Some Books of the Week No harm will be done—indeed,
a great deal of good should result—by a reminder that the new movements in the direc- tions of peace and international co-operation have not yet succeeded in changing the historic preparations for war. That Next War by Major K. A. Bratt (Allen and Unwin, 10s. fid.) to which Mr. Wickham Steed contributes a foreword, is the work of a man whose steadfast purpose is to apply his training as a strategist to the task of preserving civilization from that "reaction towards war" which must spell its doom. The principal argument of this book is that, while peace itself is a positive conception dependent on psychological shifts that have not yet widely taken place, the world cannot afford to wait and must first safeguard the regime of" non-war." Only by political and economic action can the necessary substitute for war, for which William James pleaded, be found. The investment of capital in chemical armaments is only one of many signs that that substitute has not yet been found. While roundly condemning French official policy, the author rallies to the Latin and mechanistic conception of an inter- national army, navy, and air force. Only through this, he suggests, will the necessary power for peace be generated ; the lever he would find in the working classes of Western Europe in league with peace-capital, i.e., those capitalists whose efforts directly or indirectly are not making for war.
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