[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—The obvious answer to
Sir Hesketh Bell's query as to my attitude toward the Police is that this query begs the question, by assuming that police functions in civil and national life can be carried out in international life by a,. body of men which, according to his own description is to include " armies, fleets, air forces and all the resources of military science." Such a force is not a Police force at all, but a Military one, and its methods are those of war.
Mr. Arthur L. Martin, on another page, most frankly describes the forces of recalcitrant States as " the enemy," against whom it is, he thinks, essential that the League shall be -able to send plenty of bombing machines, to deal with- the " enemy bombers." This is nothing to do with civilian police, but with soldiers and war methods. Another effort at world war to end war perhaps !
Sir Hesketh Bell, like many others, attempts to liken nations, with their vast differences in extent, power, civiliza tion and history, to the citizens of a State. I see no parallel: In reality neither do those who would enforce international peace, for their enforcing police always turn out to be soldiers, armed with all the resources of military science."
I sympathize with Captain Mumford's sense of anxiety. He has good cause for this. But he does not answer the question by what magic his Nationalist leaders (and may I add Nationalist nations'?) will be brought to surrender their poivers to an armed League.
I am sorry that Sir Hesketh Bell thinks that my criticism was made " with some scorn." It was not so intended. His suggestion raised a most serious world problem. I ex- pressed appreciation of his purpose, but a sense, none the less, that his solution was one of " unrealistic idealism " because it ignored the above difficulty. I am a pacifist in part because I see no path along which nations will, with sincerity, accept a collective system other than a path of conversion from the ways of war to a spirit that desires peaceable solutions and policies of common interest and co-operation. That spirit will never become a realistic fact in public and international affairs by hasty efforts to enforce peace with, let us say, the " long-distance bombing squadrons " of Mr. Martin's internationalized Foreign
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