THE ONLY WAY OUT

Evening Star, Issue 23038, 17 August 1938, Page 1

THE ONLY WAY OUT

“ There are those,” says Dr Nicholas Murray-Butler, “ who still cherish the illusion that the American people are remote and aloof from the rest of the world, and that whatever happens save under the Stars and Stripes does not concern them. The folly of this illusion is only exceeded by its profound immorality. “ If one sees a fellow human being assaulted and outraged in a public place he quickly gives the alarm and calls the police. He does not regard himself as aloof from the criminal happening, but rather sees it to be of direct and intimate concern to himself_ and to the social order of which he is a member. Precisely the same is true of the conduct of nations.

“ An assault by one nation _ upon another has now become as criminal an act as is the assault of one individual upon another. We are no longer living in the eighteenth or in the nineteenth century; we are in the twentieth century, when Governments which have pledged their word are expected to keep it. They are no more at. liberty to deceive and to violate their plighted faith than is the individual citizen. “ The consequence ought to be plain to any man with eyes to look realities in the face. An organised family of nations must come into being to protect the moral standards of those nations themselves and through an international police to do for the world’s order precisely what the municipal police does for the order of the neighbourhood. To call this police work war is a flat contradiction in terms. It is the instrumentality for the rule of Jaw, and to the rule of law there is absolutely no alternative but the rule of force. “ If complete economic collapse and war are really to be avoided these fundamental principles must be accepted and acted upon without further delay. The mere announcement that the Mediterranean was to be policed by the navies of Great Britain and of France caused a prompt disappearance of the so-called piratical submarines. The presence of the police on the streets of a great city prevents a thousand outrages for every one which requires the use of force to repress it. “ In particular, the smaller nations must have protection lest their larger and more powerful neighbours attempt to violate or to impose upon them. Under the Constitution of the United States, Delaware and Rhode Island are as self-controlled in their governments as are Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. There is no reason why the same principle should not rule in the organised family of nations, but until a controlling world public opinion is developed an international police may from time .to time have (to be called upon to prevent what are in effect criminal outbreaks.

“ Over and over again it must be said that there is only one way to keep out of war, and that is to prevent war by removing the causes of war. This is’ a world problem, and involves a world responsibility. There are, aiid can be, no nations that are isolated from the rule of morality, which is the only alternative to the rule of force.