under tho sun. Is it not about time we had a professorship of peace in all colleges? For unless wo have a people to learn our ’ologies, what is the use of them? And war destroys the people. * * * * This subject of peace is seasonable. Nest week Christendom celebrates tho birth of Him who is rightfully called the Prince of Peace. Had tho world heeded His teaching wars would long since have ceased, or only be remembered as a hideous nightmare. People may say His teaching is not practicable. Has the teaching of those who have gone off on other lines been practicable? It is enough to look at the world to-day. No other answer is needed. W.e are coming round at last to think that this Prince of Peace may hold all the cards in His nail-pierced hands. If those who profess to believe on Him were as eager to have His name and fame made known as those who believe, say, in the sale of a certain brand of chewing gum or plug tobacco, wo should have more confidence for tlie future of arbitration treaties. For, as wo have already indicated, their sanction and observance •rest ultimately on tho man in tlie street. Still wc will hope for tho best; for tho Time Spirit is -with the ultimate triumph of the truths to which the Baho of Bethlehem came to hear witness, and in particular to His statement that “ they who take the sword shall perish by the sword.” A modern poet has a striking picture of this. Ho tells in vivid imagery how he saw the conquerors riding by, splashing through loathsome floods of war. Tho Crescent, with his barbaric scimilor and storms of arrows in the air; tho Mongol, Genghis Khan, musing on kingdoms sacked and burnt; Alexander, with his world vision; and Caesar, and, leaping full of hell, tho Hun; And leading like'a, stal Hie van, Heedless of outstretched arm or groan, Inscrutable Napoleon went, Dreaming of empire and alone. Then all they perished from tho earth As fleeting shadows from a glass, And, conquering down tho centuries, Came Christ, tho swordlcss, riding on an ass.