The League of Nations
The Psychology of Peace
THE latest exploits of the Foreign Office and the Quai D'Orsay are a warning sign that in spite of the Peace Pact, with its assurance of American co-operation, the actual directives of European diplomacy are not the ideas implicit in the Covenant of the League of Nations, but those of the old system based on the expectation of war. What this means in practice is that statesmanship has failed hitherto to create that feeling of security which alone could ever persuade France and her associates to abandon their military predominance. Yet were it not for the ever present fear and threat of war there is not a single issue in European politics to-day which the new League procedure—the method of co-operation--could not gradually solve. Clearly, then, as a correspondent in the Spectator has lately pointed out, the fundamental problem of peace is one not for the statesman as such (still less the diplomats), but for the psychologist.
THE MEANING OF SECURITY.
It is five years now since the word went forth from Geneva that there could be no disarmament* without security, any more than there could be security without disarmament. To this day that dual proposition represents the juridical basis on which the League committees are working in their 'efforts to organize peace among the nations. It is evident, however, that there can be no progress on the present lines because the various national representatives are using identical language to mean totally different things. When, for instance, the Germans press for a general reduction of armaments in accordance with the Covenant " to the lowest point consistent with national safety and the enforcement by common action of international obligations," they are naturally thinking in terms of a professional army severely limited in numbers and equipment like their own. But how is this—which is emphatically also the British—conception of a country's land forces to be reconciled with the view obstinately held by France and most of the other Continental Powers that soldiering is not a professional calling, but a civic duty—and that therefore the system of conscription must be maintained and trained reserves discounted in any computation of military strength ? The meaning of " security," too, is, to say the least of it, elastic, since few of the delegates at Geneva seem to have grasped the vital distinction between the old idea of the " security " of a nation against successful attack, i.e., against defeat in war, and the new and higher conception of security against all war.
THE " EXPERTS."
The fiasco of the Anglo-French naval arrangement, on the other hand, has demonstrated by the method of reductio ad absurdum that there is no hope for naval disarmament—or, indeed, for the peace of the world—unless British and American statesmen are prepared to emulate public opinion in the two countries in accepting the Paris Pact at its face value. Co-operation between the two greatest sea Powers will be found to be perfectly possible, as soon as tie discussion about " security " of trade is lifted once and for all away from what is to happen in the event of war. The fact is that neither technical experts nor lawyers can possibly attain to that " broader and higher ground " which Mr. Gibson postulated as essential for Anglo-American agreement and which is no less badly needed for a solution of Europe's problems. They belong to an age of international relations which knew of no other method of preserving peace than that of preparing for war. Working as they are within the frame- work of an obsolete diplomatic tradition, they are necessarily lacking in that enthusiasm and faith which must inspire the statesmen of to-day.
SAXON AND LATIN OUTLOOK.
What are, indeed, the implications of the Peace Pact, that great moral victory over war which next year it will be the task of the statesmen at Geneva to translate into terms of law and diplomacy ? Pace the cynics and the bureaucrats, it does not simply mean that the United States wishes to be associated in the official world-peace movement—though even that by itself must make all the difference in the application of the " economic sanctions " contemplated by Article 16 of the Covenant. Its importance lies in the veto of the use of war at all as a diplomatic method. That is perhaps why it does not commend itself to those who look upon diplomacy as a game with rules of its own and for whom the threat of war was always a trump card. But to men of good will all over the world the divorce of law from war must appear a sine qua non of peace and civilization and easily the finest achievement of the century. Because at last the hypothesis of peace is substituted for the hypothesis of war an entirely new complexion is placed on the problem of " security." And yet, of course, the signing by the statesmen of a solemn declaration repudiating war will not dispel the almost universal conviction on the Continent of Europe that war is inevitable. There remains a profound psychological conflict which is written all over the history of the League, a divergence of outlook between the " Anglo-Saxon " and the " Latin " habits of mind which may yet prove to be the greatest obstacle to peace.
BROAD AND NARROW VIEWS.
Only last month at Geneva, Monsieur Aubert, a member of the French delegation to this year's Assembly, gave a lecture on " France and the League " at the Bureau of International Studies, in which the old thesis was defended with as much fervour and persistency as ever. He spoke of the Covenant as having been elaborated by " un front unique insensible aux amendements francais," and added that France remains faithful to those amendments to-day : the principles of international control of armaments and the creation of an international force. As to the future, he said, France wants the League to grow stronger and stronger : she expects from the development of the League more and more solid guarantees of security—for it is on the latter, in the French view, that disarmament depends.
Such assertions have, at least, the merit of frankness. But
that is certainly not quite what is understood by the " develop- ment of the League " in England. And unfortunately France is by no means the only country tied to this obsolete " military notion of security. Apart from Italy, whose attitude to the whole peace movement is known to be one of scepticism and cynicism, it is of some interest to quote from a special message written by the latest Prince of Peace, General Primo de Rivera, on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of his dictatorship in Spain. After a reference to the Kellogg Pact as a noble expression of sentiment and the love of peace as a great human ideal, he goes on : " But I do not think it (peace) is to be attained either by disarmament or by pacts, but through the establishment of an international Army, Navy, and Air Force, which, being placed at the disposal of the League of Nations or some such Tribunal of Peace, may serve as ultima ratio for the purpose of putting into execution the sentences imposed by that Tribunal." In this case, it may be argued, it is a soldier speaking and his opinion has consequently no value. But from my knowledge of Spaniards I would submit that it is the usual attitude of mind in Spain, whenever international affairs are discussed, and I fancy it is pretty general all over Europe.
Professor Salvador de Madariaga, the author of Englishmen : Frenchmen : Spaniards, and until recently head of the Disarmament Section of the League Secretariat, is perhaps the only prominent worker for peace who has driven this point home : that the study of comparative national psychology is the key that will open the door to peace, without which, indeed, all our efforts are likely to be in vain.
W. HORSFALL CARTER.
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