Britannica with the latest horrors in the munition-maker's armoury, The principle 1s sound: to use Mr. Eden's words: ful intentions are not necessarily hypocritical. Perhaps, unreasonable as it sounds, the discussion of peace-construction can be better, The more complete the membership of the collective peace system and the more unchallengeable its authority, the less dimeult wil! become the problem of the reduction and limitation of armaments.
'The membership Is far from complete—the United States of America, Germany, Japan are outside. Italy'
recalcitrant. Other members are half-hearted. Unreason may mark the world's continued reliance on fore, but folly alone would induce any nation to abandon resort to force, "when the rest of its contemporaries are developing their physical strength with unremitting intensity, Reason—to say nothing of deceney—does not call on a man "wallow naked in December snow" or to be nudist in the midst "f a fully-clothed assemblage. Great Britain claims that her experiences of the last year have brought vividly to notice the danger of supporting the collective system without pos sessing adequate means of self-defence. That Is the keynote of the Whit Paper's argument. Tt cannot bbe readily combatted.
The White Paper does not flatter the opponents of the collective idea. It rather indicates the British Government's determination to pursue that policy, but to preserve the necessary weight of authority in so] doing. Implicitly it exposes the cause of the League's failure completely to establish the Influence of the Covenant.. In private life the gradual withdrawal of the individual's right of self-defence in favour of the community as a whole pursued when the participants are satisfied of their own security, The League's experience confirms the view that the armed aggressor ignores the inhibitions of the Covenant because of the conviction that the state of grace imposed on more faithful members of the League carries with it an inability to check aggression, Unless the League can enforce the principle that aggression cannot be profitable, its authority is brought to naught, and {2, in fact, a danger to itself.
British policy, as outlined in the White Paper, can be effective only if the Government, supported by public opinion, takes steps fearlessly to maintain its peace-construction programme. To that end it is necessary to curb two conflicting activities. The extremists who pour scorn on any effort to work for the eventual abolition of war as an instrument of national. policy fare just as much enemies of security as the wilder type of Pacifist, Pacifism as a doctrine is not inconsistent with the White Paper, but the approach to intern tional solution of the peace problem. must be essayed with full regard for the vital essentials of national te-fence. In the long run the principle of international policing may be accepted. It should not be overlooked but it has no possible chance of eventual adoption it present security
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.