This book is a reprint of broadcasts fon the causes of war given by various statesmen, economists and writers of fall hues.' They are extraordinarily interesting 3s sidelights on the views of the various authors. As.: night have been expected, the best of the articles is by Sir Norman Angell and the stupidest by Lord Beaverbrook, with the Very Rev. W. R. Inge running him a close second. Sir Norman Angel's theme is that the very method which the big Powers choose for defence is the surest means of promoting war. Each nation demands security and security means more armaments than your neighbour and, as has been said ad nauseam, until one must believe that mast modern politicians have been inoculated against the meaning of the words, this produces armaments races, which in turn produce war.
Each great state says to its rival:
It ts true that perhaps we are building up our power so. as to be stronger than you, but we give you ur most positive assurance that the Durpose of that power is purely and Strictly' defensive. "That ie to" When we get into a dispute with yo to what your rights are and ours, When, In fact, the question is whether You are Fighi or we are right, What we mean by defence is that we shall be ina position to decide that. ques tion." Could anything be fairer?
He demonstrates with unanswerable Jogic that the only possible security in Europe to-day is the security given by collective pacts. The aggressor is the nation which refuses arbitration in a dispute, and he, by that fact, becomes the' common enemy; then, through some international channel such as the League of Nations, economic sanctions are applied, and it would be a very foolhardy government indeed which would plunge its country into war against such odds.
Lord Beaverbrook preaches splendid isolation and his arguments are as unconvincing and short-sighted as ever. He seems to think that Locarno will drag us surely into any European war that is going and disregards the fact that in 1914 we had no formal commitments of any sort and thatthe fact that Germany was not at all sure that we would come into the war iwas one of the deciding factors of fuer aggression. It is fantastic to think that Britain could isolate herself from any European war of any size; in fact far-sighted people in. the United States itself are wondering how much of a defence their oceanic [boundaries and continental. position would be in the case of another world conflagration. How then can the English Channel avail us?
Mr. G, D. H. Cole writes persuasively on the economic causes of war, and yet Mr. Aldous Huxley's psychological thesis must also be taken into account here. If the merchants and industrialists of a nation wer really reasonable they would bitterly opposed to war because it is ound fo lose them money in the end. We fight to a great extent because far satisfies some deep-seated and so far uneradicated savage impulse in and what makes it so disastrous is that "we combine the moral standards of a dog-fight with the Sclentitle knowledge of demi-gods. Most of us thoroughly enjoy a good hate end war provides abundant {00d for the emotion, It is a significant fact that during war-time the suicide rate drops thirly per cent, Sir Austen Chamberlain also beeves in collective security, though hig article is occasionally marred by touches of sentimentality and The recent Peace Ballot held in England has shown what the majority of the electors feel about peace prob-Jems. They are firm in their support of the League, collective security, and the applying of economic sanctions, After reading this book they will know, as the Americans say, "which side to root for."—Naoys.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.