POWER OF THE PEOPLE

Evening Star, Issue 19839, 12 April 1928, Page 1

POWER OF THE PEOPLE

SHOULD WAR BE PUT TO THE VOTE? The United States Ambassador to Great Britain, the Hon. B. Houghton, in a contribution to ‘Goodwill,’ suggests that the nations should am'ee not to declare war until a majority of the electors had given their consent. He makes out an interesting case for this proposal of a poll of the men and women voters before war under the title of ‘ The Power of the People.’

“ War does not originate from time to time simply in a sudden and uncontrollable impulse on the part of one of the great national masses to go and slaughter another. AVer is possible, no doubt, because these masses are willing, under conditions, to fight. But these conditions are themselves an integral part of the problem. Before a war is conceivable there must be an issue. And issue, broadly speaking, is the outcome of a scries of manoeuvres by which the masses concerned are brought into positions of opposition. “Obviously this manoeuvring is not done by the masses themselves. Collectively and as individuals they have little, if anything, to do with the subtle and gradual shifting o' international relationships. Their interests are directed to the more humble and prosaic task of earning a living. The manoeuvring is done by little groups of men called governments. These little groups seek constantly and naturally to gain supposed advantages of one sort and another for their own nationals. Out of their efforts to enlarge or to strengthen or to maintain the interests entrusted to their charge the masses they represent are gradually manoeuvred into positions which, to say the least, cannot easily be surrendered. If. the process continues, sooner or later a situation arises in which an agreement between the small groups becomes impossible. Then, on the ground that their lives and families and property are somehow involved and endangered, these great masses of men and women, roused by every power of organised appeal and propaganda, are ordered under arms, and W'ar follows. The entire process is in control of the smaller groups. They make tho issue. They declare war. The masses they control simply obey. Having put this power, or loft this power, in the hands of their governments, they find themselves, at the critical moment, substantially helpless. “ The great self-governing peoples have shown themselves competent to manage their domestic affairs. Foreign affairs are merely an extension of domestic affairs. .There is nothing mysterious about them. They are not a sort of arcana, wherein tho laws of common morality are excluded and in which only cynical gentlemen of bilingual attainments are competent to play a role. They are in the mam simply the natural and beneficial outcome of a desire to trade. They become potentially dangerous only when men who temporarily possess power undertake, for a supposed national advantage, to infringe either the liberties or the possessions of a neighboring people. “War has steadily increased its demands. Once it could bo waged with profit. Now no gain can equal its cost. Once it could be waged by a relatively small proportion of the populations involved. Now it embraces all. This new democratic era into which we are entering, wherein production is becoming more and more a world process and in which the relations of each one of us are becoming more and more vitally dependent upon others, cannot withstand, the shock and dislocation and waste of war as easily as societies more primitively organised. Some check upon the use of this method must be found.

“The power to declare war stands on a different plane from all other powers of government, it is all-embraemg and all-consuming. It subordinates all other powers to itself. It represents the highest act of sovereignty. It is tho one power which, of all others, a self-governing people would logically reserve to itself, since it puts in jeopardy their collective lives and properly. And yet, strangely enough, it is the one power they do not possess. “We create governments primarily to protect our individual lives and property. To that end we make - laws and set up legislative safeguards, and if these prove unsatisfactory wo change them. It is only when all our lives and all our properties are suddenly involved in a great and supreme decision affecting peace or war, that wo cease to be self-governing. We accept the decision of others. “ The fact that self-governing peoples choose their own governments, and are, therefore, presumably responsible for the actions and decisions of these governments, does not meet (ho issue. Those governments are never elected on the precise issue of peace or war. They arc elected on domestic grounds and for domestic reasons. And a government elected primarily on an issue, let us say, such as the tariff, may not be at all representative when suddenly confronted by the need of a decision involving peace or war.

“ Our governments have shown themselves unable to protect ns against war. They continue to act along well-defined grooves and in accordance with the dictates of a political theory which exalts nationalism and relies frankly upon the use of force, when necessary, to attain these ends. AVe have no apparent reason to hope for any change in their method and in their aims. The future, if they control it, seems likely to be merely an intensified repetition of the past. Personally I believe we cannot safely continue to be democratic within our national frontiers and autocratic in our relations with the other self-go-verning peoples “ A durable peace cannot be based upon force. It must, if it exists at all, be based upon goodwill. And 1 believe profoundly that that practical goodwill exists, that the great self-governing peoples can safely trust one another, and that only a method of dealing between them, inherited from an outgrown system of autocratic government prevents our recognition of that great and beneficent fact. We arc caught in a process of our own making. And wo must unmake it.

“ 1 must indicate very briefly two conditions which seem to me essential. First, if so great a political experiment is to be tried, it must be frankly an international experiment. It cannot be safely or expediently entered upon by one nation alone. A conference at which each is represented would therefore be a necessary preliminary. “ Secondly, .the object of such a conference would be, of course, to determine whether each of these governments is prepared by proper legislative action to enable its people to accept or reject a proposition whereby a declaration of war against the other peoples in the group ca.n be made only after the question has received the affirmative sanction of a majority of its qualified electors; and, following this, to enter into an agreement whereby, in return for reciprocal pledges, each shall agree not to attack the other for a term of, say, 100 years. “ Nothing in our past, nothing in our political traditions, nothing in our accepted principles of government, prevents our entering into, an agreement not to attack nations which agree not to attack, us. In this way, and perhaps in this way only, can we join hands effectively with the other self-governing peoples in a common effort to secure a more durable peace.”— From ‘ Public Opinion.*