The Evening Star SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1944. THE POST-WAR WORLD.

Evening Star, Issue 25324, 4 November 1944, Page 6

The Evening Star SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1944. THE POST-WAR WORLD.

Tho late Wendell Willkie enriched our vocabulary by his phrase, " One world." He saw it in actuality as he travelled at lightning speed right across it. But ■will the post-war world be "one world? " is the question William H. Chamberlin asks in six articles he wrote recently in the ' Christian Century,' of Chicago. This writer was formerly a Press correspondent in Russia, France, and Japan, and is now a lecturer at Yale. He writes from an American point of view, stressing how little the United States will have suffered, compared with ißussia, Germany, China, or Britain, with the result that she will occupy a privileged position. Yet he doubts if America, with all her military power, will be in a position to determine a just or a permanent peace. European conditions are altogether too chaotic, and leadership in America is lacking. The more prolonged the war is, also, the further the Atlantic Charter tends to recede into the background. Yet some such ideal is necessary for a permanent peace. Nor can it be left inapplicable to the backward countries. " To reform, modernise, and ultimately liquidate the increasingly untenable system by which hundreds of millions in Asia and Africa are ruled from European capitals is one of the major tasks of the post-war era." Otherwise we have the starting point of a terrible third war of race and colour.

Mr Chamberlin stresses the growth in power of Russia during the war, despite the loss of millions of her citizens—- " the new Colossus," as General Smuts put it. What will Stalin do with it? He thinks the Polish border question, Latvia, Estonia, and the other issues, are already closed Nor can he see any hopeful underground movement in Germany to help in reconstruction. He quotes the cynical slogan from Berlin: " Let us enjoy the war—the peace will be truly terrible," The Germans will be a profoundly shell-shocked people, apathetic and indifferent. Once Nazism has gone as controlling power, a new Germany can be built up, but only on the initiative, and with the consent, of the Germans themselves. Mr Churchill has already foreseen difficulty here. In the east, however, the writer sees hope in.a coming together of China and India, which is already happening, and which may ultimately take in a new Japan, and -have far-reaching issues for both Asia and Europe. In conclusion, he warns America that her power is limited.' He would have her support " moderate against revengeful counsels," pressing for relief and reconstruction measures and " practical schemes for limitation of armaments." America must make " a fair contribution to any feasible plan for restraining aggression," but on a universal basis, " and applicable against any country, regardless of its status in the present war, that resorts to aggression in the future." -Thus, he holds, can America contribute towards " the realisation of the noble but still distant goal: " One world." It is significant that as the war draws nearer its close, plans for the future are increasingly beinn; discussed. Certainly nothing like Wilson's " Fourteen Points " declaration has yet emerged, but it may be just round the corner. But permanent peace will _ certainly only be achieved as willing co-operation is achieved by nations workino- towards Mr Wendell Willkie's ideal.