TOPICS OF THE DAY.
A LEAGUE OF NATIONS.—I.
THERE HERE is no more soul-shaking ghost story than that of the long-pedigree Poltergeist in the Scots :castle. The owner of the castle was much worried by mysterious noises in one of the chief rooms. Somebody on the floor above ap- peared to be dragging heavy chains and rolling about cannon- balls half through the night. Yet the room overhead was bare, untenanted, and closely locked. To stop the nuisance, which was hopefully attributed to rats, carpenters and builders were liberally consulted, and finally the Castellan, quite determined to get to the bottom of the matter, gave orders to have not only the floors taken up but the walls broken into and thoroughly searched for secret passages, chambers, hollows, recesses, and other receptacles for noisy vermin or even practical jokers. Accordingly the room was ransacked from top to bottom, and the walls half pulled down in the thoroughness of the search. But only one thing was found. Bricked up in one of the walls were all the implements of Exorcism of the fourteenth century. The owner, a wiser and a sadder man, instantly gave orders that everything should be put back as before, and all further attempts at a solution abandoned. His predecessors in title by five hundred years had evidently been faced with exactly his problem, and had failed as ignominiously in the solution as he had. What- ever it was, it was something that had got to be endured, not cured.
The politician who has the misfortune to be fairly intimate with the history of the past, when he begins to study such problems as the abandonment of war and the securing of peace for all time through a League of Nations will soon feel like the owner of the Scots castle. When he gets to work, human experience in the past will soon afford him a similarly discouraging discovery. The records of history are strewn with attempts to exorcise the Demon of War. The world has always been at it with bell, book, and candle. But every attempt has hitherto failed. What, for example, could he more depressing reading (from the Peace point of view) than Thucydides ? All the ideas which we are inclined to think due to modern humanitarianism were in the minds, and actually on the tongues, of the Greeks. At the end of the Persian War they established a model League of Nations, and in their particular Treaties had Arbitration Clauses, either expressed or implied, in almost every case. Next there " was the public opinion of Hellas," which was dead against Greeks fighting Greeks instead of doing the proper work of their League— i.e., holding the barbarians and ' The King " in check. Yet all the talk ended in the Lacedaemonian War, and such outrages on humanity and morality as the Syracusan Expedition, the destruction of Melos, and a dozen other incidental acts of calculated and Prussianized wickedness. In the universal monarchy of Rome and its civil wars we find more—we will not say aids to reflection, but skeletons in the cupboard. In the Middle Ages Dante shows us, alas ! not the way to Peace, but only shadowy and abortive attempts at founding Leagues of Nations. Our readers should look at the letter on this subject which we publish elsewhere. When we get to the beginning of the seventeenth century we find the world literally brimming over with schemes for arbitration, keeping the balance of power in perpetuity, and, above all, plans for " A League of Nations." He who is not afraid of having his mind paralysed by the thought of human impotence should look up Bacon's amazing pamphlet, Considerations Touching a War with Spain. It is all there. Though the pamphlet is a short one, Bacon manages to give us " luciferous " thoughts on Peace and War by the dozen. But, alas ! in spite of their wisdom, their brilliance, and their statecraft, they afford the minimum of encouragement.
Bacon, seeking to justify a war with Spain, in the course of his subtle dialectic traverses all the ground that every busy brain in Europe is now traversing. Some day we may hope to return to the curiosities of his pamphlet. Here we will only choose one example. He notes how Clinias, the Candiani in Plato, " speaks desperately and wildly, as if there were no such thing as peace between nations. . . . His words are ' That which men for the most part call peace, is but a naked and empty name ; but the truth is that there is ever between all estates a secret war.' "* " I know well this speech," Bacon continues, " is the objection and not the decision, • The only other thing we know about the author of this piece of German diabolic metaphysic is characteristic. A reference to the Index of Jowett's translation of the Lutes shows that Cantu' defended on philosophic grounds the worst end most draradlas riche lien of the tireekc. and that it is after refuted ; but yet, as I said before, it bears thus much of truth, that if that general malignity and pre- disposition to war, which he untruly figureth to be in all nations, be produced and extended to a just fear of being oppressed, then it is no more a true peace, but a name of peace." But Bacon has not merely to deal with Clinias. He has rather sadly to admit that Iphicrates, the Athenian, comes perilously near the opinion of the abhorred Candian, " as if there were ever amongst nations a brooding of a war, and that there is no sure league, but impuissance to do hurt." But though we find the analogies of History so unpleasantly poignant, we are not going to let ourselves be bluffed out of the attempt to lay the Ghost of War by traces of previous attempts at exorcism. We hold that yet one more effort should be made, and that by means of a League of Nations— every precaution of course being taken to improve upon previous models. Though we cannot in sincerity say that we think it certain, or even very likely, that the effort will succeed, we fully agree with President Wilson that it is well worth trying. Besides, it is obvious from the present temper of the world that it will be tried, and that no effort to prevent trial is likely to be successful. That being so, we hope there may be a general agreement, even among the most sceptical, or, let us say in fairness, the leas impressionable and excitable, of statesmen, to give the proposed League of Nations every benefit that can be obtained from forethought and prudent counsel. For ourselves, we are sure that the less ambitious the scheme, the more likely it is to avoid failure. If we try for too muck, we shall get nothing. If we try for something comparatively small and reasonable, there is a very good chance of our being able—we will not say to banish war altogether, but to make it far more difficult and dangerous than it is at present to destroy the peace of the world. He often goes farthest who sets forth with the least high-sounding itinerary.
(To be concluded ice our next issue.)
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