MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON I WENT up to Oxford for the opening meeting of United Nations' Week. It was one of those early autumn afternoons on which the mist of the Thames Valley settles affectionately upon the university city, draping with damp but merciful tenderness the front of Balliol, and turning the pavements into long canals, their shining surfaces broken, here by a wet leaf lying, there by the reflection
of a light lit early in some college room. I find it salutary, after absences abroad, to revisit my old university, which is for me the string upon which the beads of much experience have been strung. I have passed the age when I found it melancholy to revisit Oxford, the age at which each wall seemed to echo to the "inflexion des voix chores qui se soft rues." I am not one to feel that the hungry generations tread me down ; on the contrary, as the undergraduates surge past me in the dripping street, holding their books familiarly under their red wrists, I am amused to think how similar are their damp grey flannel trousers to those in which the legs of their fathers were encased, and to reflect how, when they are alone in their little rooms, they must suffer, for all their assurance, the same pangs of Weltschmerz which clouded my own early days. The wet and bulbous busts which adorn the forecourt of the Sheldonian still stare with blank indifference upon the frontage of Messrs. Blackwell's bookshop and seem quite unaware of the lamentable Bodleian build- ing which has intruded itself improbously upon that happy street. Not one flicker of recognition do they accord me as I pass beside them ; I chuckle to recognise in myself a sort of A. C. Benson figure ; and as I slop along I murmur contentedly the lines of In Memoriam : —
I passed beside the reverend walls,
In which of old I wore the gown ; I roved at random thro' the town, And saw the tumult of the halls.
* * * * Then followed the opening meeting of United Nations' Week. The Mayor of Oxford was there in his gold chain of office, the Member for Oxford City was there upon the platform with the Senior Burgess: Dr. Gilbert Murray was there and Dr. Maxwell Garnett, two men who have devoted so much of their lives to the cause of international understanding ; and behind us were ranged the flags of the United Nations, attached to ash-poles, and grasped in the stout hands of some fifty-one girl guides. The audience which on that damp afternoon entered the town hall was not, I regret to say, a very numerous audience ; in numbers it scarcely exceeded those devotees who were grouped upon the platform ; and in age, I was distressed to observe, it was representative, not of those young generations who will have to face the atomic age, but of those elderly people who have retained their old allegiance to the League of Nations Union. Over there, three thousand miles away, other people were gathered in a hall upon Flushing Meadow ; above the platform sprawled a vast map of the world as seen from the moon ; there was Mr. Molotov and Mr. Vyshinsky and Mr. Trygve Lie and Mr. Noel Baker. I was aware of a certain contrast in reality between Flushing Meadow and Oxford Town Hall ; a momentary wave of hopelessness, born perhaps of ten arduous weeks in Paris, surged down upon me. For the men and women into whose faces I looked were decent men and women, having gentle thoughts, hating violence, cruelty and untruthfulness, anxious to do all that they could do to prevent a third world war. Yet what could they, and the many millions like them throughout the civilised world, hope to effect by any personal thought, feeling or action ? Over there in the Kremlin were thirteen or fourteen men who could never see and never understand the look in those decent, patient, anxious eyes. And the danger might spread slowly, like some creeping stain.
* * * * It is useless to be sentimental about this unfortunate condition or to indulge in vapid plaints. It is senseless to imagine that, in dealing with people who are possessed of dissimilar minds, one can deflect their parposes by arguments or emotions which bear no relation whatsoever to their own thoughts and feelings. A man who likes the idea of war is encouraged, rather than deterred, when assured by his rivals or adversaries that they loathe the idea of war. The only thing which will prevent a warlike man from going to war is the conviction that he will be unable to win it. Force cannot be met by blandishments ; it can only be met by strength. That is a sound axiom, but the moment one begins to apply it to policy one becomes involved in a sad chain of circumstance. For to manifest strength is to cause alarm ; and alarm also produces wars. We thus reach the tangle of thought expressed in the formula: " If I am weak, he will think he can conquer me ; if I strengthen myself he may hit me before my strength has become unconquerable." How inevitable it is that men and women throughout the world should flinch away from this truly horrible alternative and should seek to find for themselves solaces and evasions which appear more easily attainable. We know the type of person who argues that the "people" in every country detest war, and that if only "people " could speak to " people " no wars would arise. That is to beg the question ; the central problem is that " the people" cannot address " the" people " ; and that their feelings and thoughts have no effect whatsoever upon men like Hitler or upon the thirteen inquisitors of the Politburo. I am certain that the Kremlin has no more desire to provoke war than any one of those admirable people who gathered on Saturday in Oxford Town Hall ; but, on the other hand, the Kremlin does not desire peace on the terms, or in the shape, which we understand to mean peace. And thus, although I do not really fear that in my lifetime I shall see another war, I also do not believe that in my lifetime I shall see a stable state of peace.
It is this realisation which has brought me, gradually and un- willingly, to support the Charter of the United Nations. I do not believe that, as a Charter, it can compare in elasticity and wisdom with the Covenant of the League of Nations. I admit that in its purely mechanical or institutional provisions it may be technically more perfected and more elaborate than the Covenant. I admit also that the Covenant, being an idealistic document, may have assumed a state of human nature which, had it been a true state, would have rendered any Covenant unnecessary. I admit all that ; but the fact remains that the Charter, in its present form—and in view of the abuse which has been made of its present form—is not a liberal document. In present circumstances it will be quite impossible to alter it, although we may hope that its misuse will be curtailed. Yet it may well become an instrument which, if used liberally, will be a liberal instrument, and which in the end may consolidate strength on the side of liberal ideas. Great sacrifices of principle were made in order to induce the Soviet Union to accept the Charter ; I agree that those sacrifices were necessary. But if those sacrifices are to be used as a wedge with which to destroy the whole spirit and purpose of the Charter, then assuredly an error has been made. I believe that those whose task it is to instruct public opinion on such matters should be outspoken in stating these difficulties.
* * * * Oxford, being very venerable, conveys the impression that it is very wise. The fact that it represents the piers of a bridge through which the stream of youth flows continuously enhances its permanent quality and perhaps enhances it unduly. But even if we are optimistic in believing that it is the home of wisdom, we are justified in seeing in it the twin qualities of adaptability and patience. These are the lessons which sink into one as one walks those wet streets. Patience we need, since it will be many years before we find a solution of this revolutionary epoch. Adaptability we need, since a failure of adjustment might at any moment provoke catastrophe and chaos. But how, on a wet afternoon, can one tell an elderly audience that they need adaptability and patience ? They do not want difficult exhortation, they want easy comfort. I found it ex- tremely difficult to address an elderly audience on the subject of United Nations' Week.
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