May 13.
Strange bedfellows testify to European adversity. Paradoxically they seem to hold out the best hope of avoiding the ultimate ci trophe, The League of Nations being forced to expound its own basic principles by the simple process of running counter to them. Logically the resolution which gave formal condemnation to Germany's defiance of the Treaty of Versailles was unavoidable. Yet it may well prove to have delivered judgment against that document. significant that it has been promptly followed by a general admission that Europe must get away from the Versailles regime if the task of peace-construction is to be fulfilled, While it will be agreed that Germany has made matters more difficult for statesmen to develop the collective system at the moment and that, unless she can be brought back to the League some form or other, the efforts of the other powers to proceed by the technique of pacts of mutual assistance will degenerate into a revival of the old power-diplomacy, there is the possibility that her action has cleared the air. Tt at least shows her plainly that, the immediate future, she is likely to be confronted bya strong combination, if to the hazardous arbitrament of the doctrine of force she again commits her fortunes. But Herr Hitler, speaking with sincerity which' can hardly be ignored, is definitely on the side of peace, This may seem tnconsistent with the whole tenor of the psychological influences at work in his Germany, but the European situation 1s brimful of paradoxes. 'M, Laval, delicately feeling his way in Warsaw and painfully blushing the enthusiasm of Franco-Soviet rapprochement, will bear witness to that.
In what sense is the Versailles regime to be thus deprecated? The answer seems to lie in -some measure of appreciation of the root cause of German objections to it, When prescribing the League as the true instrument of peace-construction, it is important to discriminate between the physical and the ethical functions of the Treaty on which the Covenant of the League was based. Revision under the machinery of the League is perfectly applicable to the territorial aspects of the Treaty. Revision of the moral attributes of the Treaty can hardly be attempted by the League which is itself precariously based upon them. The League, in fact, can be saved from extinction only if the ethical weaknesses of Versailles are recognized and repaired. Whether, by an admittedly gross violation the Treaty, Germany has done a service in opening the way to such an achievement remains to be seen. Much depends on the reality of Germany's own desire for peace and neighbour ly quietness. Much depends on the readiness of. Europe to discern the anachronism of some of the devices now being desperately adopted to salve the collective system. That system can be saved only by adapting its processes to the changed conditions which are slowly but surely as-erring themselves behind the, smoke screen of international politics. Whatever may have been the merits and justice of the physical provisions of the Versailles Treaty, there can be no doubt that that) document lacked the essential qualities of a peace treaty, because it was not the product of an equal discussion between all parties and. it' was actually enforced Germany at the bayonet's point. Tt is true that, taught by experience, the other signatories, us Sic Austen Chamberlain pointed out the other day, have gone to great lengths in mitigating errors and expunging humiliations. But those expedients have really at-forded the strongest argument for the eventual abandonment of the Treaty as a basis for League policy.
France has now formed with Soviet Russia what might be a dangerous alliance, or what should be a valuable instrument for creat ing a new European system. Russia, jas an ally in the sense of power-diplomacy, is a doubtful asset. But Russia's very weaknesses, not the east of which is the instability of the Moscow regime, are actually safeguards to peace, provided always that Germany can be as~ sured that the way to her own participation in the collective machinery of Europe is not barred by: disabilities derived from the moral defects of Versailles.
Germany herself has been un-dargoing the pains and pangs of 'a revolutionary process, the. signs of which are actually evident in every country in the world, not excepting Great Britain. In essence there is an economic upheaval which is often overlooked in the prevalent disposition to talk in terms of war or peace. The League has had its successes and its failures. It can extricate itself! from the serious consequences of the latter, only by recognizing the truism that collective security cannot be attained when its devotees are mainly exercised by a desire for individual security. This danger is acutely perceptible in the virulent economic nationalism which, in the sacred name of world-recovery, is attempting to capitalize restrictions imposed by Its own action on other equally fanatical expressions of the same creed. Concrete evidence of the need for a radical readjustment of international policies is to be found in the unprecedented magnitude of the unemployment problem the world over. Despite the talk of recovery here and recovery there, the swollen lists stand. In the long. run they will govern the actions of nations. Whether the outcome will be found in yet another cataclysm or whether the guardians of modern civilization are sufficiently elastic in their methods and broad in their vision to supply the appropriate remedies is the crux of the world's problem to-day. The chief hope rests on the overwhelming recogni tion of the utter futility of war. It may prove the determining factor in directing the actions of statesmanship.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.