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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Washington and the Riddle of Peace, by 
+H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+Title: Washington and the Riddle of Peace
+
+Author: H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
+
+Release Date: February 12, 2019 [EBook #58877]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WASHINGTON AND THE RIDDLE OF PEACE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                   Washington and the Riddle of Peace
+
+
+                                   BY
+                              H. G. WELLS
+
+                               =New York=
+                         THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
+                                  1922
+                         _All rights reserved_
+
+
+
+
+                            Copyright, 1921,
+                    BY THE PRESS PUBLISHING COMPANY
+                                  AND
+                          THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE.
+
+
+                            Copyright, 1922,
+                            BY H. G. WELLS.
+
+
+           Set up and electrotyped. Published January, 1922.
+
+
+                Printed in the United States of America
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                              INTRODUCTION
+
+
+These twenty-nine papers do not profess to be a record or description of
+the Washington Conference. They give merely the impressions and
+fluctuating ideas of one visitor to that conference. They show the
+reaction of that gathering upon a mind keenly set upon the idea of an
+organized world peace; they record phases of enthusiasm, hope, doubt,
+depression and irritation. They have scarcely been touched, except to
+correct a word or a phrase here or there; they are dated; in all
+essentials they are the articles just as they appeared in the _New York
+World_, the _Chicago Tribune_, and the other American and European
+papers which first gave them publicity. It is due to the enterprise and
+driving energy of the _New York World_, be it noted, that they were ever
+written at all. But in spite of the daily change and renewal of mood and
+attitude, inevitable under the circumstances, they do tell a consecutive
+story; they tell of the growth and elaboration of a conviction of how
+things can be done, and of how they need to be done, if our civilization
+is indeed to be rescued from the dangers that encompass it and set again
+upon the path of progress. They record—and in a very friendly and
+appreciative spirit—the birth and unfolding of the “Association of
+Nations” idea, the Harding idea, of world pacification, they note some
+of the peculiar circumstances of that birth, and they study the chief
+difficulties on its way to realization. It is, the writer believes, the
+most practical and hopeful method of attacking this riddle of the Sphinx
+that has hitherto been proposed.
+
+                                                            H. G. WELLS.
+
+
+
+
+                                CONTENTS
+
+
+        INTRODUCTION
+
+      I THE IMMENSITY OF THE ISSUE AND THE TRIVIALITY OF MEN
+
+     II ARMAMENTS THE FUTILITY OF MERE LIMITATION
+
+    III THE TRAIL OF VERSAILLES TWO GREAT POWERS ARE SILENT AND ABSENT
+
+     IV THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER OF THE GREAT WAR
+
+      V THE PRESIDENT AT ARLINGTON
+
+     VI THE FIRST MEETING
+
+    VII WHAT IS JAPAN?
+
+   VIII CHINA IN THE BACKGROUND
+
+     IX THE FUTURE OF JAPAN
+
+      X “SECURITY”—THE NEW AND BEAUTIFUL CATCHWORD
+
+     XI FRANCE IN THE LIMELIGHT
+
+    XII THUS FAR
+
+   XIII THE LARGER QUESTION BEHIND THE CONFERENCE
+
+    XIV THE REAL THREAT TO CIVILIZATION
+
+     XV THE POSSIBLE BREAKDOWN OF CIVILIZATION
+
+    XVI WHAT OF AMERICA?
+
+   XVII EBB TIDE AT WASHINGTON
+
+  XVIII AMERICA AND ENTANGLING ALLIANCES
+
+    XIX AN ASSOCIATION OF NATIONS
+
+     XX FRANCE AND ENGLAND—THE PLAIN FACTS OF THE CASE
+
+    XXI A REMINDER ABOUT WAR
+
+   XXII SOME STIFLED VOICES
+
+  XXIII INDIA, THE BRITISH EMPIRE AND THE ASSOCIATION OF NATIONS
+
+   XXIV THE OTHER END OF PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE—THE SIEVE FOR GOOD
+          INTENTIONS
+
+    XXV AFRICA AND THE ASSOCIATION OF NATIONS
+
+   XXVI THE FOURTH PLENARY SESSION
+
+  XXVII ABOUT THE WAR DEBTS
+
+ XXVIII THE FOUNDATION STONE AND THE BUILDING
+
+   XXIX WHAT A STABLY ORGANIZED WORLD PEACE MEANS FOR MANKIND
+
+
+
+
+                                   I
+          THE IMMENSITY OF THE ISSUE AND THE TRIVIALITY OF MEN
+
+
+                                                     Washington, Nov. 7.
+
+The conference nominally for the limitation of armaments that now
+gathers at Washington may become a cardinal event in the history of
+mankind. It may mark a turning point in human affairs or it may go on
+record as one of the last failures to stave off the disasters and
+destruction that gather about our race.
+
+In August, 1914, an age of insecure progress and accumulation came to an
+end. When at last, on the most momentous summer night in history, the
+long preparations of militarism burst their bounds and the little
+Belgian village Vise went up in flames, men said: “This is a
+catastrophe.” But they found it hard to anticipate the nature of the
+catastrophe. They thought for the most part of the wounds and killing
+and burning of war and imagined that when at last the war was over we
+should count our losses and go on again much as we did before 1914.
+
+As well might a little shopkeeper murder his wife in the night and
+expect to carry on “business as usual” in the morning. “Business as
+usual”—that was the catchword in Britain in 1914; of all the catchwords
+of the world it carries now the heaviest charge of irony.
+
+The catastrophe of 1914 is still going on. It does not end; it increases
+and spreads. This winter more people will suffer dreadful things and
+more people will die untimely through the clash of 1914 than suffered
+and died in the first year of the war. It is true that the social
+collapse of Russia in 1917 and the exhaustion of food and munitions in
+Central Europe in 1918 produced a sort of degradation and enfeeblement
+of the combatant efforts of our race and that a futile conference at
+Versailles settled nothing, with an air of settling everything, but that
+was no more an end to disaster than it would be if a man who was
+standing up and receiving horrible wounds were to fall down and writhe
+and bleed in the dust. It would be merely a new phase of disaster. Since
+1919 this world has not so much healed its wounds as realized its
+injuries.
+
+Chief among these injuries is the progressive economic breakdown, the
+magnitude of which we are only beginning to apprehend. The breakdown is
+a real decay that spreads and spreads. In a time of universal shortage
+there is an increasing paralysis in production; and there is a paralysis
+of production because the monetary system of the world, which was
+sustained by the honest co-operation of Governments, is breaking down.
+The fluctuations in the real value of money become greater and greater
+and they shake and shatter the entire fabric of social co-operation.
+
+Our civilization is, materially, a cash and credit system, dependent on
+men’s confidence in the value of money. But now money fails us and
+cheats us; we work for wages and they give us uncertain paper. No one
+now dare make contracts ahead; no one can fix up a stable wages
+agreement; no one knows what one hundred dollars or francs or pounds
+will mean in two years’ time.
+
+What is the good of saving? What is the good of foresight? Business and
+employment become impossible. Unless money can be steadied and restored,
+our economic and social life will go on disintegrating, and it can be
+restored only by a world effort.
+
+But such a world effort to restore business and prosperity is _only
+possible between governments sincerely at peace_, and because of the
+failure of Versailles there is no such sincere peace. Everywhere the
+Governments, and notably Japan and France, arm. Amidst the steady
+disintegration of the present system of things, they prepare for fresh
+wars, wars that can have only one end—an extension of the famine and
+social collapse that have already engulfed Russia to the rest of the
+world.
+
+In Russia, in Austria, in many parts of Germany, this social decay is
+visible in actual ruins, in broken down railways and suchlike machinery
+falling out of use. But even in Western Europe, in France and England,
+there is a shabbiness, there is a decline visible to any one with a keen
+memory.
+
+The other day my friend Mr. Charlie Chaplin brought his keen observant
+eyes back to London, after an absence of ten years.
+
+“People are not laughing and careless here as they used to be,” he told
+me. “It isn’t the London I remember. They are anxious. Something hangs
+over them.”
+
+Coming as I do from Europe to America, I am amazed at the apparent
+buoyancy and abundance of New York. The place seems to possess an
+inexhaustible vitality. But this towering, thundering, congested city,
+with such a torrent of traffic and such a concourse of people as I have
+never seen before, is, after all, the European door of America; it draws
+this superabundant and astounding life from trade, from a trade whose
+roots are dying.
+
+When one looks at New York its assurance is amazing; when one reflects
+we realize its tremendous peril. It is going on—as London is going on—by
+accumulated inertia. With the possible exception of London, the position
+of New York seems to me the most perilous of that of any city in the
+world. What is to happen to this immense crowd of people if the trade
+that feeds it ebbs? As assuredly it will ebb unless the decline of
+European money and business can be arrested, unless, that is, the world
+problem of trade and credit can be grappled with as a world affair.
+
+The world’s economic life, its civilization, embodied in its great
+towns, is disintegrating and collapsing through the strains of the
+modern war threat and of the disunited control of modern affairs.
+
+This in general terms is the situation of mankind today; this is the
+situation, the tremendous and crucial situation, that President Harding,
+the head and spokesman of what is now the most powerful and influential
+state in the world, has called representatives from most of the states
+in the world to Washington to discuss.
+
+Whatever little modifications and limitations the small cunning of
+diplomatists may impose upon the terms of reference of the conference,
+the plain common sense of mankind will insist that its essential inquiry
+is, “What are we to do, if anything can possibly be done, to arrest and
+reverse the slide toward continuing war preparation and war and final
+social collapse?” And you would imagine that this momentous conference
+would gather in a mood of exalted responsibility, with every conceivable
+help and every conceivable preparation to grasp the enormous issues
+involved.
+
+Let us dismiss any such delusion from our minds.
+
+Let us face a reality too often ignored in the dignified discussion of
+such business as this Washington Conference, and that is this: that the
+human mind takes hold of such very big questions as the common peace of
+the earth and the general security of mankind with very great reluctance
+and that it leaves go with extreme alacrity.
+
+We are all naturally trivial creatures. We do not live from year to
+year; we live from day to day. Our minds naturally take short views and
+are distracted by little, immediate issues. We forget with astonishing
+facility. And this is as true of the high political persons who will
+gather at Washington as it is of any overworked clerk who will read
+about the conference in a street car or on the way home to supper and
+bed. These big questions affect everybody, and also they are too big for
+anybody. A great intellectual and moral effect is required if they are
+to be dealt with in any effectual manner.
+
+I find the best illustration of this incurable drift toward triviality
+in myself. In the world of science the microscope helps the telescope
+and the infinitely little illuminates the infinitely great.
+
+Let me put myself under the lens: Exhibit 1—If any one has reason to
+focus the whole of his mental being upon this Washington Conference it
+is I. It is my job to attend to it and to think of it and of nothing
+else. Whatever I write about it, wise or foolish, will be conspicuously
+published in a great number of newspapers and will do much to make or
+mar my reputation. Intellectually, I am convinced of the supreme
+possibilities of the occasion. It may make or mar mankind. The smallest
+and the greatest of motives march together; therefore my self-love and
+my care for mankind. And the occasion touches all my future happiness.
+
+If this downward drift toward disorder and war is not arrested, in a few
+years’ time it will certainly catch my sons and probably mutilate or
+kill them; and my wife and I, instead of spending our declining years in
+comfort, will be involved in the general wretchedness and possibly
+perish in some quite miserable fashion, as thousands of just our sort of
+family have already perished in Austria and Russia. This is indeed the
+outlook for most of us if these efforts to secure permanent peace which
+are now being concentrated at Washington fail.
+
+Here surely are reasons enough, from the most generous to the most
+selfish, for putting my whole being, with the utmost concentration, into
+this business. You might imagine I think nothing but conference, do
+nothing but work upon the conference.
+
+Well, I find I don’t.
+
+Before such evils as now advance upon humanity, man’s imagination seems
+scarcely more adequate than that of the park deer I have seen feeding
+contentedly beside the body of a shot companion.
+
+I am, when I recall my behavior in the last few weeks, astonished at my
+own levity. I have been immensely interested by the voyage across the
+Atlantic; I have been tremendously amused by the dissertations of a
+number of fellow-travellers upon the little affair of Prohibition; I
+have been looking up old friends and comparing the New York City of
+today with the New York City of fifteen years ago. I spent an afternoon
+loitering along Fifth Avenue, childishly pleased by the shops and the
+crowd, I find myself tempted to evade luncheon where I shall hear a
+serious discussion of the Pacific question, because I want to explore
+the mysteries of a chop suey without outside assistance.
+
+Yet no one knows better than I do that this very attractive,
+glitteringly attractive, thundering, towering city is in the utmost
+danger. Within a very few years the same chill wind of economic disaster
+that has wrecked Petersburg and brought death to Vienna and Warsaw may
+be rusting and tarnishing all this glistening, bristling vitality. In a
+little while, within my lifetime, New York City may stand even more
+gaunt, ruinous, empty and haunted than that stricken and terrible ruin,
+Petersburg.
+
+My mind was inadequate against the confident reality of a warm October
+afternoon, against bright clothes and endless automobiles, against the
+universal suggestion that everything would shine on forever. And my mind
+is something worse than thus inadequate; I find it is deliberately
+evasive. It tries to run away from the task I have set it. I find my
+mind, at the slightest pretext, slipping off from this difficult tangle
+of problems through which the Washington Conference has to make its way.
+
+For instance, I have got it into my head that I shall owe it to myself
+to take a holiday after the conference, and two beautiful words have
+taken possession of my mind—Florida and the Everglades. A vision of
+exploration amidst these wonderful sun-soaked swamps haunts me. I
+consult a guide book for information about Washington and the procedure
+of Congress, and I discover myself reading about Miami or Indian River.
+
+So it is we are made. A good half of those who read this and who have
+been pulling themselves together to think about the hard tasks and heavy
+dangers of international affairs will brighten up at this mention of a
+holiday in the Everglades—either because they have been there or because
+they would like to go. They will want to offer experiences and
+suggestions and recommend hotels and guides.
+
+And apart from this triviality of the attention, this pathetic
+disposition to get as directly as possible to the nearest agreeable
+thoughts which I am certain every statesman and politician at the
+conference shares in some measure with the reader and myself, we are
+also encumbered, every one of us, with prejudices and prepossessions.
+
+There is patriotism—the passion that makes us see human affairs as a
+competitive game instead of a common interest; a game in which “our
+side,” by fair means or foul, has to get the better—inordinately—of the
+rest of mankind. For my own part, though I care very little for the
+British Empire, which I think a temporary, patched-up thing, I have a
+passionate pride in being of the breed that produced such men as
+Shakespeare, Milton, Bacon, Cromwell, Newton, Washington, Darwin, Nelson
+and Lincoln. And I love the peculiar humor and kindly temper of an
+English crowd and the soft beauty of an English countryside with a
+strong, possessive passion.
+
+I find it hard to think that other peoples matter quite as much as the
+English. I want to serve the English and to justify the English.
+Intellectually I know better, but no man’s intelligence is continually
+dominant; fatigue him or surprise him, and habits and emotions take
+control. And not only that I have this bias which will always tend to
+make me run crooked in favor of my own people, but also I come to
+Washington with deep, irrational hostilities.
+
+For example: Political events have exasperated me with the present
+Polish Government. It is an unhappy thing that Poland should rise from
+being the unwilling slave of German and Russian reaction to become the
+willing tool of French reaction. But that is no reason why one should
+drift into a dislike of Poland and all things Polish, and because Poland
+is so ill-advised as to grab more than she is entitled to, that one
+should be disposed to give her less than she is entitled to. Yet I do
+find a drift in that direction.
+
+And prejudice soon breaks away into downright quarrelsomeness. It is
+amusing or distressing, as you will, to find how easily I, as a
+professional peacemaker, can be tempted into a belligerent attitude. “Of
+course,” I say, ruffled by some argument, “if Japan chooses to be
+unreasonable”—
+
+I make no apologies for this autobiographical tone. It is easier and
+less contentious to dissect one’s self than to set to work on any one
+else for anatomical ends. This is Exhibit No. 1. We are all like this.
+There are no demigods or supermen in our world superior to such
+trivialities, limitations, prejudices and patriotisms. We have all got
+them, as we have all got livers.
+
+Every soul that gathers in Washington will have something of that
+disposition to get away to the immediately pleasant, will be disposed to
+take a personal advantage, will have a bias for race and country, will
+have imperfectly suppressed racial and national animosities, will be
+mentally hurried and crowded. That mental hurrying and crowding has to
+be insisted upon.
+
+This will be a great time for Washington, no doubt, to have a very gay
+and exciting time. It becomes the focus of the world’s affairs. All
+sorts of interesting people are heading for Washington, bright-eyed and
+expectant. There will be lunches, dinners, receptions and such like
+social occasions in great abundance, dramatic, and encounters,
+flirtations, scandals, jealousies and quarrels. Quiet thought,
+reconsideration—will Washington afford any hole or cover for such
+things? A most distracting time it will be and it will be
+extraordinarily difficult to keep its real significance in mind.
+
+So let us repeat here its real significance.
+
+The great war has struck a blow at the very foundations of our
+civilization; it has shattered the monetary system which is the medium
+of all our economic life. A rotting down of civilization is spreading
+now very rapidly and nothing is being done to arrest it. Production
+stagnates and dwindles. This can only be restored by the frank
+collective action of the chief powers of the world.
+
+At present the chief powers of the world show no signs of the collective
+action demanded. They are still obsessed by old-fashioned ideas of
+national sovereignty and national competition, and though all verge on
+bankruptcy, they maintain and develop fresh armies and fleets. That is
+to say, they are in the preparatory stage of another war. So long as
+this divided and threatening state of affairs continues there can be no
+stability, no real general recovery; shortages will increase, famine
+will spread; towns, cities, communications will decay; increasing masses
+of starving unemployed will resort to more and more desperate and
+violent protests, until they assume a quasi-revolutionary character.
+Education will ebb, and social security dwindle and fade into anarchy.
+Civilization as we know it will go under and a new Dark Age begin.
+
+And this fate is not threatening civilization; it is happening to
+civilization before our eyes. The ship of civilization is not going to
+sink in five years’ time or in fifty years’ time. It is sinking now.
+Russia is under the water line; she has ceased to produce, she starves;
+large areas of Eastern Europe and Asia sink toward the same level; the
+industrial areas of Germany face a parallel grim decline; the winter
+will be the worst on record for British labor. The pulse of American
+business weakens.
+
+To face which situation in the world’s affairs, this crowd of hastily
+compiled representatives, and their associates, dependents and
+satellites, now gathers at Washington. They are all, from President
+Harding down to the rawest stenographer girl, human beings. That is to
+say, they are all inattentive, moody, trivial, selfish, evasive,
+patriotic, prejudiced creatures, unable to be intelligently selfish
+even, for more than a year or so ahead, after the nature of our Exhibit
+No. 1.
+
+Every one has some sort of blinding personal interest to distort the
+realities that he has to face. Politicians have to think of their
+personal prestige and their party associations; naval and military
+experts have to think of their careers.
+
+One may argue it is as good a gathering as our present circumstances
+permit. Probably there is some good will for all mankind in every one
+who comes. Probably not one is altogether blind to the tremendous
+disaster that towers over us, but all are forgetful.
+
+And yet this Washington Conference may prove to be the nearest approach
+the human will and intelligence has yet made to a resolute grapple
+against fate upon this planet. We cannot make ourselves wiser than we
+are, but in this phase of universal danger we can at least school
+ourselves to the resolve to be charitable and frank with one another to
+the best of our ability, to be forgiving debtors, willing to retreat
+from hasty and impossible assumptions, seeking patience in hearing and
+generosity in action. High aims and personal humility may yet save
+mankind.
+
+
+
+
+                                   II
+                               ARMAMENTS
+                    THE FUTILITY OF MERE LIMITATION
+
+
+                                                     Washington, Nov. 8.
+
+It would seem that the peculiar circumstances of its meeting demand that
+the Washington Conference should begin with a foregone futility, the
+discussion of the limitation of armaments and of the restrictions of
+warfare in certain directions, while nations are still to remain
+sovereign and free to make war and while there exists no final and
+conclusive court of decision for international disputes except warfare.
+
+A number of people do really seem to believe that we can go on with all
+the various states of the earth still as sovereign and independent of
+each other as wild beasts in a jungle, with no common rule and no common
+law, and yet that we can contrive it that they will agree to make war
+only in a mild and mitigated fashion, after due notice and according to
+an approved set of regulations. Such ideas are quite seriously
+entertained and they are futile and dangerous ideas. A committee of the
+London League of Nations Union, for example, has been debating with the
+utmost gravity whether the use of poison gas and the sinking of neutral
+ships to enforce a blockade should be permitted and whether “all modern
+developments” in warfare should not be abolished. “The feasibility of
+preventing secret preparations and the advantages of surprise were also
+considered.” It is as if warfare was a game.
+
+It is a little difficult to reason respectfully against that sort of
+project. One is moved rather to add helpful suggestions in the same
+vein. As for example, that no hostilities shall be allowed to begin or
+continue except in the presence of a League of Nations referee, who
+shall be marked plainly on the chest and pants with the red cross of
+Geneva and who—for the convenience of aircraft—shall carry an open
+sunshade similarly adorned. He shall be furnished with a powerful
+whistle or hand trumpet audible above the noise of modern artillery, and
+military operations shall be at once arrested when this whistle is
+blown. Contravention of the rules laid down by the League of Nations
+shall be penalized according to the gravity of the offense, with
+penalties ranging from, let us say, an hour’s free bombardment of the
+offender’s position to the entire forces of the enemy being addressed
+very severely by the referee and ordered off the field.
+
+In the event of either combatant winning the war, outright by
+illegitimate means, it might further be provided that such combatant
+should submit to a humiliating peace, just as if the war had been lost.
+
+Unhappily war is not a game but the grimmest of realities, and no power
+on earth exists to prevent a nation which is fighting for existence
+against another nation from resorting to any expedient however unfair,
+cruel and barbarous to enforce victory or avert disaster. Success
+justifies every expedient in warfare, and you cannot prevent that being
+so. A nation, hoping to win and afterward make friends with its enemy or
+solicitous for the approval of some powerful neutral, may conceivably
+refrain from effective but objectionable expedients, but that is a
+voluntary and strategic restraint. The fact remains that war is an
+ultimate and illimitable thing; a war that can be controlled is a war
+that could have been stopped or prevented. If our race can really bar
+the use of poison gas it can bar the use of any kind of weapon. It is
+indeed easier to enforce peace altogether than any lesser limitation of
+war.
+
+But it is argued that this much may be true nevertheless, that if the
+nations of the world will agree beforehand not to prepare for particular
+sorts of war or if they will agree to reduce their military and naval
+equipment to a minimum, that this will operate powerfully in preventing
+contraventions and in a phase of popular excitement arresting the rush
+toward war. The only objection to this admirable proposal is that no
+power which has desires or rights that can only be satisfied or
+defended, so far as it knows, by war, will ever enter into such a
+disarmament agreement in good faith.
+
+Of course countries contemplating war and having no serious intention of
+disarming effectually will enter quite readily into conferences upon
+disarmament, but they will do so partly because of the excellent
+propaganda value of such a participation and mainly because of the
+chance it gives them of some restriction which will hamper a possible
+antagonist much more than it will hamper themselves. For instance, Japan
+would probably be very pleased to reduce her military expenditure to
+quite small figures if the United States reduced theirs to the same
+amount, because the cost per head of maintaining soldiers under arms is
+much less in Japan than in America; and she would be still more ready to
+restrict naval armament to ships with a radius of action of 2,000 miles
+or less because that would give her a free hand with China and the
+Philippines. That sort of haggling was going on between Britain and
+Germany at The Hague at intervals before the great war. Neither party
+believed in the peaceful intentions of the other nor regarded these
+negotiations as anything but strategic moves. And as things were in
+Europe it was difficult to regard them in any other way.
+
+No, the limitation of armaments quite as much as the mitigation of
+warfare is impossible until war has been made impossible, and then the
+complete extinction of armaments follows without discussion; and war can
+only be made impossible when the powers of the world have done what the
+thirteen original States of American Union found they had to do after
+their independence was won, and that is set up a common law and rule
+over themselves. Such a project is a monstrously difficult one no doubt,
+and it flies in the face of great masses of patriotic cant and of
+natural prejudices and natural suspicion, but it is a thing that can be
+done. It is the only thing that can be done to avert the destruction of
+civilization through war and war preparation. Disarmament and the
+limitation of warfare without such a merging of sovereignty look, at the
+first glance, easier and more modest proposals, but they suffer from the
+fatal defect of absolute impracticability. They are things that cannot
+be made working realities. A world that could effectually disarm would
+be a world already at one, and disarmament would be of no importance
+whatever. Given stable international relations, the world would put
+aside its armaments as naturally as a man takes off his coat in winter
+on entering a warm house.
+
+And as a previous article has pointed out, wars, preparations for war
+and the threat of war are only the more striking aspect of human
+disunion at the present time. The smashing up of the world’s currency
+system and the progressive paralysis of industry that follows on that is
+a much more immediate disaster. That is rushing upon us. This war talk
+between Japan and America may end as abruptly as the snarling of two
+dogs overtaken by a flood. There may not be another great war after all,
+because both in Japan and America social disruption may come first. Upon
+financial and economic questions the powers of the earth must get
+together very quickly now or perish; the signs get more imperative every
+day; and if they get together upon these common issues, then they will
+have little reason or excuse for not taking up the merely international
+issues at the same time.
+
+There is a curious exaggeration of respect for patriotism and patriotic
+excesses in all these projects for disarmament and the mitigation of
+warfare. We have to “consider patriotic susceptibilities”; that is the
+stereotyped formula of objection to the plain necessity of overriding
+the present barbaric sovereignty of separate states by a world rule and
+a world law protecting the common interests of the common people of the
+world. In practice these “patriotic susceptibilities”; will often be
+found to resolve themselves into nothing more formidable than the
+conceit and self-importance of some foreign office official. In general
+they are little more than a snarling suspiciousness of foreign people.
+Most people are patriotically excitable, it is in our human nature, but
+that no more excuses this excessive deference to patriotism than it
+would excuse a complete tolerance of boozing and of filthy vices and
+drunken and lustful outrages because we are all more or less susceptible
+to thirst and desire. And while there is all this deference for the most
+ramshackle and impromptu of nationalisms there is a complete disregard
+of the influence and of the respect due to one of the greatest and most
+concentrated interests of our modern world, the finance, the science,
+the experts, the labor, often very specialized and highly skilled, of
+the armament and munitions and associated trades and industries.
+
+So far as I can ascertain, the advocates of what I may call mere
+disarmament propose to scrap this mass of interests more or less
+completely, to put its tremendous array of factories, arsenals,
+dockyards and so forth out of action, to obliterate its wide-reaching
+net of financial relationships, to break up its carefully gathered
+staffs, and to pour all its labor, its trained engineers and sailors and
+gunners and so forth into the great flood of unemployment into which our
+civilization is already sinking. And they do not seem to grasp how
+subtle, various and effective the resistance of this great complex of
+capable human beings to any such treatment is likely to be. In my supply
+of League of Nations literature I find only two intimations of this real
+obstacle to the world common weal. One is a suggestion that there should
+be no private enterprise in the production of war material at all, and
+the other that armament concerns shall not own newspapers. As a
+Socialist I am charmed by the former proposal, which would in effect
+nationalize, among others, the iron and steel and chemical industries,
+but as a practical man I have to confess that the organization of no
+existing state is yet at the level of efficiency necessary if the
+transfer is to be a hopeful one, and so far as the newspaper restriction
+goes, it would surely pass the wit of man to devise rules that would
+prevent a great banking combination from controlling armament firms on
+the one hand while it financed newspapers on the other.
+
+Yet the fact remains that this great complex of interests, round and
+about the armaments interest, is the most real of all the oppositions to
+a world federation. It supplies substance, direction and immediate
+rewards to the frothy emotions of patriotism; it rules by dividing us
+and it realizes that its existence in its present form is conditional
+upon the continuance of our suspicions and divisions. It does not
+positively want or seek war, but it wants a continuing expectation of
+and preparation for war. On the other hand its ruling intelligences must
+be coming to understand that in the end it cannot escape sharing in the
+economic and social smash down to which we are all now sliding so
+rapidly. It is too high a type of organization to be altogether blind
+and obdurate. It will not, of course, be represented officially at
+Washington for what it is, but in the form of pseudo-patriotic, naval,
+military and financial experts it will be better represented than any
+other side of human nature. One of the most interesting things to do at
+the conference will be to watch its activities.
+
+How much can we common men ask for and hope for from this great power?
+Self extinction is too much—even if it were desirable. But it is
+reasonable to demand a deflection of its activities to meet the urgent
+needs of our present dangers. We do not want the extinction of this
+great body of business, metallurgical, chemical, engineering and
+disciplined activities, but we do want its rapid diversion from all too
+easily attained destructive ends to creative purposes now. A world peace
+scheme that does not open out an immediate prospect for the release of
+financial and engineering energy upon world-wide undertakings is a
+hopeless peace scheme. Enterprise must out. Were this world one
+federated state concerned about our common welfare there would be no
+overwhelming difficulty in canalizing all this force now spent upon
+armament in the direction of improved transport and communications
+generally into the making of great bridges, tunnels and the like, into
+the rebuilding of our cities upon better lines, into the irrigation and
+fertilization of the earth’s deserts and so forth. The way to world
+peace lies not in fighting and destroying the armament interests but in
+turning them to world service.
+
+But to do such a thing requires a united financial and economic effort;
+it cannot be done nationally by little groups of patriots all scheming
+against one another. It must be big business for world interests,
+unencumbered by national frontiers, or it is impossible.
+
+All these considerations you see converge on the conclusion that there
+is no solution of the problem of war, no possibility of a world
+recovery, no possibility of arresting the rapid disintegration of our
+civilization, except a Pax Mundi, a federated world control,
+sufficiently authoritative to keep any single nation in order and
+sufficiently coherent to express a world idea. We need an effective
+world “Association of Nations,” to use President Harding’s phrase, or we
+shall perish. And even in this fantastic dream of Mere Disarmament, of a
+world of little independent states, all sovereign, all competing against
+each other and all carrying on a mean financial and commercial warfare
+against each other to the common impoverishment, all standing in the way
+of any large modern-spirited handling of modern needs, yet all remaining
+magically disarmed and never making actual war on each other—even if
+this dream were possible, it is still utterly detestable—more detestable
+even than our present dangers and miseries. For if there are any things
+in life worse than pain, fear and destruction, they are boredom,
+pettiness and inanity, and such would be the quality of such a world.
+However much the diplomatists at Washington may seek to ignore the fact,
+may fence their discussion within narrowly phrased agenda, and rule
+this, that and the other vital aspect outside the scope of the
+conference, the fact remains that there is no way out, no way of escape
+for mankind from the monstrous miseries and far more monstrous dangers
+of the present time except an organized international co-operation,
+based upon a frank and bold resolve to turn men’s minds from ancient
+jealousies and animosities to the common aims and the common future of
+our race.
+
+If the Washington Conference cannot rise to the level of that idea, then
+it were better that the Conference never gathered together.
+
+
+
+
+                                  III
+                        THE TRAIL OF VERSAILLES
+                 TWO GREAT POWERS ARE SILENT AND ABSENT
+
+
+Washington, the guide books say, was planned by Major Pierre Charles
+L’Enfant in imitation of Versailles. If so, it has broken away from his
+intentions. I know Versailles pretty well, and I have gone about
+Washington looking vainly for anything more than the remotest
+resemblance. There is something European about Washington, I admit, an
+Italianate largeness, as though a Roman design has been given oxygen and
+limitless space. It is a capital in the expanded Latin style. It has
+none of the vertical uplift of a real American city. But Versailles!
+
+Versailles was the home and embodiment of the old French Grand Monarchy
+and of a Foreign Policy that sought to dominate, Frenchify and
+“Versaillize” the world. A visit to Versailles is part of one’s world
+education, a visit to the rather faded, rather pretentious magnificence
+of its terraces, to that Hall of Mirrors, all plastered over with little
+oblongs of looking-glass, which was once considered so wonderful, to the
+stuffy, secretive royal apartments with their convenient back stairs, to
+the poor foolishness of the Queen’s toy village, the Little Trianon. A
+century and a half ago the people of France, wasted and worn by
+incessant wars of aggression, weary of a Government that was an
+intolerable burden to them and a nuisance to all Europe, went to
+Versailles in a passion and dragged French Policy out of Versailles for
+a time.
+
+Unhappily it went back there.
+
+In 1871, when Germany struck down the tawdry imperialism of Napoleon III
+(who was also for setting up Emperors in the New World) the Germans had
+the excessive bad taste to proclaim a New German Empire in the Hall of
+Mirrors. So that Versailles became more than ever the symbol of the
+age-long, dreary, pitiful quarrel of the French and Germans for the
+inheritance of “the Empire” that has gone on ever since the death of
+Charlemagne. There the glory of France had shone; there the glory of
+France had been eclipsed. I visited Versailles one autumnal day in 1912,
+and it was then a rather mouldy, disheartened, empty, picturesque show
+place, pervaded by memories of flounces, furbelows, wigs and red heels
+and also by the stronger, less pleasant flavor of that later Prussian
+triumph.
+
+It was surely the least propitious place in the whole world for the
+making of a world peace in 1919. It was inevitable that there the Rhine
+frontier should loom larger than all Asia and that the German people
+should be kept waiting outside to learn what vindictive punishment
+victorious France designed for them.
+
+The Peace of Versailles was not a settlement of the world, it was the
+crowning of the French revanche. And since Russia had always been below
+the horizon of Versailles it was as inevitable that the Russian people,
+who had saved France from utter defeat in 1914, who had given far more
+dead to the war than France and America put together, and who had
+collapsed at last, utterly exhausted by their stupendous war efforts,
+should be considered merely as the defaulting debtors of France. Their
+Government had incurred vast liabilities chiefly in preparation for this
+very war which had restored France to her former glorious ascendancy
+over Germany. And now a new, ungracious Government in Russia not only
+declared it could not pay up but refused to pretend that it had ever
+meant to perform this impossible feat. There could be no dealing with
+such a Government. The German people and the Russian people alike had no
+voice at Versailles, and the affairs of the world were settled with a
+majestic disregard of these outcast and fallen powers.
+
+They were settled so magnificently and badly that now the Washington
+Conference, whatever limitations it may propose to set upon itself, has
+in effect to review and, if it can, mend or replace that appalling
+settlement. The Washington conference has practically to revise the
+verdicts of Versailles, in a fresher air and with a wider outlook.
+
+I do not know how near future historians may come to saying that the
+Washington conference was planned in imitation of that Versailles
+conference, but it certainly does start out with one most unfortunate
+resemblance. There seems to be the same tacit assumption that it is
+possible to come to some permanent settlement of the world’s affairs
+with no representation of either the German or the Russian people at the
+conference. The Japanese, the Italians, the French, the Americans and
+the British, assisted by modest suggestions from such small sections of
+humanity as China and Spanish America, are sitting down to arrangements
+that will amount practically to a settlement of the world’s affairs, and
+they are doing so without consulting these two great peoples, and quite
+without their consent and assistance. This surely runs counter to the
+fundamental principle of both American and British political life—that
+is to say, the principle of government with the consent of the
+governed—and it is indeed an altogether deplorable intention. In some
+form these two great peoples will have to be associated with any
+permanent settlement, and it will be much more difficult to secure their
+assent to any arrangement arrived at without even their formal
+co-operation.
+
+It is necessary to remind ourselves of certain elementary facts about
+Germany and Russia and their position in the world today. They are facts
+within the knowledge of all, and yet they seem to be astonishingly
+forgotten in very much of the discussion of the Washington conference.
+
+First, let us recall certain points about Germany. The German people
+occupy the most central position in Europe; they exceed in numbers any
+other European people except the Russians; their educational level has
+been as high or higher than any other people in the world; they are, as
+a people, honest, industrious, and intelligent; upon their social and
+political well-being and economic prosperity the prosperity of Britain,
+Scandinavia, Russia, Italy—and in a lesser degree France—depends. It is
+impossible to destroy such a people, it is impossible to wipe them off
+the map, but it is possible to ruin them economically and socially. And
+if Germany is ruined most of Europe is ruined.
+
+Germany has been overthrown in a great war and it will be well to recall
+here certain elementary facts about that war. Under a particularly
+aggressive and offensive imperialism system the Germans were plunged
+into conflict with most of the rest of the civilized world. But it was
+repeatedly declared by the British and by the Americans, if not by
+others of the combatants, that they fought not against the German people
+but against this German imperialism. The British war propaganda in
+particular did its utmost to saturate Germany with that assurance and to
+hold out the promise of generous treatment and a complete restoration of
+friendship _provided there was a German renunciation of imperialism and
+militarism_.
+
+Germany, exhausted and beaten, surrendered in 1918 upon the strength of
+these promises and upon the similar promises implied in President
+Wilson’s Fourteen Points. The declared ends of the war had been
+achieved. The Kaiser bolted, and Germany repented of him publicly and
+unequivocally.
+
+But the conference at Versailles treated these promises that had been
+made to Germany as mere “scraps of paper.” The peace imposed upon the
+young German republic was a punitive peace, exactly as punitive as
+though there were still a Kaiser in Berlin; it was a vindictive reversal
+of the Franco-German treaty of 1871 without a shred of recognition or
+tolerance for the chastened Germany that faced her conquerors. The
+Germans were dealt with as a race of moral monsters, though no one in
+his senses really believes they are very different, man for man, from
+English, French or American people; every German was held to be
+individually responsible for the war, though every Frenchman, Englishman
+and American knows that when one’s country fights one has to fight, and
+it is quite natural to fight for it whether it is in the right or not;
+and a sustained attack of oppressive occupations, dismemberment, and
+impossible demands was begun and still goes on upon the shattered German
+civilization—which is at least as vitally necessary to the world as the
+French. The British and French nationalist press openly confess that
+they do not intend to give Germany a chance of recovery. The European
+Allies have now been kicking the prostrate body of Germany for three
+years; in a little while they will be kicking a dead body; and since
+they are linked geographically to their victim almost as closely as the
+Siamese twins were linked together, they will share that victim’s decay.
+
+It is high time that this barbaric insanity, this prolongation of the
+combat after surrender, should cease and that the best minds and wills
+of Germany and the very reasonable republican government she has set up
+for herself should be called into consultation. I could wish that
+Washington could so far rise above Versailles as presently to make that
+invitation. Sooner or later it will have to be made if the peace of the
+world is to be secured.
+
+The absence of Russia from the Washington conference is an even graver
+weakness. People seem to have forgotten altogether how the Russians bore
+the brunt of the opening years of the great war. Their rapid offensive
+in 1914 saved Paris and saved the little British Army from a disastrous
+retreat to the sea. The debt of gratitude Britain and France owe to
+Russia’s “Unknown Warrior,” that poor unhonored hero and martyr, is
+incalculable. But for Russia Germany would probably have won the war
+outright before the end of 1916. It was the blood and suffering of the
+Russian people saved victory for the Allies; those incredible soldiers
+fought often without artillery support, without rifle ammunition,
+without boots or food, under conditions almost inconceivable to the
+well-supplied French and British and Americans of the western front. And
+their tale of killed and wounded exceeds enormously that of any other
+combatant. In 1917 Russia collapsed; she was bled white, and she
+remained collapsed in spite of the sedulous kicking of her allies to
+rouse her to further efforts. The intolerable Rasputin-Czarism went down
+in the disaster. After a phase of extreme disorder, and very largely
+because of the British hesitation to support the Kerensky Government by
+bold naval action in the Baltic, the hard, tyrannous, doctrinaire
+government of the Bolsheviki took control.
+
+That government is a bad government; its faults are indeed of a
+different order but on the whole, I will admit, it is almost as bad as
+the former Czarist Government it superseded. Yet let us remember certain
+plain facts about it. It has remained in power to this day because it is
+a Russian-speaking government standing for a whole and undivided Russia,
+and the Russian people support it because it has defended Russia against
+the subsidized raiders of France and Britain, against the Poles and
+against the Esthonians and against the Japanese and against every sort
+of outside interference with their prostrate country. They prefer
+fanatics to foreigners and Bolsheviks to brigands. Frenchmen or
+Americans in the same horrible position would probably make the same
+choice. The Entente, the Poles, a miscellany of adventurers, have given
+the Russians no breathing time to deal with their own Government in
+their own fashion. And now, caught by the misadventure of an
+unprecedented drought, millions of Russians in the regions disorganized
+by Kolchak, Denikene and Wrangel, are starving to death—while Canada and
+America have wheat and corn to burn. There is even food to spare in some
+parts of Russia, but no adequate means of getting it to the starving
+provinces without outside assistance. And the Western World is letting
+these Russian millions starve because of the argumentative obstinacy of
+the Moscow Government, which hesitated for a time to acknowledge debts
+incurred by Russia—very largely for the military preparations which
+saved Europe—debts it is now inconceivable that Russia can ever under
+any circumstances pay, because of the pitiless resentment of the
+creditors of Russia. Yet the suffering of Russia cannot help the western
+money lender; they merely give him his revenge.
+
+But even if some millions of Russian men, women and children die this
+winter and are added to the count of those who have already perished
+through the war—the war that saved Paris from Berlin—it does not follow
+that Russia will die. Peoples are not killed in this fashion. These
+distresses will not alter the fact that the Russians are the most
+numerous people in Europe, and a people of unexampled gifts and
+tenacity. Their magnificent resistance to outside interference since
+1914 and their toleration of the Bolshevik Government when division
+would have been as fatal to them as it has been in China, is a proof of
+their solidarity and instinctive political wisdom. There are as many
+Russians as there are people in the United States of America, and they
+occupy an area as great and far richer in undeveloped resources. In
+spite of the monstrous Czarist Government which treated elementary
+education as an offense against the State, the prose literature, the
+drama, the music, the pictorial art—even the science of the Russians
+during the last hundred years—all this compares favorably with that of
+the United States. These Russians are indeed one of the very greatest of
+people and they have survived tragic experiences that might well have
+destroyed any other race. And Washington, I gather, proposes to settle
+the peace of Europe, Asia and the Pacific without them.
+
+There is, I know, a very strong case to excuse Washington from sending
+an invitation to the existing Russian Government. I would be the last
+person in the world to minimize the difficulties the Bolshevik
+Government puts in the way of any fair dealings with the western powers;
+it is bound by its Communist theory not to recognize them fairly and to
+make gestures of preparation for their overthrow. In addition to its
+general theoretical obduracy Moscow is also afflicted with a
+particularly obdurate, pedantic, argumentative and disastrous Foreign
+Minister, Chicherin. But practical necessity knows no theories and the
+Bolshevik Government, if only it can save its face, is now
+extraordinarily anxious for recognition from and dealings with the
+western Governments.
+
+I do not see why the western Governments, having regard to the needs of
+Russia, should try to outdo the Bolsheviks in obstinacy, pedantry and
+cruelty, nor why they should not make an honest attempt to get along
+with the de facto government until it develops naturally into something
+else. For such a development only a rough working peace is wanted. Given
+that, and a release from impossible debts, Russia, relieved forever from
+the black curse of Czarism, will go right on to become a land of
+restored cultivation, of resuscitated mines and presently of reawakening
+towns, a democratic land of common people more like the free, poor,
+farming, prospecting and developing United States of 1840 than anything
+else in history.
+
+So long as Russia suffers the Bolshevik Government I think Washington
+ought to suffer it, but perhaps in that opinion I go beyond the
+possibilities of the case. Then I suggest that at least Washington ought
+to set up some well-informed lawyer, some bureau, to play the part of
+the Russian advocate at the conference. If Russia is not to be allowed a
+vote in the decision of things, let her at least be heard.
+
+Consider what the future must hold for this great people, and mark the
+amazing folly of the insults and evils we heap upon their land. Look it
+up in an atlas or encyclopaedia. Measure what it is we ignore. In a
+score of years Russia may be a renascent land as vigorous as the United
+States in 1840. In a century she may be as great and powerful and
+civilized as any state on earth. For such powers as France and Britain
+and Japan to sit in council upon the fate of the world without her is as
+if, in the dark years of 1863 and 1864, they had sat in council upon the
+future of America without the United States. Indeed, something of the
+sort did happen in those dark years; France, I recall, sent troops and
+munitions into Mexico, as recently she has sent them into Poland and
+South Russia. And somewhere in the world there is a grave, the grave of
+a “white hope,” a reactionary puppet who was to have restored Mexico to
+the European system—the friend of the Emperor Napoleon the Third, the
+Emperor Maximilian.
+
+When I was a small boy learning the rudiments of geography, the earth
+was presented to me in two hemispheres, the Old World and the new. Not
+once or twice only has America vindicated her right to that title. Will
+Washington confirm that great tradition and open a way of escape now
+from the tangled narrowness of Versailles? Are Germany and Russia to
+perish amid the incurable quarrels of the Old World or find their
+salvation in the New?
+
+
+
+
+                                   IV
+                  THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER OF THE GREAT WAR
+
+
+                                                    Washington, Nov. 11.
+
+Britain, France, Italy and now the people of the United States, have
+honored and buried the bodies of certain Unknown Soldiers, each
+according to their national traditions and circumstances. Canada, I
+hear, is to follow suit.
+
+So the world expresses its sense that in the great war the only hero was
+the common man. Poor Hans and poor Ivan lie rotting yet under the soil
+of a hundred battlefields, bones and decay, rags of soiled uniform and
+fragments of accoutrements, still waiting for monuments and speeches.
+Yet they too were mothers’ sons, kept step, obeyed orders, went singing
+into battle, and knew the strange intoxication of soldierly fellowship
+and the sense of devotion to something much greater than themselves.
+
+In Arlington Cemetery soldiers of the Confederate South lie honored
+equally with the Federal dead, the right or wrong of their cause
+altogether forgotten and only their sacrifice remembered. A time will
+come when we shall cease to visit the crimes and blunders and
+misfortunes of their Governments upon the common soldiers and poor folk
+of Germany and Russia, when our bitterness will die out and we shall
+mourn them as we mourn our own, as souls who gave their lives and
+suffered greatly in one universal misfortune.
+
+A time will come when these vast personifications of conflict, the
+Unknown British Soldier, the Unknown American Soldier, the Unknown
+French Soldier, etc., will merge into the thought of a still greater
+personality, the embodiment of 20,000,000 separate bodies and of many
+million broken lives, the Unknown Soldier of the great war.
+
+It would be possible, I suppose, to work out many things concerning him.
+We could probably find out his age and his height and his weight and
+such like particulars very nearly. We could average figures and
+estimates that would fix such matters within a very narrow range of
+uncertainty. In race and complexion, I suppose he would be mainly North
+European; North Russian, German, Frankish, North Italian, British and
+American elements would all have the same trend toward a tallish,
+fairish, possibly blue-eyed type; but also there would be a strong
+Mediterranean streak in him, Indian and Turkish elements, a fraction of
+Mongolian and an infusion of African blood—brought in not only through
+the American colored troops but by the free use by the French of their
+Senegalese.
+
+None of these factors would be strong enough to prevent his being mainly
+Northern and much the same mixture altogether as the American citizen of
+1950 is likely to be. He would be a white man with a touch of Asia and a
+touch of color. And he would be young—I should guess about twenty-one or
+twenty-two—still boyish, probably unmarried rather than married, with a
+father and mother alive and with the memories and imaginations of the
+home he was born in still fresh and vivid in his mind when he died. We
+could even, I suppose, figure in general terms how he died. He was
+struck in daylight amid the strange noises and confusion of a modern
+battlefield by something out of the unknown—bullet, shell fragment or
+the like. At the moment he had been just a little scared—every one is a
+little scared on a battlefield—but much more excited than scared and
+trying hard to remember his training and do his job properly. When he
+was hit he was not so much hurt at first as astonished. I should guess
+that the first sensation of a man hard hit on a battlefield is not so
+much pain as an immense chagrin.
+
+I suppose it would be possible to go on and work out how long it was
+before he died after he was hit, how long he suffered and wondered, how
+long he lay before his ghost fell in with that immense still muster in
+the shades, those millions of his kind who had no longer country to
+serve nor years of life before them, who had been cut off as he had been
+cut off suddenly from sights and sounds and hopes and passions. But
+rather let us think of the motives and feelings that had brought him, in
+so gallant and cheerful a frame of mind, to this complete sacrifice.
+
+What did the Unknown Soldier of the great war think he was doing when he
+died? What did we, we people who got him into the great war and who are
+still in possession of this world of his, what did we persuade him to
+think he was doing and what is the obligation we have incurred to him to
+atone for his death, for the life and sunlight he will know no more?
+
+He was still too young a man to have his motives very clear. To conceive
+what moved him and what he desired is a difficult and disputable task.
+M. George Nobelmaire at a recent meeting of the League of Nations
+Assembly declared that he had heard French lads whisper “Vive la
+France!” and die. He suggested that German boys may have died saying,
+“Colonel, say to my mother, ‘Vive l’Allemagne!’” Possibly. But the
+French are trained harder in patriotism than any other people. I doubt
+if it was the common mood. It was certainly not the common mood among
+the British.
+
+I cannot imagine many English boys using their last breath to say “Rule
+Britannia!” or “King George for Merry England!” Some of our young men
+swore out of vexation and fretted; some, and it was not always the
+youngest, became childish again and cried touchingly for their mothers;
+many maintained the ironical flippancy of our people to the end; many
+died in the vein of a young miner from Durham with whom I talked one
+morning in the trenches near Martinpuich, trenches which had been badly
+“strafed” overnight. War, he said, was a beastly job, “but we’ve got to
+clean this up.” That is the spirit of the lifeboat man or fireman. That
+is the great spirit. I believe that was far nearer to the true mind of
+the Unknown Soldier than any tinpot Viva-ing of any flag, nation or
+empire whatever.
+
+I believe that when we generalize the motives that took the youth who
+died in the great war out of the light of life and took them out at
+precisely the age when life is most desirable, we shall find that the
+dominating purpose was certainly no narrow devotion to the “glory” or
+“expansion” of any particular country, but a wide-spirited hostility to
+wrong and oppression. That is clearly shown by the nature of the appeals
+that were made in every country to sustain the spirit of its soldiers.
+
+If national glory and patriotism had been the ruling motive of these
+young men, then manifestly their propaganda would have concerned
+themselves mainly with national honor and flag idolatry. But they did
+not do so. Nowadays flags fly better on parades and stoop fronts than on
+battlefields. The war propagandas dwelt steadily and insistently upon
+the wickedness and unrighteousness of the enemy, upon the dangers of
+being overwhelmed by foreign tyranny, and particularly upon the fact
+that the enemy had planned and made the war. These boys fought best on
+that—everywhere.
+
+So far as the common men in every belligerent country went, therefore,
+the great war was a war against wrong, against force, against war
+itself. Whatever it was in the thoughts of the diplomatists, it was that
+in the minds of the boys who died. In the minds of these young and
+generous millions who are personified in the Unknown Soldier of the
+great war, in the minds of the Germans and Russians who fought so
+stoutly, quite as much as the Americans, British, French or Italians,
+the war was a war to end war.
+
+And that marks our obligation.
+
+Every speech that is made beside the graves of these Unknown Soldiers
+who lie now in the comradeship of youthful death, every speech which
+exalts patriotism above peace, which hints at reparations and revenges,
+which cries for mean alliances to sustain the traditions of the
+conflict, which exalts national security over the common welfare, which
+wags the “glorious flag” of this nation or that in the face of the
+universal courage and tragedy of mankind, is an insult and an outrage
+upon the dead youth who lies below. He sought justice and law in the
+world as he conceived these things, and whoever approaches his resting
+place unprepared to serve the establishment of a world law and world
+justice, breathing the vulgar cants and catchwords of a patriotism
+outworn and of conflicts that he died to end, commits a monstrous
+sacrilege and sins against all mankind.
+
+
+
+
+                                   V
+                       THE PRESIDENT AT ARLINGTON
+
+
+                                                    Washington, Nov. 11.
+
+I am writing this just after my return from the funeral, in the National
+Cemetery, of the American Unknown Soldier at Arlington, a very stately
+and moving ceremony, under the bright blue sky and the cold, keen air of
+a Virginia November day. The body had been lying in state at the Capitol
+and it was carried through Washington to the cemetery at the head of a
+great procession in which the Supreme Court, the Cabinet, Senators,
+members of the House of Representatives, war veterans and a multitude of
+societies marched on foot, a march of nearly two hours and a half
+duration. Much of this gathering was of the substance of all such
+processions, but one or two of the contingents were rich with
+association and suggestion.
+
+There were fifty or sixty, I should guess, very old men, bent,
+white-headed—one with a conspicuous long, white beard—veterans of a
+civil war that was fought out to an end before I was born. They came
+close to a contingent of men who had been specially decorated in the
+great war, erect and eager, still on the better side of the prime of
+life. These older men had fought in a great fight against a division, a
+separation that today, thanks to their sacrifice, has become
+inconceivable. They had fought to seal the Federal Union of what were
+else warring States. The young men who marched before them had fought in
+a war upon the greater stage of the whole world. Some day the tale of
+those abundant heroes will have shrunken to the dimensions of that
+little band of pathetic and glorious old men. Will they live to as
+complete an assurance that their cause also has been won forever, the
+newer veterans of the greater union that has yet to come?
+
+There were many points of contrast between the ceremony I have just
+witnessed in the graceful marble amphitheatre in the beautiful Virginian
+open country and the burials that have taken place in the very hearts of
+London, Paris and Rome. In the face of a common identity of idea, they
+mark an essential difference in the nature of the occasion.
+
+Thursday I went to see the people who were filing past the flag-covered
+coffin. It was a crowd fairly representative, I thought, of the
+Washington population as one sees it on the streets; all classes were
+represented, but chiefly it consisted of that well-dressed, healthy
+looking middle class sort of people who predominate in the streets of
+most American cities. They came to honor a national hero, the
+personification of American courage and loyalty. Few, I think, were
+actual mourners of a dead soldier. The couples and groups of people I
+saw hurrying up the sloping paths to the entrance of the Capitol, filing
+up the steps to the rotunda or dispersing on the other side were
+characterized by a sort of bright eagerness and approval.
+
+They contrasted very strongly with my memory of the great column of
+still and mournful people under the dark London sky, eight deep,
+stretching all up Whitehall and down Northumberland Avenue and along the
+Embankment for a great distance, a column which moved on slowly, step by
+step, and which faded away at night to be replaced by fresh mourners on
+the morrow to do honor to the Unknown Warrior in London. That crowd,
+with its wreaths and flowers, represented the families, the lovers, the
+sisters and friends of perhaps a quarter of a million of dead men from
+London and the south and centre of England; the massed, mute tragedy of
+its loss was overwhelming. It reduced all the ceremony that had gathered
+it to comparative unimportance. But the remote distances of America
+forbade any such concentration of sorrow. There may have been the
+relations and friends of perhaps a thousand men upon the scene at
+Arlington. The loss to the District of Columbia itself was less than six
+hundred killed. A group of wounded men in the amphitheatre struck the
+most intimate note. The rest of the gathering at Arlington shared a less
+personal grief. They were sympathizers rather than sufferers.
+
+Because of this emotional difference, the Arlington ceremony presented
+itself primarily as a ceremony. For most there it was a holiday, a fine
+and noble holiday, but a holiday. By it, America did not so much mourn
+the tragedy of war as seek to arouse itself to that tragedy. Everywhere
+the Stars and Stripes, the most decorative and exhilarating of national
+flags, waved and fluttered, and an irresistible expression of America’s
+private life and buoyant well-being mingled in the proceedings. For most
+of the gathering that coffin under the great flag held nothing they had
+ever touched personally; it was not America’s lost treasure of youth,
+but rather a warning of the fate that may yet overtake the youth of
+America if war is not to end. At Arlington, throughout the length and
+breadth of America, when for two minutes at mid-day all work and
+movement stopped and America stood still, an innumerable host of fathers
+and mothers and wives and friends could whisper thanks to God in their
+hearts that their sons and their beloved remained alive.
+
+And I suppose it is largely because America is still so much less
+war-stricken than any of the other belligerents of the great war that so
+much more powerful a sense of will was apparent in all these
+proceedings. The burial of the Unknown Soldier in America was not a
+thing in itself as it was in London, in Paris or Rome; it was a solemn
+prelude to action, the action of the great conference which is to seek
+peace and enduring peace for all mankind. This note was struck even in
+the Chaplain’s opening invocation. He said:
+
+“Facing the events of the morrow, when from the workbench of the world
+there will be taken an unusual task, we ask that Thou wilt accord
+exceptional judgment, foresight and tactfulness of approach to those who
+seek to bring about a better understanding among men and nations to the
+end that discord, which provokes war, may disappear and that there may
+be world tranquillity.”
+
+And the very fine oration of President Harding, following closely upon
+this line.
+
+I saw the President for the first time at Arlington. He is a very big,
+fine-looking man and his voice is a wonderful instrument. He spoke
+slowly and very distinctly, his gestures admirably controlled. He is—how
+can I say it?—more statuesque than any of the American Presidents of
+recent times, but without a trace in his movements or appearance of
+posturing or vanity. Men say he is a sincerely modest man, determined to
+do the best that is in him and at once appalled and inspired by the
+world situation in which he finds himself among the most prominent
+figures. Not only in its main circumstances but in many of its incidents
+is the position of the President of the United States appalling. The
+President stood in the apse to the right of the Unknown Soldier and to
+the other side of him was a black box upon a stand, a box perhaps two
+feet by one. This was the receiver that was to carry his voice,
+intensely amplified, to still greater gatherings in New York, in San
+Francisco and over the whole United States. Never was human utterance so
+magnified. Every syllable, every slip was recorded. He slipped once at
+an antithesis and was obliged to repeat. From the Atlantic to the
+Pacific that slip was noted.
+
+I have heard much detraction of the President both before I came to
+America and since I have been here, but here I have found also a growing
+and spreading belief in him. And this address of his, rhetorical though
+it was in a simple and popular American way, was nevertheless a very
+dignified address and one inspired by a spirit that is undeniably great.
+Here is a fine saying:
+
+“His patriotism was none less if he craved more than triumph of country;
+rather, it was greater if he hoped for a victory for all human kind.
+Indeed, I revere that citizen whose confidence in the righteousness of
+his country inspired belief that its triumph is the victory of humanity.
+
+“This American soldier went forth to battle with no hatred for any
+people in the world, but hating war and hating the purpose of every war
+for conquest.”
+
+We are to seek “the rule under which reason and righteousness shall
+prevail.” There is to be “the commanding voice of a conscious
+civilization against armed warfare,” “a new and lasting era of peace on
+earth.” And with a fine instinct for effect the President ended his
+oration with the Lord’s Prayer, with its appeal for one universal law
+for mankind: “Thy kingdom come on earth....”
+
+Every other gossip tells you that President Harding comes from Main
+Street and repeats the story of Mrs. Harding saying: “We’re just folk.”
+If President Harding is a fair sample of Main Street, Sinclair Lewis has
+not told us the full story and Main Street is destined to save the
+world.
+
+
+
+
+                                   VI
+                           THE FIRST MEETING
+
+
+                                                    Washington, Nov. 13.
+
+It was difficult at first to imagine the conference as anything more
+than an admirably well managed social occasion.
+
+Continental Hall is a quite charming building, not too big for intimacy,
+not too small for a sufficient gathering of people. The chief members of
+the delegations had still to assemble; they were to sit at green baize
+covered tables in the body of the hall. About this central arena sat the
+massed attaches, and under the galleries the press representatives. In
+the boxes clustered the ladies of the diplomatic world. Members of the
+House of Representatives, the Senators, their friends and a sprinkling
+of privileged people occupied the big galleries above.
+
+There was a great chatter of conversation when I entered. Everybody was
+greeting friends, flitting from group to group. It was one of those
+gatherings where everybody seemed to know everybody. Socially, it was
+extraordinarily like a very smart first night in a prominent London
+theatre.
+
+“Last time I came to America,” I found myself saying, “I brought a silk
+hat and morning coat, and never wore them once. Now everybody seems to
+be wearing a morning coat and a silk hat.” It was the sort of occasion
+one dresses for. And that was the tone of the conversation.
+
+It was difficult to believe that this gathering could be the beginning
+of anything of supreme historical importance.
+
+Came a slight hush in the conversation. The delegates appeared, all with
+tremendously familiar faces taken out of the illustrated papers. They
+disposed themselves in their seats in leisurely fashion. One seat
+remained vacant for a time—the seat of the President. Then appeared
+President Harding, and there was a great clapping of hands. It became
+more and more like a first night. Then a hushing of enthusiasm, and
+silence, and he spoke.
+
+It was a fine speech, less ornate and more direct than the Arlington
+oration. And the galleries above, behaving more and more like a first
+night audience, interrupted with rounds of applause whenever there were
+definite allusions to disarmament. He finished and declared the
+conference open and departed. Mr. Balfour followed, echoing the
+President’s sentiments in a few well chosen words and proposing
+Secretary Hughes for the Chairman of the conference.
+
+The Hall became aware of a check in the onward flow of the proceedings.
+An interpreter got up and repeated Mr. Balfour’s speech in French for
+the benefit of the French delegation. He had made a shorthand note as
+Mr. Balfour spoke. This, we learned, was to be the procedure throughout
+the conference. Every speech, question and interruption was to be dealt
+with in this interlinear manner. Fortunately, it was not necessary to do
+this in the case of the President’s address, nor was it necessary in the
+case of the address of Secretary Hughes, which was now impending because
+these had already been printed and distributed and a translation made of
+them.
+
+Their linguistic isolation is likely to prove unfortunate for the
+French. The Belgian, the Dutch, the Chinese, Japanese and Portuguese
+delegations all speak in English and listen to the English speeches.
+Consequently, the French are in a position in which they seem to be the
+most foreign people present. This must be disconcerting to them now.
+
+It will be much more disconcerting if, at a later stage, German
+delegates speaking English should appear upon some extension or side
+committee of the conference. But I do not see how it can be avoided. The
+French are a little out of touch in the conference because of this; they
+must be much more out of touch with the incessant conversation in clubs
+and at dinner tables and everywhere in Washington, which makes the
+atmosphere in which the conference is working.
+
+This, however, is a note by the way. Secretary Hughes took the chair and
+delivered his address. It was a very carefully arranged surprise and its
+effect was really dramatical. It jumped the conference abruptly from the
+fine generalizations that had hitherto engaged it to immediately
+practical things. Secretary Hughes sketched out what was evidently a
+carefully worked out scheme, a most explicit scheme, for the complete
+cessation of naval armament competition.
+
+America wanted at the very outset, he said, to convince the world that
+she meant business in the conference, and so she had taken this
+unexpected step of putting immediate practical proposals upon the table.
+She would scrap completely all the ships she had still under
+construction and all her older ships and she would discontinue all naval
+construction for ten years if Britain and Japan would do the same.
+
+She proposed that the naval strength of the three powers concerned
+should remain for ten years in the ratio of: Britain, 22; America, 18,
+and Japan, 10. In other words, she proposed so to fix things that no two
+of these three powers can wage a conclusive naval war against each
+other, but with America and Britain in a position to do so jointly
+against Japan and with Japan at a great disadvantage against America,
+even if she were to risk an inconclusive war with America on the chance
+of Britain’s not coming in. And having unfolded this scheme, Secretary
+Hughes concluded.
+
+We were a little stunned. We had expected the opening meeting to be
+preliminary, to stick to generalities. After Secretary Hughes had
+finished, there was a feeling that we wanted to go away and think. But
+the members of the House of Representatives were enjoying an unwonted
+sense of being in the gallery, quite irresponsibly in the gallery, with
+somebody else upon the floor. They burst in upon our statesmanlike
+thoughts below with loud cries for “Briand!”
+
+The atmosphere of friendly festival was reestablished. M. Briand spoke
+eloquently—saying nothing whatever about the proposals of Secretary
+Hughes—and sat down, and his still quite abstract praises of peace were
+translated into English.
+
+“Japan!” shouted the members of the House of Representatives, a theatre
+gallery now in full cry. Japan spoke in English and its sentiments were
+translated into French for the benefit of the foreigners. Japan
+expressed admirable sentiments and said nothing whatever about the
+proposals of Secretary Hughes.
+
+Thereafter it would have been discourteous not to call for something
+from Italy, China, Belgium, Holland and Portugal. They all spoke in
+English, even Belgium spoke in English, and what they said was
+translated into French. Nobody said anything whatever about the
+proposals of Secretary Hughes. The gallery applauded each speech
+heartily and the atmosphere of a first night was completely restored. We
+dispersed to luncheons and tea parties and to talk before we wrote about
+it. And as we tried to get it into focus in our minds it became clear
+that much more than a ceremonial opening of the conference had occurred.
+
+Secretary Hughes has made proposals that challenge the whole situation
+in the Pacific. For if Japan accepts them—I do not see how they could be
+otherwise than acceptable to the British—it puts Japan to so definite
+and permanent a disadvantage that it amounts to an abandonment on the
+part of Japan of the idea of fighting a war on the Pacific except as the
+last desperate defensive resort under the pressure of an unavoidable
+attack, and Japan can abandon that idea only if she can see her way
+clearly without a war to all that she believes to be vitally necessary
+to her.
+
+It is possible to say that Secretary Hughes has narrowed down the work
+of the conference by this sudden focusing of attention upon naval
+warfare and Japan. But I do not think that is the case. The challenge he
+has made cannot be taken up until a number of associated issues are
+settled. Certainly his proposals have precipitated the work of the
+conference from the clouds and beautiful generalities to the earth and
+very concrete realities.
+
+“You accept these proposals,” America says in effect. “If not, why not?”
+
+Japan must accept or reply so and so. So from armaments we shall get to
+the aims behind armaments; for no battleship is launched except against
+a specific antagonist and for a specific end. And in the matter of aims
+also the conference will presently have to consider what each power must
+scrap for the common good and what it may be permitted to keep for its
+own satisfaction.
+
+Since Secretary Hughes made it clear that the conference is to approach
+the inevitable general discussion of world peace by way of the sea and
+the Pacific, since for a time France and Europe generally will sit
+somewhat out of the limelight, it will be well, perhaps, if in my next
+article I discuss a few elementary considerations about Japan.
+
+
+
+
+                                  VII
+                             WHAT IS JAPAN?
+
+
+                                                    Washington, Nov. 15.
+
+Of all the national delegations assembled here in Washington, the most
+acutely scrutinized, the most discussed and probably the least
+understood is the Japanese. The limelight gravitates toward it, moved,
+one feels, not so much by an extreme respect as by an inordinate
+curiosity.
+
+Of only one other people—I write as a spectator from overseas—does one
+feel the same sense of the possibility of dramatically unexpected
+things, and that is the Americans. The Japanese, we feel, we have not
+found out, and the Americans, we feel, have not found out themselves.
+Already the Americans have sprung one great surprise upon the
+conference. Britain, France, Italy and the other powers in attendance
+are comparatively calculable—so far as their representation goes. But
+Japan is different; it is not built upon the same lines, it follows
+different laws.
+
+I went on Sunday night to the press reception at the Japanese
+headquarters. The Ambassador is a buoyant man of the world, speaking
+excellent English and thoroughly acclimatized to an American press
+gathering. But many of the Japanese faces about him set my imagination
+busy, putting them back into the voluminous robes and the sashes holding
+the double swords with which I had first met them long ago in Japanese
+prints, and which would have become them so much better.
+
+Admiral Kato spoke in Japanese and Prince Tokugawa in English; they
+welcomed the Hughes proposals with warm generalities and hopes for
+peace—as we all hope for peace—with insufficient particulars. I got no
+conversation with any Japanese; they were not talking to us; they did
+not want to talk; it was a reception of hearty politeness and no
+exchanges. I found myself falling back upon an earlier impression.
+
+Some weeks ago I had a very illuminating talk in my garden at home with
+two Japanese visitors, Mr. Mashiko and Mr. Negushi, who had come to
+discuss various educational ideas with me. And they told me things that
+seem to me to be fundamentally important in this question. “We build up
+our children,” said Mr. Mushiko, “upon a diametrically different plan
+from yours. We turn them the other way round. Obedience and devotion are
+our leading thoughts. All our sentiment, all our stories and poetry, the
+traditions of centuries, teach loyalty, blind, unquestioning loyalty, of
+wife to husband, of man to his lord, of every one to the monarch.
+
+“The loyalty is religious. So far as political and social questions go,
+it is fundamental. But your training cultivates independence, free
+thought, the unsparing criticism of superiors, institutions,
+relationships. Perhaps it is better in the end and more invigorating;
+but it seems to us wild and dangerous. * * * We begin to have a sort of
+public opinion, but it is still diffident and timid.”
+
+An American and an Englishman, he said, cared for his country because he
+believed it belonged to him. A Japanese cared for his country because he
+believed he belonged to it. One could not pass from one habit of mind to
+the other, he thought, without grave risks and dangers. It is easier to
+destroy obedience than to create responsibility.
+
+I was reminded of that conversation the other day by a remark made by a
+fellow journalist on the train to Washington:
+
+“A Chinese will tell you what he thinks—like an American—but a Japanese
+always feels he is an agent, even if he isn’t an accredited one.”
+
+Now, this is very interesting and probably a very fundamental
+comparison. This difference in spirit will make the Japanese people a
+very different instrument from the American and English or French
+people. It will make the Japanese Government a different thing from the
+Governments it will be meeting in Washington. A people built up on
+obedience can be held and wielded as no modern democratic people can be
+held and wielded. It is different in kind.
+
+Unless this point is kept in mind, there are certain to be great and
+possibly dangerous misunderstandings in the Washington discussions.
+There have possibly been very dangerous misunderstandings already of the
+European powers by the Japanese. The Japanese are likely to think the
+Atlantic Governments are more free to decide than they really are, and
+that what they say is more conclusive than it really is, and the
+Atlantic peoples are likely to think too much of the appearance of a
+liberal public opinion in Japan and to imagine that a Japanese
+Government may be thrown out and its policy changed much more easily
+than is the case. But indeed Japan is a Government, a military
+Government, holding its people in its hand like a staff or a weapon,
+while America and France and Britain are people operating the
+Governments, more or less imperfectly. In no relationship is confusion
+upon this point more probable and more dangerous than between Japan and
+Britain or France at the present time, and in no connection is there
+greater need of perfectly plain statement.
+
+Seeing that Britain is still a monarchy with many aristocratic forms, it
+is fatally easy for a Japanese statesman to fall into the belief that
+the British Government is as completely in control, and its officials as
+able to bind or loose, as the Japanese Government and officials, and
+because of this belief to trust to the private assurance and general
+attitude of personages in high places far more than they are justified
+in doing. The British democracy is very like the American democracy in
+its inability to keep watching what is happening overseas; it is
+preoccupied by domestic questions and things that are near to it. You
+cannot expect a Wiltshire farmer or a Lancashire cotton spinner to keep
+up, day by day, with the concession-hunting game in Persia or South
+China. But if that game of concession hunting piles up to sufficiently
+serious consequences, these democracies are likely to wake up in a
+manner quite outside the Japanese range of possibilities. And to a large
+extent the same is true of France.
+
+It is the blessed privilege of an irresponsible journalist to say things
+that no diplomatist could ever say, and upon the relations of Japan,
+America and England there are certain truths that seem to need saying
+very plainly at the present time. But though I am an irresponsible
+journalist, it is also to be noted that I am a very English Englishman
+and that I know the way of thinking of my people.
+
+The British people have been sleeping happily upon the belief that war
+with America is impossible. And for them it is impossible. In this
+matter the British have a special and extraordinary instinct. They will
+not fight the United States of America. I will not go into the peculiar
+feelings that produce this disposition; they are feelings great numbers
+of Americans do not understand and have indeed taken great pains not to
+understand. But to the common British, fighting Americans would have
+much the same relation to fighting other peoples that cannibalism would
+have to eating meat.
+
+I hear a certain type of American over here slowly and heavily debating
+the Hughes proposals on the assumption that there may be a war of
+America against Britain and Japan. Such an assumption is—if I may be
+permitted the word—idiotic. As a people, the British have not been
+thinking very much about the Pacific question. They have been
+preoccupied by Ireland and their own economic troubles. But if that
+question presently moves toward a level of intensity where war is
+possible, let there be no mistake about it in Japan, the ordinary
+English will be thinking with the Americans. They will read much the
+same stuff because they have the same language, and think in the same
+way because they have kindred habits of thought.
+
+It will not matter then what assurances and sentiments the Japanese may
+have had for official personages in Great Britain. For we are dealing
+here not with a matter of agreements but with a kind of moral
+gravitation. If there is a conflict the British masses will want to come
+in on the American side, and if it seems likely to be in the least an
+inconclusive conflict they will certainly come in. If the rulers of the
+Japanese dream that any other combination is possible in the Pacific
+they are under as dangerous a delusion as ever lured a great nation to
+disaster.
+
+But there are many signs that if ever the ruling people of Japan
+entertained this delusion they are being disillusionized and that they
+begin to realize that a war with America in the Pacific will mean a war
+with America, Britain, and possibly—to judge from the recent astonishing
+remark by that able writer “Pertinax”—France. France may use her
+influence at Washington on behalf of Japan in certain matters, but that
+is all Japan will get from France. The Japanese, I believe, now fully
+realize this, and the trend of recent Japanese utterances is all in the
+direction of discussion and the disavowal of any belligerent dreams.
+
+Yet, Japan continues to arm, and though she now disavows war as her
+method, she sits very proudly and stiffly in her weapons at the parley.
+She may have limited and restrained her dreams, but there is still some
+minimum in her mind beyond which she will not retreat without a
+struggle. What is that minimum which will satisfy her without war? Will
+it satisfy her for good, will it seem so permanently satisfactory to her
+that she will be willing not only to set aside the thought of and
+preparation for an immediate war, but—what is of far more
+importance—enter into such a binding contract for her future
+international relationships as will enable her to beat the swords of her
+Samurai into ploughshares for good and all?
+
+Is Japan peculiarly an obstacle to the practical, if informal,
+federation of the world to which we all hope that things are moving?
+
+When I try to frame a hopeful answer to that question, it occurs to me
+with added force that Japan is not a people trying to express itself
+through a Government as we Atlantic peoples are, but a Government, a
+small ruling class, in effective possession of an obedience-loving
+people. And I remember that that small ruling class has a long tradition
+of romantic and chivalrous swordsmanship. Is that ruling class going to
+keep its power and is it going to preserve its tradition? No one would
+be more urgent than I for the complete disarmament of the entire world,
+but no one could be more convinced of the unwisdom of disarmament by
+America or any other power while any single country in the world
+maintains a spirit that must lead at last to a resumption of warfare. TO
+DISARM IN SUCH A SITUATION IS TO LEAVE THE TROUBLE TO ACCUMULATE UPON
+OUR GRAND-CHILDREN; TO PATCH UP A TEMPORARY PEACE BASED ON THE PERMITTED
+“EXPANSION” OF SUCH A POWER IS SIMPLY TO PREPARE FOR AN EXPANDED WAR IN
+THE FUTURE.
+
+But is that Japanese ruling class resolved at any cost, even at the cost
+of another World War and at the risk of destroying Japan, to hold onto
+its present power and to adhere rigidly to its tradition? In the last
+hundred years Japan, because of her aristocracy and because of her
+general obedience, has achieved feats of adaptation to new conditions
+that are unparalleled in history. As we have noted, there have recently
+been indications of further changes in the spirit of Japan.
+
+She is said to be pressing forward with the education of the common
+people and the liberation of thought and discussion. In the long run,
+what is happening in the schools of Japan is of more importance to
+mankind than what is happening in her dockyards. But at present we do
+not know what is happening in the schools of Japan. One hears much of
+New Japan and Liberal Japan, and there is even an unofficial
+representative of the Japanese Opposition in Washington. But, so far as
+we can judge at this distance, we must be guided by the policy and
+methods of the Japanese Government.
+
+Before we can judge these we must consider the nature of the field in
+which they seem to clash most with American ideas and with American and
+European interests, namely, China and Eastern Asia generally. In my next
+paper I will ask, “What is China?” and consider the nature of the needs
+and claims of Japan in regard to China and the prohibitions and the
+renunciations the Western powers want to impose upon her. For it is on
+account of these restrictions and prohibitions that Japan has been
+building her battleships. Her fighting fleet is to secure her a free
+hand in China and Siberia; it can have no other purpose. And I shall
+take up the question whether the prohibitions and renunciations we want
+to force upon Japan are not prohibitions and restrictions that we are
+bound in fairness to impose equally upon all powers concerned with China
+and the Far East. If the other powers are not prepared for extreme
+general retractions and renunciation in China; if they want to bar out
+Japan from aggressive practices and exclusive advantages that other
+powers retain; if we cling to any sort of racial distinction in these
+matters, then I shall submit, we are asking impossible things from Japan
+and we are forcing her toward what must must be indeed a very desperate
+gamble for her, a refusal to enter into this proposed disarmament
+agreement—and that means war.
+
+
+
+
+                                  VIII
+                        CHINA IN THE BACKGROUND
+
+
+                                                    Washington, Nov. 16.
+
+The Chinese propaganda in America and Western Europe seems on the whole
+to be conducted more efficiently than the Japanese. And the Chinese
+student, it seems to me, gets into closer touch with the educated
+American and European because his is a democratic and not an
+aristocratic habit of mind. He has an intensely Western sense of public
+opinion.
+
+The masses of China may be destitute, ignorant and disordered, but in
+their mental habits they are modern and not mediæval, in the same sense
+that the Japanese are mediæval and not modern. The Chinese seem to “get
+on” with their Western social equivalents better than any of the Asiatic
+people. And increasing multitudes of Chinese are learning English today;
+it is the second language in China.
+
+Now, if Japan is the figure in the limelight at Washington today, China
+is the giant in the background and scene of the present Pacific drama.
+We have had so much in the papers lately about these two countries, we
+have been treated to such a feast of particulars about them, that most
+of us have long since forgotten very thoroughly the broad facts of the
+case, and it will be refreshing to recall them here and now.
+
+Let us remind ourselves that China is a country with a population
+amounting at the lowest estimate to between twice and three times the
+population of the United States, or of France and England put together.
+This population has the longest unbroken tradition of peaceful industry
+in the world. It is essentially civilized; it respects learning and
+civility profoundly. A common literature and ancient traditions keep its
+people one.
+
+In the past China has been divided again and again—always to reunite.
+But it has become “old-fashioned,” dangerously old-fashioned, perhaps by
+reason of its very stability; it has lagged behind most of the world in
+the development of its transport and economic possibilities. In mineral
+deposits and other natural resources and in the industrial capability of
+its sturdy and intelligent population it has more undeveloped wealth
+than any other single people in the world. It is only in the last
+century or so that China has lagged behind.
+
+Only a few centuries ago China was as civilized as Europe and
+politically more stable. In a century or so she may be again the most
+civilized and intelligent power in the world, flourishing in fellowship
+and perfect understanding with the great states of America and Europe.
+
+She may be—if she is not torn to pieces and kept in a state of
+enfeeblement and disorder by the hostile action of external powers.
+
+But at present China is in a state of political impotence. Her Manchu
+imperialism has proved itself to be hopelessly inefficient and China is
+now struggling to reconstruct upon modern republican lines, obviously
+suggested by the American example. A few decades ago Japan astonished
+the world by Europeanizing herself upon Prussian lines. China now, under
+far less favorable conditions and with a vaster country and a less
+disciplined people, is struggling to Americanize herself.
+
+But it is no easy task to make over a people at one stride from a
+mediæval autocracy to a modern democracy. It is far easier to
+Prussianize than to Americanize, for in the one case you have only to
+train an official class and in the other you must educate a whole
+people. China is torn by dissensions; the south jars with the north; she
+has two or more Governments, each claiming to be THE Chinese Government,
+and whole provinces have fallen under the sway of military adventurers.
+It is a distressing spectacle, but it was probably an inevitable phase
+in the development of New China.
+
+Before we fall a prey to anti-Chinese propaganda it is well to recall
+how long it has always taken to build up the necessary understandings
+and habits of association upon which a new political system rests.
+
+France, for example, was a land of revolutions and political instability
+for nearly a century after the Great Revolution. America wrangled feebly
+and dangerously for several years after the War of Independence, before
+she established her Federal Government; she only cemented her union
+after a colossal struggle; she was not really and securely one until a
+century had elapsed.
+
+During these long decades of probation foreign observers preached
+endlessly about the fickleness of the French and the political
+inefficiency of the Americans and foretold the certainty of a break-up
+of the United States, just as today they sneer at Young China and
+foretell the political disintegration of the Chinese. And we have to
+bear in mind that the forces of reorganization and renewal in China
+struggle against peculiar difficulties and interferences quite outside
+the happier experiences of France and America. In particular, they
+struggle against an intolerable and paralyzing amount of foreign
+interference.
+
+The brilliant series of adventures and accidents by which a London
+trading company added the Empire of Great Mogul as a picturesque but
+incongruously big jewel to the British Crown set an extraordinarily bad
+precedent in Asiatic affairs. It obsessed European political thought
+with the impossible dream of carving up all Asia into similar domains.
+The Mogul’s empire was itself an empire of conquest in a land saturated
+by ideas of caste, and this gave all these European adventurers the
+attitude of high caste men benevolently consuming inferior races.
+
+In that spirit, Europe—with Japan coming in presently as a hopeful
+student of European methods—had been trying to cook, carve up and fight
+for the portions of China for nearly a century, treating these wonderful
+people as an inferior race. The very worst that can be said about Japan
+with regard to China is that she has been too vigorously European.
+
+Consider how it would have been with the United States in the years of
+discord that led up to the Civil War if these difficulties had been
+complicated by three such embarrassments as these: First, that most
+foreigners, except now the Germans and Austrians, are outside the reach
+of the native courts, that their disputes with Chinese go before special
+foreign courts, that they are specially favored in regard to property
+and shipping; secondly, that the Chinese Government is restricted from
+raising revenue by any tariff above a flat rate of 5 per cent., and that
+they are also strictly restricted to 2½ per cent. in their interior dues
+upon foreign (but not Chinese) trade, so that they are in fact unable to
+raise enough revenue to maintain an efficient Government; and thirdly,
+that nearly all the Chinese railways—and as every American knows,
+transport is the very life of modern state—are in the grip of this
+foreign country or that.
+
+These are the open and manifest inconveniences of the situation, but
+behind these more open aspects there is a vast tangle of intervention
+between Chinamen and Chinese affairs—schemes for further exploitation,
+financial entanglements, vast concession plans and projects for “spheres
+of influence” for this aggressive foreign nation or that. And this
+foreign influence is not the influence of one foreign power pursuing a
+single and consistent policy but a number of competing powers, all
+pursuing different ends and pulling things this way and that. How could
+any country reconstruct itself while it was entangled in such a net of
+interference? No people on earth could do such a thing.
+
+The plain fact is that if China is to reconstruct herself that net has
+to be cut away. It is not enough to warn Japan out of China or to say
+“open door” for China. The open door is good for the ventilation of that
+great apartment, but what is also needed is a clearing out of the
+encumbrance inside. These encumbrances are not primarily Japanese.
+
+The five great powers sit at a green table in the form of a horseshoe in
+the conference and the four lesser powers are at a straight table like
+the armature of a horseshoe magnet. At the left hand corner, next the
+Japanese, are the three Chinese representatives. I gather they will be
+allowed to say “Shantung” at the conference in moderation but not Thibet
+nor Tonquin nor the East China—or indeed any—railway. I doubt if either
+Mr. Balfour or M. Briand will nerve himself to say these forbidden
+words. But an irresponsible journalist may write them.
+
+If there is to be a real end to war and disarmament there has to be
+release of China to free Chinese control, and that means a self-denying
+ordinance from ALL the great powers. It will be an easy one for America
+and Italy to accept, but it will be a difficult sacrifice indeed for
+those two hoary leaders in the break-up of China, Great Britain and
+France. Neither country has a bad heart, but long ago in the East they
+acquired some very bad habits. This is a time when bad habits lead very
+quickly to disaster.
+
+The real test of the quality of the conference will appear when some
+issue arises which involves an assertion or denial of the principle of
+“Unhand and keep your hands off China.” If the Chinese are worth while,
+the conference has to establish that principle. It cannot be gracefully
+advanced by America because America has so little to relinquish. It CAN
+be established at the initiative of either Britain or France.
+
+It seems plain to me that official America is waiting for some move in
+this direction from either or both of these powers. If that principle of
+a free China is established at the Washington Conference the way will
+have been opened in the not very remote future to a healthy and vigorous
+United States of China, a great modern, pacific and progressive power.
+And when I write “China” I mean what any sensible man means when he
+writes “China”—I mean all those parts of Asia in which the Chinese
+people and the Chinese culture prevail. I include at least South
+Manchuria, which is as surely Chinese as Texas is American, and which
+can no more be GIVEN to any other power without the consent of China
+than my overcoat can be given by one passerby to another.
+
+The plain alternative to a released and renascent China is the cutting
+up of China among the aggressive powers to the tune of that popular
+American air “The Open Door,” the demoralization and disintegration of
+the Chinese, international elbowing, competition, quarrels among the
+powers who have “shared” China, and, at last, the next great war—which
+it will be just as easy for America to keep out of as the great war of
+1914–1918.
+
+
+
+
+                                   IX
+                          THE FUTURE OF JAPAN
+
+
+                                                    Washington, Nov. 18.
+
+If we adopt as our guiding principle that China is “worth while,” if we
+make up our minds—and it seems to me that the American public at least
+is making up its mind—that China is to bring itself up to date and to
+reorganize itself as a great union of states under purely Chinese
+control, and that it is to be protected by mutual agreement among the
+powers from outside interference during the age of reorganization, then
+it is clear that all dreams of empire in China or any fragments of China
+on the part of any other power must cease.
+
+This building up of a united, peaceful China by the conscious,
+self-denying action of the chief powers of the world is evidently, under
+present conditions, the only sane policy before the powers assembled at
+Washington, but it is, unhappily, quite diametrically opposed to all
+traditions of competitive nationality. And I find a most extraordinary
+conflict going on in men’s minds here in Washington between the manifest
+sanities of the world situation and those habits of thought and action
+in which we have all been bred. Competitive nationalism and the long
+established competitive traditions of European diplomacy have gone far
+toward wrecking the world; and they may yet go far toward wrecking the
+Washington Conference. We have all got these traditions strong in us,
+every one of us. These traditions, these ideas of international
+intercourse as a sort of game to beat the other fellow, have as tough a
+vitality as the appetite of the wasp, which will go on eating greedily
+after its abdomen has been cut off. Indeed, some of the representatives
+of the powers at Washington seem still to be clinging to the ambition of
+finally devouring China, or large parts of China—a feast which they will
+not have the remotest prospect of digesting.
+
+If that sort of thing goes on, a continuation of war preparation, a
+renewal of war and the consummation of the social smash now in progress
+is inevitable. Yet, on the face of that plain, inevitable consequence,
+my diplomatic friends in Washington go on talking about such insane
+projects as that of ceding Manchuria to Japan right down the Great Wall;
+of giving Japan practical possession of the mines of China; of giving
+“compensation” in the matter of Chinese railways to France; of getting
+this “advantage” or that for Great Britain, and so forth and so on. I
+remain permanently astounded before the Foreign Office officials. They
+have such excellent, brilliant minds, but, alas! so highly
+specialized—so highly specialized—that at times one doubts whether they
+have, in the general sense of the word, any minds at all.
+
+In the face of the universal hopefulness for satisfactory results from
+the conference I find myself full of doubts. The naval disarmament
+proposal of Secretary Hughes was obviously meant only as the opening
+proposition, the quite splendid opening proposition, of the conference.
+The second meeting, I felt, would find Mr. Balfour and Admiral Kato and
+M. Briand in eloquent sympathy, saying: “Certainly. All this and more
+also we can do on the understanding that a stable, explicit, exhaustive,
+permanent Pacific agreement can be framed by this conference that will
+remove all causes of war whatever.” But the second meeting was
+disappointing. One nation after another agreed, as Mr. Balfour, that
+“old parliamentary hand,” put it, “in principle. But”——And now we are
+all playing four-handed chess with reservations about dockyards, naval
+stations, cruisers, large submarines, and the like. We are all trying to
+put the effective disarmament onto the other fellow. Meanwhile the nine
+powers are sitting in secret session on the Pacific question, and it is
+clear from the rumors that nine-handed chess is in progress there.
+
+Yet the fact, plain enough to any one who is not lost in the game of
+diplomacy, is that this conference is an occasion for generosity and
+renunciation. There is no way out of the Pacific imbroglio except to
+disentangle China and form a self-denying ordinance of all the powers
+concerned to leave her alone while she reconstructs. I submit that even
+Japan, most intent of all the chess players, will do best to fall in
+line with such a plan.
+
+Would a world covenant to protect China from aggression and to concede
+her the progressive abolition of extra-territorial privileges and the
+same unlimited rights over her own railways and soil and revenue that
+are enjoyed by the Americans and Japanese over theirs be any serious
+harm to Japan? Would it not release Japan from her imitative career as a
+pseudo-Britain or a pseudo-Germany and enable her to get on with her own
+proper business, which is to be, to the fullest, completest and richest
+extent, Japan?
+
+For what, after all, is it that Japan wants? She wants safety, she
+declares—just as France wants safety. She wants safety to be Japan, just
+as France wants safety to be France and England wants safety to be
+England. And she makes these declarations with considerable
+justification. For 300 years she believed she had that safety, and we
+must admit she was the least dangerous state in the whole world. For 300
+years Japan waged no foreign wars; she was a peaceful, self-contained
+hermit. It was American enterprise that dragged her out of her seclusion
+and fear of Europe that drove her to the practices of modern
+imperialism. They are not natural Japanese practices. She fought China
+and grabbed Corea, because otherwise Russia would have held it like a
+pistol at her throat; she fought Russia, because otherwise Russia would
+have held Manchuria and Port Arthur against her; she fought in the Great
+War to oust Germany from Shantung. She is now pursuing an entirely
+“European” policy in China, intriguing to get a free hand in Manchuria
+and Eastern Siberia; scheming for concessions, privileges and the
+creation of obedient puppet governments in a dismembered China; planning
+to divert the natural resources of China to her own use, primarily
+because she fears that otherwise these things will be done by rival
+powers and she will be cut off from trade, from raw materials and all
+prosperity until at last, when she is sufficiently starved and
+enfeebled, she will be attacked and Indiaized. These are reasonable,
+honorable fears. They oblige her to keep armed and aggressive; hers is
+an “offensive defensive.” There is no other way of allaying her
+reasonable, just fears except by a permanent binding association of
+world powers to put an end forever to the headlong scramble for Asia
+that began a century and a half ago in India between the French and
+English, to recognize frankly and to put it upon record that that phase
+of history has closed, and to provide some effective means of
+restoration now and the prevention of fresh aggressions in the future.
+
+No doubt there is a military caste in Japan loving war and not even
+dreading modern war. We have to reckon with that. When we ask Japan to
+release China, we ask for something very much against Japanese habits of
+thought. Her dominant military note is due both to ancient traditions
+and recent experience. Japan had most of the fun and little of the
+bitterness of the Great War and her people may conceivably have a
+lighter attitude toward aggressive war than any European nation. But if
+the alternatives presented to her were on the one hand disarmament and a
+self-denying ordinance of the powers in relation to China, and on the
+other war against the other chief powers of the world, I doubt if the
+patriotism of even the most war-loving Japanese would not outbalance his
+war lust. And I cannot imagine any other permanent settlement of the
+Pacific situation except a self-denying ordinance to which Japan,
+America and the European powers can ever possibly agree.
+
+Now, Japan, disarmed and pledged and self-restrained by treaties and
+associations against aggression on the mainland of Asia, would
+nevertheless reap enormous benefits from the liberation of China. Given
+just and reasonable treaties, she can do very well without armaments.
+Her geographical position would make her naturally and properly the
+first merchant and the first customer of a renascent China. She would
+have the first bid for all the coal and ore and foodstuffs she needed.
+American goods and European goods would have to come past her over
+thousands of miles of sea. Chinese goods that didn’t come to her would
+go elsewhere up a steep hill of freight charges. It is a preposterous
+imagination that China would refuse to sell to her nearest and best
+customer. Moreover, Japan’s artistic and literary culture, at once so
+distinctive and so sympathetic with that of China, would receive
+enormous stimulation, as it has done in the past, by a Chinese revival.
+Japan would be able to keep in the van of nations not by that headlong
+imitation and adoption of European devices into which circumstances have
+forced her hitherto, but by a natural and orderly development of her own
+idiosyncracies in the face of the enhanced power that modern resources
+supply. An association of Japan with other nations to insure
+uninterrupted development to China would insure that to Japan also. It
+would be a mutual assurance of peace and security.
+
+But there is one set of facts, and one only, that militates against this
+idea of a pacific and progressive Japan, a splendid leader in
+civilization amidst a brotherhood of nations, and that is this, that
+Japan is already overpopulated, she has to import not only food but
+industrial raw material, and that her population increases now by the
+tremendous figure of half a million a year. That is the reality that
+gives substance to the aggressive imperialism of Japan. That is why she
+casts about for such regions for expansion as Eastern Siberia—a region
+not represented at the conference, and so beyond its purview, and that
+is why she covets some preferential control in Chinese metals and
+minerals and food. Were it not for this steady invasion of the world by
+hungry lives, the principle of Japan for the Japanese, China for the
+Chinese, England for the English, Eastern Siberia for its own people,
+would give us the simplest, most satisfactory principle for
+international peace. But Japan teems.
+
+Has any country a right to slop its population over and beyond its
+boundaries or to claim trade and food because of its heedless
+self-congestion? Diplomacy is curiously mealy mouthed about many things;
+I have made a British official here blush at the words of birth control,
+but it is a fact that this aggressive fecundity of peoples is something
+that can be changed and restrained within a country, and that this sort
+of modesty and innocence that leads to a morbid development of
+population and to great wars calls for intelligent discouragement in
+international relations.
+
+Japan has modernized itself in many respects, but its social
+organization, its family system, is a very ancient and primitive one,
+involving an extreme domestication of women and a maximum of babies.
+While the sanitation and hygiene of Japan were still mediæval, a
+sufficient proportion of these babies died soon and prevented any
+overpressure of population, but now that Japan has modernized itself in
+most respects it needs to modernize itself in this respect also.
+
+I submit that the troubles arising from excessive fecundity within a
+country justify not an aggressive imperialism on the part of that
+country, but a sufficient amount of birth control within its proper
+boundaries.
+
+
+
+
+                                   X
+               “SECURITY”—THE NEW AND BEAUTIFUL CATCHWORD
+
+
+                                                Washington, November 20.
+
+The new and really quite beautiful catchword that dominates the
+Washington Conference is “security.” The word was produced originally, I
+believe, in France. France wants nothing in the world now but security;
+she has abandoned all dreams of conquest or glory, all aggressive
+economic intentions; she is the white lamb of international affairs,
+washed and redeemed by the Great War. Only—she must be secure.
+
+Great Britain, Japan are in complete unison with France on this subject.
+Great Britain asks for nothing but a predominant fleet and naval
+arsenals in perfect going order. Mr. Balfour’s eloquent speech at the
+second session of the conference made the necessity of this for security
+incontrovertible. Japan wants East Siberia, the special control of raw
+material in Manchuria, a grip upon China, because she is driven by the
+same passionate craving for peace and rest. We have had this explained
+to us very clearly here in Washington by representative Japanese.
+
+All these powers will accept every proposal Secretary Hughes makes, or
+is prepared to make, eloquently and sincerely—“in principle.” They then
+proceed to state their minimum requirements for that feeling of security
+which is the goal of all peoples at the present time. When these
+requirements have been stated it becomes plain that these states are not
+to be so much disarmed as stripped for action, with highly efficient
+instead of unwieldy and overwhelmingly expensive equipment. They do not
+so much propose to give up war as to bring it back by a gentlemanly
+agreement within the restricted possibilities of their austere
+bankruptcy.
+
+The French conception of security is particularly attractive. France
+stipulates, I gather, for a dominant army upon the Continent of Europe,
+for a Germany retained permanently by agreement among the powers at the
+extremest pitch of wretchedness and feebleness, for an outcast Russia,
+or a series of alliances by which such countries as Poland will be
+militarized in the French interest rather than industrialized in their
+own. And France, in further pursuit of the idea of perfect peace (for
+France), is training great masses of barbaric Senegalese for war, with
+the view of using them to police white populations and sustain their
+millennium in Europe. They can have no other use now.
+
+If they return to Africa, these trained soldiers will accumulate as a
+new and interesting element in African life until some black Napoleon
+arises to demand “security” for Africa.
+
+At present France displays an astonishing confidence in the British, but
+no doubt, if her amazing peasants and her wonderful soil presently lead
+to partial recuperation, she will realize the need of bringing her now
+neglected fleet up to “security” standards also. And it is axiomatic
+among the experts that no power with a coast line is really secure
+unless it has a fleet at least the double of any other fleet that can
+possibly operate upon that coast.
+
+These statements are not the facetious inventions of an irresponsible
+writer; they are fair samples of the sort of thing that the various
+deputations have brought with them to Washington. These are the things
+we talk of and are gradually talking out of sight. And if the Washington
+Conference served no other purpose at all in the world, it would have
+been quite worth while in order to get together all these totally
+incomparable conceptions of security and by that approximation to
+demonstrate their utter absurdity. Along the lines of either unregulated
+or regulated armament there can be no security for any race or people.
+
+The only security for a modern state now is _a binding and mutually
+satisfactory_ alliance with the power or powers that might otherwise
+attack. The only real security for France against a German revenge is a
+generous and complete understanding between the French and German
+Republics so that they will have a mutual interest in each other’s
+prosperity. Germany is naturally a rather bigger country than France,
+and nothing on earth can alter that. Other powers or all the powers may
+come into such a treaty as guarantors, but the essential thing for peace
+between France and Germany is peace made good and clear between them, a
+cessation of mutual injuries and hostile preparations.
+
+The only effectual security for the communications of the British Empire
+is the recognition by all mankind that this great system of
+English-speaking states round and about the world is a good thing for
+all mankind and a resolute effort of these states to keep to that level.
+There is no other real security.
+
+This is not “lofty idealism”; it is common sense; and the idea of
+“security” by armament and by the enfeeblement of possible rivals is not
+a “practical recognition of present limitations,” but a feeble surrender
+to entirely vicious tendencies of the human mind.
+
+I believe that for a little while yet Washington will continue its
+researches into the meaning of armed “security,” and that then it will
+turn its attention to the alternative idea, with which the nimble French
+mind has also been playing, and that is security by treaty. The French
+have been disposed in the past to welcome an Anglo-American-French
+treaty to guarantee France against attack. The idea in that form is
+dead, but the possibility of a far more comprehensive agreement, a
+loose-fitting but effectual association of all the nations of the world
+to keep the peace and arrange their differences by conference, is bound
+to recur again as the impossibility of disarmament without settlement
+becomes increasingly apparent.
+
+There drifts into my memory here a curious feast of “security” which
+occurred long ago in some Eastern equivalent of Versailles. The great
+Abbassid family had suffered many things from the Ommayyad Caliphs, and
+at last it rose against them and overcame them and secured the
+leadership of Islam. The remnants of the Ommayyad clan were summoned to
+witness and celebrate the new peace. But some of the Abbassids, inspired
+by quite modern ideas of “security,” had all the Ommayyads massacred
+before the banquet began. A beautiful carpet was spread over the dead
+and dying and the Abbassids feasted thereon. Here was “security” to
+satisfy the most exacting modern European ideals. Yet the Abbassids made
+little of their security. They never rose to the glory of the Ommayyads;
+the drive and strength seemed to have gone out of Arab Islam; their
+history for all this “security” is one of division, decline, decay. It
+takes all men to make a world.
+
+Let us get through with this futile haggling for national advantages and
+securities and let us get on to the organization of that brotherhood
+which can alone save the world.
+
+
+
+
+                                   XI
+                        FRANCE IN THE LIMELIGHT
+
+
+                                                Washington, November 21.
+
+The first session of the Washington Conference featured, as the
+cinematograph people say, President Harding and Mr. Secretary Hughes;
+the second day was Mr. Balfour’s day; this third, from which I have just
+come, was the session of M. Briand.
+
+The four personalities contrast very strikingly. President Harding was a
+stately figure making a very noble oration in the best American fashion;
+Mr. Hughes was hard, exact, clear-cut, very earnest and explicit; Mr.
+Balfour slender and stooping, silvery-haired and urbane, made his
+carefully worded impromptu speech with a care that left no ragged end to
+a sentence and no gap for applause. All three are taller and neater men
+than M. Briand, whose mane of hair flows back from his face in leonine
+style, whose mobile face and fluent gestures reinforce the stirring
+notes of his wonderful voice. His eloquence was so great that many
+Congressmen in the gallery above, quite innocent of French, were moved
+to applause by the sheer grace and music of the performance.
+
+Eloquence could not save the day or the occasion. M. Briand spoke to a
+gathering that was saturated with scepticism for the cause he had to
+plead. I watched the quiet, scrutinizing countenances of the six men he
+turned about to face as he spoke—Root, Lodge and Hughes, as immobile as
+judges; Balfour trying to look like a sympathetic ally in the face of a
+discourse that insultingly ignored Great Britain as a factor of the
+European situation; Lord Lee, obliquely prostrate and judicial; Geddes,
+with that faintly smiling face of his, the mask of an unbeliever.
+
+The voice of the orator rose and fell, boomed at them, pleaded, sought
+to stir them—like seas breaking over rocks. Their still implacable
+faces, hardly or politely, retained the effect of listening to a special
+pleader—a special pleader doing his best, his foamy best, with an
+intolerably bad case.
+
+M. Briand put before the conference no definite proposals at all. After
+Mr. Hughes, with that magnificent discourse of his, punctuated by “we
+propose to scrap,” M. Briand was an anticlimax. France proposed to scrap
+nothing. France does not know how to scrap. She learns nothing and
+forgets nothing. It is her supreme misfortune. He explained the position
+of France in a melodious discourse of apologetics and excuses. The
+French contribution to the Disarmament Conference is that France has not
+the slightest intention of disarming. She is reducing her term of
+service with the colors from three years to two. In a Europe of
+untrained men this is not disarmament, but economy.
+
+The great feature of M. Briand’s discourse was his pretense of the
+absolute unimportance of England in European affairs. France, for whom,
+as Mr. Balfour in a few words of infinite gentleness reminded M. Briand,
+France, for whom the British Empire lost a million dead—very nearly as
+many men as France herself lost; France, to whose rescue from German
+attack came Britain, Russia and presently Italy and America; France, M.
+Briand declared, was alone in the world, friendless and terribly
+threatened by Germany and Russia. And on the nonsensical assumption of
+French isolation, M. Briand unfolded a case that was either—I hesitate
+to consider which—and how shall I put that old alternative?—deficient in
+its estimate of reality, or else—just special pleading.
+
+The plain fact of the case is that France is maintaining a vast army in
+the face of a disarmed world and she is preparing energetically for
+fresh warlike operations in Europe and for war under sea against Great
+Britain. To excuse this line of action M. Briand unfolded a fabulous
+account of the German preparation for a renewal of hostilities; every
+soldier in the small force of troops allowed to Germany is an officer or
+non-commissioned officer, so that practically the German Army can expand
+at any moment to millions, and Germany is not morally disarmed because
+Ludendorff—M. Briand quoted him at some length—is still writing and
+talking militant nonsense.
+
+Even M. Briand has to admit that the present German Government is honest
+and well meaning, but it is a weak Government. It is not the real thing.
+The real Germany is the Germany necessary for M. Briand’s argument. And
+behind Germany is Russia. He conjured up a great phantom of Soviet
+Russia which would have conquered all Europe but for the French Armies
+and Poland. That iniquitous attack of Poland upon Russia last May was,
+he assured his six quiet-eyed auditors and the rest of us, a violent
+invasion of Western civilization by Russia.
+
+“There were those in Germany,” he said in a voice to make our flesh
+creep, “who beckoned them on.” The French had saved us from that. The
+French Army, with its gallant Senegalese, was the peacemaker and
+guardian of all Europe.
+
+One listened incredulous. One waited still incredulous to hear it
+over again from the interpreter. Yes, we were confirmed; he really
+had said that. Poor, exhausted Russia, who saved Paris, desiring
+nothing but to be left alone; bled white, starving, invaded by a
+score of subsidized adventurers; invaded from Esthonia, from Poland,
+from Japan, in Murmansk, in the Crimea, in the Ukraine, on the
+Volga, incessantly invaded, it is this Russia which has put France
+on the offensive-defensive!
+
+One is reminded of the navvy who kicked his wife to death to protect
+himself from her violence.
+
+(It is interesting to recall here that one of the Kaiser’s favorite
+excuses for German armament, when it was Germany and not France which
+aspired to dominate Europe, was his acute dread of the Yellow Peril.)
+
+When he talked to the journalists in preparation for this display, M.
+Briand excused France for wanting submarines in quantity because, he
+said, she was liable to attack upon three coasts, but maturer reflection
+omitted this aspect of the French case from M. Briand’s attention. It
+was too thick even for an American audience. And even Mr. Balfour, with
+all his charming tenderness for a fellow-statesman, could not well have
+avoided the plain question, “From whom does France anticipate a sea
+attack?”
+
+France is in about as much danger of an attack upon her three coasts as
+the United States of America is upon her Canadian frontier. Her ships
+are as safe upon the sea as a wayfarer on Fifth Avenue. If she builds
+submarines now, she builds them to attack British commerce and for no
+other reason whatever. All the Ludendorffs and Soviets in the world do
+not justify a single submarine. Every submarine she launches is almost
+as direct a breach of the peace with Britain as though she were to start
+target practice at Dover Harbor across the straits, and every one in
+England will understand the aim of her action as clearly. As M. Briand,
+in his discourse to the journalists, argued that the empire of France
+was as far-flung as that of Britain, her need to protect her
+communication was as great. This was in the face of Mr. Balfour’s
+reminder that Britain can feed its people only for seven weeks if its
+overseas supplies are cut off. France can feed from her own soil all the
+year round. The argument was not good enough for a boys’ debating
+society, and M. Briand, who is prepared to scrap nothing else, was at
+least well advised to scrap that.
+
+I will confess that I am altogether perplexed by the behavior of France
+at the present time. I do not understand what she believes she is doing
+in Europe and I do not understand her position in this conference. Why
+could she not have co-operated in this conference instead of making it a
+scene of special pleading? I have already said that the French here seem
+to be more foreign than any other people and least in touch with the
+general feeling of the assembly. They seem to have come here as national
+advocates, as special pleaders, without any of that passionate desire to
+lay the foundations of a world settlement that certainly animates nearly
+every other delegation. They do not seem to understand how people here
+regard either the conference or France.
+
+There is indeed a great and enduring enthusiasm for France in America.
+Marshal Foch has gone about in America as the greatest of heroes and the
+most popular figure. He has been overwhelmed by hospitality and
+smothered by every honor America could heap upon him. The French flag is
+far more in evidence than the British in both New York and Washington.
+This may easily give French visitors the idea that they are exceptional
+favorites here and that France can count upon American backing in any
+quarrels she chooses to pick with the British or the Germans or
+Russians.
+
+There could be no greater error. The enthusiasm for Foch is largely
+personal; he was the General of all the Allies. The enthusiasm for
+France is largely traditional and it does not extend to the French
+nationals or the present day. America loves, as all liberal and
+intelligent men throughout the world must love, France the great
+liberator of men’s minds; France of the great Revolution; the France of
+art and light, France, the beautiful and the gallant. It is hard to
+write bitterly of a country that can give the world an Anatole France,
+sane and smiling, or so brave and balanced a gentleman as the late
+Robert d’Humiers. But where is that France today? None of that France
+has come to the Washington Conference, but only an impenitent apologist
+for three years of sins against the peace of the world, an apologist for
+national aggression posturing as fear, and reckless greed disguised as
+discretion.
+
+Here in New York and Washington I find just the same steady change of
+opinion about France that is going on in London. I want to write it down
+as plainly as I can. I want to get it over to my friends in France,
+because I have loved France greatly, and I do not think the French
+people realize what is going on among the English-speaking peoples.
+People here want to see Europe recuperating, and they are beginning to
+realize that the chief obstacle to a recuperating Europe is the
+obstinate French resolve to dominate the Continent, to revive and carry
+out the antiquated and impossible policy of Louis XIV., maintaining an
+ancient and intolerable quarrel, setting Pole against German and brewing
+mischief everywhere in order to divide and rule, instead of entering
+frankly into a European brotherhood.
+
+Feeling about Germany and Austria is changing here, even more rapidly
+than in England, to pity and indignation; feeling about Russia is
+drifting the same way. One detects these undercurrents in the minds of
+the most unlikely people. People are recalling the France of Napoleon
+III., that restless and mischievous France, which came so near to a
+conflict with America in Mexico and which kept Europe in a fever for a
+quarter of a century. It is an enormous loss to the Washington
+Conference, it is a misfortune to all the world, that the great
+qualities of the French people, their clear-headedness, their powerful
+and yet practical imaginations seem at present to be entirely
+subordinated to the merely rhetorical and emotional side of the French
+character.
+
+
+
+
+                                  XII
+                                THUS FAR
+
+
+                                                    Washington, Nov. 22.
+
+How are we getting on in Washington?
+
+The general mood is hopefulness tempered by congestion, mental and
+physical, and by sheer fatigue. There is no rest in Washington, no
+cessation. Last winter I was a happy invalid at Amalfi, I sat in the
+Italian sunshine, the hours were vast globes of golden time, my mind and
+my soul were my own. Now I live to the tune of a telephone bell and the
+little feverish American hours slip through my hot, dry hands before I
+can turn my thoughts around. I wish I could attend to everything.
+
+The conference has evolved two committees, one on disarmament and one on
+Pacific affairs, which meet behind closed doors, so that one has three
+or four divergent reports of what has happened to choose from; delegates
+at all hours and in devious ways call together the press men to make
+more or less epoch-making statements; there are particular conferences
+with representative business men of this country and educationists of
+that, and so forth; one is called upon by a multitude of well informed
+people insistent upon this fact or that point of view, eloquent
+sidelights from South China, Albania, Czecho-Slovakia clamor for
+attention. And there is a terrible multitude of mere pesterers who want
+to do something—they know not what. The weather here is unusually warm
+and inclined to be cloudy, a brewhouse atmosphere, due entirely, one
+humorist declares, to the tremendous fermentation that is going on.
+
+The fermenting vat overflows with the press of all the world. All the
+world, we feel, is present in spirit at Washington.
+
+Three questions stand out as of importance and significance. The naval
+disarmament discussion, as one could have foretold, becomes a haggle for
+advantages. Each power seeks to disarm the other fellow. Great Britain
+detests the big raider submarine and wants none of it; it is America’s
+only effective long range weapon. A clamor comes to us from across the
+ocean from the French Senate for unlimited submarines. These will be to
+attack Great Britain; there can be no other possible use for them.
+Perhaps the French Senate does not really want war with Britain, but
+this is the way to get it.
+
+Japan is asking for a seven to ten instead of a six to ten basis for
+herself. And so on. So long as unsettled differences remain, disarmament
+discussions are bound to degenerate in this fashion. Settlements and
+sincere disarmament are inseparably interwoven. The French, however,
+have led in an important pronouncement, promising evacuations and
+renunciations in the Chinese area on the part of France, provided
+Britain and Japan follow suit. Lord Riddle, on behalf of Britain, has
+followed suit; Britain is ready to relinquish everything, with the
+justifiable exception of Hongkong, a purely British creation. And M.
+Briand has explained why France must have an awful army to overawe
+Europe, but that still leaves certain possibilities of military
+restraint open for consideration. We are still discussing whether we may
+not hope to see conscription banished from the earth.
+
+When such things swim up through the boiling activities of the
+Washington vat, not merely as passing suggestions and happy ideas but
+embodied in more or less concrete proposals, we cannot fail, however
+jaded we may feel, from also feeling hopeful. The conference has got
+only to its third session and we already seem further from war in the
+Pacific and nearer security there than at any time in the last two
+years.
+
+And these intimations of success in this world discussion, of which
+Washington is the controlling nucleus, turn our minds naturally enough
+to the continuation and final outcome of this great initiative of
+President Harding’s. The more fruitful the conference seems likely to be
+in agreements and understandings the more evident is the necessity for
+something permanent arising out of it, to hold and maintain, in spirit
+and in fact, this accumulation of agreements and understandings.
+
+The Washington Conference before it breaks up and disperses must in some
+way lay an egg to reproduce itself. In some fashion it must presently
+return. Because we have had to bear in mind that in the final and
+conclusive sense of the word the conference can decide nothing. It has
+produced a fine and generous atmosphere about it; it will probably
+arrive at an effectual temporary solution of a large group of problems,
+but the power of final decision rests with Governments and Legislatures
+far away.
+
+The American proposals are only suggestive and they have no value as a
+treaty, unless they are accepted by the powers and until the American
+Senate has confirmed them by a two-thirds majority. M. Briand may have
+wished to be generous and broadminded here, but in Paris is this French
+Senate, inspired by a mad patriotism that would even now begin to arm
+France for an “inevitable” war with Britain. The French Senate has made
+a warlike gesture directly at England, has set its feet in a path that
+can end only in a supreme disaster for both France and England, and it
+did so, one guesses, in order to remind M. Briand that if he dared to be
+reasonable, if he dared to be pacific, if he acted for Great France and
+mankind, instead of at the dictates of Nationalist France, he did so at
+his peril. He would have been accused of betraying his country.
+“Conspuez Briand!” they would have cried in their pretty way. So M.
+Briand has played the patriot’s role.
+
+In Tokio and in London it is an open secret that the same conflict goes
+on; the cables are busy with the struggle between reason and fierce
+patriotism. * * * Every concession made by every country at Washington
+will go back to the home land to be challenged as “weakness,” as “want
+of patriotism,” as “treason.”
+
+In America and Britain the ugly side of this business has still to come,
+the outbreak of the patriotic fanatics, of the disappointed politicians
+who wanted to come here, of the wrecker journalists, the dealers in
+suspicion, the evil minds of a thousand types. And the lassitude that
+follows great expectations has also to be reckoned with. What Washington
+decides will not be the ultimate outcome; what the world will get at
+last in treaties ratified and things accomplished will be the mangled
+and tangled remains of the Washington decisions.
+
+For that reason it is imperative that the Washington Conference should
+meet again. Its work is not done until its decisions are realized. After
+it has sent over its reports to the Goverments and Parliaments it will
+adjourn, but it must not cease. With perhaps rather fuller powers, with
+perhaps a wider or a different representation of the world, it must come
+again to a renewed invitation, to restore once more that atmosphere of
+international good will that has been created here, and to go over the
+attempts to realize, or the failures to realize, the settlement it has
+already worked out. And there will be many questions ripening then for
+solution that it cannot deal with now.
+
+Much remains to be done by the Washington Conference, most of its work,
+indeed, is still to be done, but enough has been demonstrated already
+here to convince any reasonable man that a new thing, a new instrument,
+a new organ, has come into human affairs and that it is a thing that the
+world needs and cannot do without again. This thing has to recur, has to
+grow. It has to become a recurrent world conference. And this being
+clear, it is time that public discussion, public opinion, direct itself
+to the problem of the renewal of the conference in order that before it
+disperses we may be assured that it will meet again.
+
+As a temporary, transitory thing, it will presently fade out of men’s
+memories and imaginations; but as a thing going on and living, which has
+gone, but which, like the King in circuit, will come again to try the
+new issues that have arisen and to try again the experiments that have
+fallen short of expectation, it may become the symbol and rallying point
+of all that vast amount of sane, humanitarian feeling and all that
+devotion to mankind as a whole, and to peace and justice, that has
+hitherto been formless and ineffectual in the world, for the need of
+such a banner.
+
+
+
+
+                                  XIII
+               THE LARGER QUESTION BEHIND THE CONFERENCE
+
+
+                                                Washington, November 23.
+
+The Washington Conference, after its tremendous opening, seems now to be
+running into slack water. It has had its three great days, in which
+Secretary Hughes and Mr. Balfour and M. Briand have respectively played
+the leading parts. The broad lines of a possible naval reduction and of
+a possible Chinese and Pacific settlement are shaping themselves in
+men’s minds.
+
+M. Briand has spoken and now departs. France will not disarm until she
+has a binding treaty which her former allies are not yet prepared to
+give her. She ignores the assurances of her proved allies and the
+experiences of the Great War. She goes in fear of desolate Russia and
+bankrupt Germany and she is “assailable on three coasts.” So she retains
+her great armies, and especially her “colonial” army. M. Briand’s
+departure has something of the effect of France shaking the dust from
+her feet and departing from the conference.
+
+But France cannot step out of her share in the leadership of peace in
+this fashion. France has not finished with the conference yet. She will
+speak now at Washington with a voice perhaps less romantically
+impressive but more practically helpful. She has explained the terrors
+of her position and the assembled delegates have said “There! There!” to
+her as politely and soothingly as possible. But nobody really believes
+in the terrors of her position. Mr. Hughes is a man of great tenacity of
+purpose, and his chief reply to M. Briand’s speech is to keep military
+disarmament upon the agenda. A third committee of five powers has been
+added to the two already in existence to deal with land disarmament. It
+is doubtful if it can get very far unless it can bring in German and
+Russian representatives to reply to the alarmist charges of M. Briand.
+
+With the formation of this third committee the Washington Conference
+would seem to have got as much before it as it is likely to handle. The
+Hughes impetus has done its work and done its work well. The conference
+has followed his rigorous lead almost too rigorously. It has cut off a
+manageable part of the vast problem of world peace and seems well on the
+way to manage it. That is exemplary—if limited. To manage a sample is to
+go some way toward demonstrating that the whole is manageable. A war on
+the Pacific has been averted, I think, at least for some years. But the
+more general problem of world peace as one whole, the problem of ending
+war for good, still remains untouched, and it is well to bear in mind
+that that is so.
+
+It is impossible not to contrast this phase in the life of the
+Washington Conference with the great propositions of the opening days,
+when President Harding was speaking at Arlington and in the Continental
+Building of making an end to offensive—and with that of defensive—war
+forever in the world. It is impossible to ignore this shrinkage of aim
+and to refrain from measuring the vast omissions. That prelude, one
+perceives, was the prelude to something greater than this present
+conference, and more than this conference must ensue from it. The
+haggling and adjustment that is now going on in the committee of five
+powers on naval limitation and in the committee of nine powers on the
+Pacific settlement I will not attempt to follow. It is a matter for the
+experts and diplomatists; the public is concerned not with the methods
+of the wrangle but with the general purport and practical outcome.
+
+We of the general public are incapable of judging upon the merits of
+battle cruisers and the possible limits to the size of submarines. Our
+concern is to see such things grow rarer and rarer until they disappear.
+I will not apologize, therefore, for going outside the conference
+chamber for the matter of my next few papers. I will go back from Mr.
+Secretary Hughes and his proposals and their consequences to President
+Harding and to the great expectations with which the conference
+assembled.
+
+These expectations looked not merely to an arrest of international
+competition on the Pacific, and to giving threatened China a breathing
+time to bring itself up to modern conditions; they looked frankly toward
+the establishment of a world peace. But so far as Europe goes, where as
+M. Briand’s speech reminded us, the nations are locked together in a
+state of extreme danger, the conference has as yet done nothing. It is
+quite possible to believe that it will do very little. It is doubtful if
+the peace of Europe can ever be dealt with effectually in Washington.
+The troubles of the European Continent are an old, intricate story, and
+I believe the attitude ascribed here to the American Centre and West,
+the attitude of “let Europe solve her own international problems and not
+bother us with them,” is a thoroughly sound and wise one. America has
+neither the time and attention to spare nor the particular
+understandings needed to grasp the tangled difficulties of Europe. Such
+initiatives as those of President Wilson about Danzig and Fiume settle
+nothing and leave rankling sores. It is up to Europe to clear up and
+simplify itself before it comes into the world arena with America.
+
+It is just within the range of possibility, therefore, that some sort of
+European conference may arise out of the Washington gathering. Such a
+conference is becoming necessary. The divergence in spirit and aim of
+France and Britain that Washington has brought out is not a divergence
+to be smoothed over. Better it should flare now than smoulder later. I
+have done my own small best to exacerbate it, because I believe that a
+brisk quarrel and some plain speaking may clear the air for a better
+understanding. Europe needs ventilation. When France, Britain, Italy and
+Germany meet together to discuss their common interests, cut through
+their impossible entanglements and get rid of their mutual suspicions
+and precautions with the frankness of this Washington gathering, with as
+open and free a discussion and as ample a public participation, European
+affairs will be on the mend.
+
+But there is another issue which America cannot keep out of as she can
+keep out of the Franco-German-British situation, and upon this second
+issue the world looks to her for some sort of leadership. So far the
+Washington Conference has excluded any consideration of the economic and
+financial disorder of the world. But that consideration cannot be
+indefinitely delayed; it is becoming pressingly necessary. All the while
+we are debating here about Japanese autocracy and ambitions, and what we
+really mean by the “open door,” and whether we shall have 40,000 or
+90,000 tons of submarines, and so on, the economic dissolution of the
+world goes on.
+
+The immediate effect of partial disarmament, indeed, both in Britain and
+Japan, may be even to increase the economic difficulties of these
+countries by throwing considerable masses of skilled labor out of work.
+I propose in my next paper to discuss this process of economic and
+social dissolution which is now going on throughout the world, beneath
+the surface of our formal international relations. It is the larger
+reality of the present world situation which the brighter, more dramatic
+incidents of the earlier sessions at Washington have for a time thrust
+out of our attention.
+
+
+
+
+                                  XIV
+                    THE REAL THREAT TO CIVILIZATION
+
+
+                                                    Washington, Nov. 25.
+
+In the opening paper of this series I said that Western civilization was
+undergoing a very rapid process of disorganization, a process that was
+already nearly complete in Russia and that was spreading out to the
+whole world. It is a huge secular process demanding unprecedented
+collective action among the nations if it is to be arrested and I
+welcome the Washington Conference as the most hopeful beginning of such
+concerted action.
+
+Now that the Washington Conference has defined its scope and limitations
+and got down to a definite scheme of work it will be well to return to
+this ampler question of the decline in the world’s affairs.
+
+Now there are great numbers of people, more particularly in America, who
+still refuse to recognize this intermittent and variable process, which
+resumes and goes on again and rests steady for a time and then hurries,
+which is taking all that we know as civilization in Europe toward a
+final destruction. The mere statement that this is going on they call
+“pessimism,” and with a sort of genial hostility they oppose any attempt
+to consider the possibility of any action to turn back the evil process.
+
+I suppose they would call the note of a fire alarm or the toot of a
+motor horn “pessimism”—until the thing hit them good and hard. It would
+have the same effect of a disagreeable warning and interruption to the
+even tenor of their ways. They argue that this alleged decadence is not
+going on, or, what is from a soundly practical point of view the same
+thing, that it is never going to reach them or anything that they really
+care for.
+
+The starvation of Russia down to an empty shell, the break up of China,
+the retrogression of Southeastern Europe to barbarism, the sinking of
+Constantinople to the level of a drunken brothel, the steadily
+approaching collapse of Germany, is nothing to these “optimists.”
+America is all right, anyhow, and am I my brother’s keeper? It is just a
+phase of misfortune “over there” and the people must get out of it as
+they can.
+
+Wait for the swing of the pendulum, the turn of the tide. Things will
+come right again—over the heaps of dead. There have been such slumps
+before in those countries away over there, notoriously less favored by
+God, as they are, than America.
+
+It may be well therefore to go over this matter a little more fully and
+to give my grounds for supposing that there is a rot, a coming undone,
+going on in our system, that will not necessarily recover—that the
+movement isn’t the swing of a pendulum, nor this ebb an ebb that will
+turn again. And further, that this rotting process is bound to affect
+not merely Europe and Asia, but ultimately America.
+
+Now let us recapitulate in the most general terms what has happened and
+is happening at the present time to impoverish and disorganize the
+world. First, there has been a very great destruction of life through
+the war, especially in Europe. Mostly this has been the killing of young
+men who would otherwise have been the flower of the working mass of
+these countries at the present time. This in itself is a great loss of
+energy, but it is a recoverable loss. A new generation is already
+growing up to replace these millions of dead and to efface the economic
+loss of this tragic and sorrowful destruction.
+
+Nor is the extraordinary waste of property, of energy and raw material
+spent in mere destruction, an irreplaceable loss. Given toil, given
+courage, devastated areas can be restored, fresh energies found to
+replenish the countless millions and millions of foot pounds of work
+wasted upon explosives. Many beautiful things, buildings, works of art
+and the like have gone, never to be gotten again, but their place may
+conceivably be taken by new efforts of creative, artistic energy, given
+toil, given confidence and hope.
+
+Far more serious, from the point of view of the future, than the
+destruction of either things or lives, are certain subtler destructions,
+because they strike at that toil, that courage and hope and confidence
+which are essential to any sort of recuperation.
+
+And foremost is the fact of debt, everywhere, but particularly in the
+European countries. All the billions worth of material that was smashed
+up and blown to pieces on the front had to be bought from its owners and
+to secure it every belligerent Government had to incur debts. Lives cost
+little, but material much. The European combatants are overwhelmed with
+debts, every European worker and toiler, every European business man, is
+a debtor; every European enterprise goes on under a crushing burden of
+taxation because of these debts. An attempt has been made to shift this
+unendurable burden from the victors to the vanquished, but the
+vanquished already had as much as they could carry.
+
+Now when first mankind began to experiment with money and credit the lot
+of the debtor was an intolerable one. He might become the slave of his
+creditor, he might be subjected to imprisonment and frightful
+punishments. But it was early discovered that it was not to the general
+advantage, it was not even to the advantage of the creditor, to drive
+the debtor to despair. Processes of bankruptcy were devised to clear him
+up, get what was possible from him and then release him to a fresh start
+and hope.
+
+But we have not yet extended the same leniency to national bankruptcy
+because national insolvencies have been rare. And so we have whole
+nations in Europe so loaded with debts and punitive charges that every
+worker, every business man, will be under his share in this burden from
+the cradle to the grave. He will be a debt serf to the domestic or
+foreign creditor and all his enterprises will be weighed and discouraged
+by this obligation. Debt is one immense and universal discouragement now
+throughout all Europe.
+
+But even that might not prevent the recovery of Europe. There is yet
+another and profounder evil in operation to prevent people “getting to
+work” to reconstruct their shattered economic life. That is the
+increasing failure of money to do its work. Europe cannot get to work,
+cannot get things going again, because over a large part of the world
+the medium of exchange has become untrustworthy and unusable. That is
+the immediate thing that is destroying civilization in the Old World.
+
+We have to remember that our whole economic order is based on money. We
+do not know any way of working a big business, a manufactory, a large
+farm, a mine, except by money payments. Payment in kind, barter and the
+like are ancient and clumsy expedients; you cannot imagine a great city
+like New York getting along with its industrial and business life on any
+such clumsy basis. Every modern city, London, Paris, Berlin, is built on
+a money basis and will collapse into utter ruin, as Petersburg has
+already collapsed, if money fails. But over large and increasing areas
+of Europe money is now of such fluctuating value, its purchasing power
+is so uncertain, that men will neither work for it, nor attempt to save
+it, nor make any monetary bargains ahead.
+
+Such a thing has never occurred to anything like the same extent in all
+history, and it is killing business enterprise altogether and throwing
+whole masses of working people out of employment.
+
+Europe without trustworthy money is as paralyzed as a brain without
+wholesome blood. She cannot act, she cannot move. Employment becomes
+impossible and production dies away. The towns move steadily toward the
+starvation that has overtaken Petersburg and the peasants and
+cultivators cease to grow anything except to satisfy their own needs. To
+go to market with produce, except to barter, is a mockery. The schools
+are not working, the hospitals, the public services; the teachers and
+doctors and officials cannot live upon their pay, they starve or go
+away.
+
+This state of affairs has been brought about by the reckless manufacture
+of paper money by nearly every European Government; we can measure their
+recklessness roughly by comparing their pre-war and post-war exchanges.
+It is only now that we are beginning to realize the enormity of the
+disaster which this demoralization of money is bringing upon the world.
+
+We have weakened the link of cash payments, which has hitherto held
+civilization together, to the breaking point. As the link breaks, the
+machine stops. The modern city will become a formless mob of unemployed
+men and the countryside will become a wilderness of food-hoarding
+peasants—and since the urban masses will have no food and no means of
+commanding it, we may expect the most violent perturbations before they
+are persuaded to accept their fate in a philosophical spirit.
+
+Revolutionary social outbreaks are not the results of plots; they are
+symptoms of social disease. They are not causes but effects. This is
+what I mean when I write of a breakdown of civilization. I mean the
+death of town life, which cannot go on without money and the cessation
+of organized communications. I mean a breakdown of the organizations for
+keeping the peace. I mean an end to organized education.
+
+I mean the smashing of this social order in which we live, through the
+smashing of money, which has already occurred to a large extent in
+Russia, which is going on in many parts of Eastern Europe, which seems
+likely to occur within a few months in Germany, which may spread into
+Italy and France, and so to Britain, and even to the American continent,
+and which can only be arrested by the most vigorous collection action to
+restore validity to money.
+
+Of which vigorous collective action there is in Washington at the
+present moment no sign.
+
+
+
+
+                                   XV
+                 THE POSSIBLE BREAKDOWN OF CIVILIZATION
+
+
+                                                Washington, November 26.
+
+In a previous paper I have set out the plain facts of the condition of
+Central and Eastern Europe. It is a break-up of the modern civilization
+system, due to the smashing up of money, without which organized town
+life, factory production, education and systematic communications are
+unworkable. If it goes on unchecked to its natural conclusion, Central
+and Eastern Europe will follow Russia to a condition in which the towns
+will be dying or dead, empty and ruinous, the railroads passing out of
+use, and in which few people will be left alive except uneducated and
+degenerating peasants and farmers, growing their own food and keeping a
+rough order among themselves in their own fashion. We are faced, indeed
+with a return to barbarism over all these areas. They are going back to
+the conditions of rural Asia Minor or the Balkans.
+
+How far is this degeneration going to spread?
+
+Let us recognize at once that it need spread no further. It is not an
+inevitable process. It could be arrested, it could be turned back and a
+rapid restoration of our shattered civilization could be set going right
+away if the leading powers of the world, sinking their political
+ambitions for a time, could meet frankly to work out a bankruptcy
+arrangement that would release the impoverished nations from debt and
+give them again a valid money, a stable money with a trustworthy
+exchange value, that could be accepted with confidence and saved without
+deterioration. Upon that things could be set going again quite
+hopefully. Education has not so degenerated as yet, habits of work and
+trading and intercourse are still strong enough to make such a recovery
+possible.
+
+Except perhaps in Russia. Russia, for all we know, may have sunken very
+deep.
+
+But if there is no vigorous world effort made soon the trading class,
+the foreman class, the technically educated class, the professional
+class, the teachers, and so forth, will have been broken up and
+dispersed. These classes are comparatively easy to destroy, extremely
+hard to reconstruct. Modern civilization will really have been
+destroyed, if not for good, for a long period, over great areas if these
+classes go.
+
+And the process is at present still spreading rapidly. If it gets
+Germany—and it seems to be getting Germany—then Italy may follow. Italy
+is linked very closely to Germany economically and financially. The
+death of Germany will chill the economic blood of Italy. Italy is
+passionately anxious to disarm on land and sea. But Italy cannot disarm
+while France maintains a great army and makes great naval preparations.
+France’s refusal to disarm prevents Italy from disarming. The lira sways
+and sinks; its value fluctuates not perhaps so widely as do marks and
+kronen but much too widely for healthy industrial life and social
+security. And Italy is troubled by its restless nationalists, a whooping
+flag-waving crew of posturing adventurers without foresight or any
+genuine love of country. If nothing is done, I think I would give
+Germany about six months and North Italy two years before a
+revolutionary collapse occurs.
+
+And France?
+
+This new rhetorical France which remains heavily armed while no man
+threatens, which builds new ships to fight non-existent German armies
+and guards itself against the threats of long dead German Generals—one
+of M. Briand’s hair-raising quotations is to be found in the
+Encyclopaedia Britannica and must be nearly twenty years stale—the
+renascent France which jostles against Italy and England and believes
+that it can humbug America for good and all while it does these things,
+will it pull through amid the general disaster of Europe? Will it
+achieve its manifest ambition and remain dominant in Europe, the
+dominance of the last survivor, the cock upon the dunghill of a general
+decay? I doubt it.
+
+Watch the franc upon the exchange as the true meaning of the French
+search for “security” dawns upon the world. Watch the subscription to
+the next French loan to pay for more submarines and more Senegalese. It
+may prove to be too difficult a feat, after all, for France to wreck the
+rest of Europe, to destroy her commerce by destroying her customers, and
+yet to save herself. When France begins to break, she may break very
+quickly. Under the surface of this exuberant French patriotism runs a
+deep tide of Communism, raw and red and insanely logical.
+
+We talk of the saner, graver France, the substantial France, that is
+masked by the rhetoric of M. Briand and the flag-waving French
+nationalists, of a France generous enough to help a fallen foe and great
+enough to think of the welfare of mankind. I wish we could hear more of
+that saner France. And soon. I can see nothing but a warlike orator,
+empty and mischievous, leading France and all Europe to destruction. I
+do not see that it is possible for a France of armaments and adventures
+to dance along the edge of the abyss without falling in.
+
+When we pass out of the Continental to the Atlantic system and consider
+the case of Britain we find a country with a stabler exchange and a
+tradition of social give and take stronger and deeper than that of any
+other country in Europe. But she is not a self-maintaining country. Her
+millions live very largely on overseas trade. She is helplessly
+dependent upon the prosperity of other countries, and particularly of
+Europe; the ebb of prosperity abroad means ebb for her at home. No other
+country feels so acutely the economic prostration of Germany; no other
+country suffers so greatly from the restless activities of France. She
+is struggling along now with unprecedented masses of unemployed workers,
+and the state of affairs abroad offers no hope of any diminution of this
+burden. The housing of her great population has degenerated greatly
+since the war began; she cannot continue to feed, clothe nor educate her
+people as she used to do unless the decay of Continental Europe is
+arrested.
+
+I do not know what political form of expression a great distress in
+Britain might take. The tendency toward revolutionary violence is not
+very evident in the British temperament, but people who are slow to move
+are often slow to stop. The slow violence of the English might not find
+expression in revolution and might not expend itself internally. They
+might get resentful about France—and perhaps Germany might be feeling
+resentful about France too. But I will confess that I cannot yet imagine
+what an acutely distressed Britain might or might not do. Yet it is
+plain to me that the shadow that lies so dark over Petrograd stretches
+as far as London.
+
+Such, compactly, is the condition of Europe today. I submit to the
+reader that it is a fair statement of facts in common knowledge. This is
+not the Europe of the diplomatists and publicists; it is the Europe of
+reality and the common man. It is a process of decline and fall going on
+under our eyes, swifter and more extensive than the decline and fall of
+the Roman Empire in the fourth and fifth centuries. Its immediate cause
+is the destruction of the monetary system under the burden of war
+expenditure and war debts. And the only possible hope that it may be
+arrested lies in a prompt and vigorous world conference to put an end to
+war expenditures, including even these French war expenditures that M.
+Briand’s admirers find so justifiable; to extinguish debts and reinstate
+stable and trustworthy money in the world.
+
+There is no evidence yet that the Washington Conference will take up
+this task or will even contemplate this task. I find myself in the
+trough of the waves today and less confident of the outcome, even the
+limited outcome, of things here. I am increasingly doubtful whether the
+conference will get as far in the direction of a stabilized Pacific as I
+hoped a few days ago.
+
+
+
+
+                                  XVI
+                            WHAT OF AMERICA?
+
+
+                                                Washington, November 28.
+
+In my next article I will report progress of the Washington Conference;
+in this I will go on with my account in general terms of what is
+happening in the world.
+
+I have written of a progressive rapid dissolution of our civilized
+organization as the dominant fact of the present time. It is very hard
+indeed to keep it in one’s mind here in this city of plenty and lavish
+light that anything of the sort is going on. It is amazing how they
+splash light about here; the Capitol shines all night like a full moon,
+an endless stream of light pours down the Washington Obelisk, light
+blinks and glitters and spins about and spills all over the city.
+
+I find it hard to realize the reality of the collapse here myself, and
+yet I have seen the streets of one great European city in full daylight
+as dead and empty as a skull. I have sought my destination in the chief
+thoroughfare of another European capital at night by means of a pocket
+electric torch. I at least ought to keep these memories of desolation
+clear before me.
+
+I do not see how Americans who have never seen anything of the wrecked
+state of Eastern Europe and the shabbiness and privation of the Centre
+can be expected to feel and see the vision I find it so hard to keep
+vivid in my thoughts. Here is a country where money is still good; the
+$10 notes in my pocket assure me I can go down to the Treasury here and
+get gold for them whenever I think fit. (I believe them so thoroughly
+that I do not even think fit.) My intimations of the progressive
+dissolution over there must read like a gloomy fiction. And it is the
+hardest, most important fact in the world.
+
+Everywhere here there is festival. I go to splendid balls, to glittering
+receptions; I am whirled off to a most hilarious barbecue, an ox in
+chains, roasts and drips over a wood fire—think of that in Russia!
+Thanksgiving Day was an inordinate feast. The portions of food they give
+you in hotels, clubs and restaurants are enormous, by present European
+standards; one seems always to be eating little bits and throwing the
+rest away.
+
+Neither New York nor Washington shows a trace yet, that I can see, of
+the European shadow. There is much unemployment, but not enough yet to
+alarm people. Nothing of it has struck upon my perceptions either here
+or in New York. In the midst of this gay prosperity comes a letter from
+my wife describing how the police had to censor the bitter inscriptions
+upon the wreaths that were laid upon the London cenotaph on Armistice
+Day and how the veterans of the Great War who marched in the unemployed
+processions in London wore pawn tickets in the place of their medals.
+
+I am forced by these contrasts to the question: “Suppose America patches
+up a fairly stable peace with Japan; lets Japan accumulate in Manchuria,
+Siberia, and finally China; cuts her naval expenditure to nothing, and
+allows the rest of the world, including the old English-speaking home,
+to slide and go over into the abyss—apart from the moral loss, will she
+suffer very greatly?”
+
+That is a very interesting speculation.
+
+I think she may adjust herself to a self-contained system and, in a
+sense, pull through. It may involve some very severe stresses. At
+present she grows more food than she can eat or waste; she exports
+foodstuffs. The American farmer sells so much of his produce for export,
+not a very great percentage, but enough to form an important item in his
+affairs. Given a Europe and Asia too impoverished and broken up to
+import food stuffs, that trade goes. The American farmer will have to
+sell to a shrunken demand; he will have either to shrink himself or
+undersell his fellow farmer. This will mean bad times for the American
+farmer as Europe sinks; farmers will be unable to buy as freely as
+usual; many agriculturists will be going out of business.
+
+Firms like Ford will be embarrassed by overproduction. American
+manufacturers are also, to a very marked but not overwhelming extent
+exporters and much of their internal trade is to the farmers—whose
+purchasing power will be diminishing. Bad times for the industrial
+regions also will follow the European disaster, perhaps even very bad
+times. New York and the Eastern cities, so far as the overseas traffic
+goes, may suffer exceptionally. For them there may be less power of
+recovery, for with the fall of Europe into barbarism, the centre of
+American interests will shift to the interior. But after a series of
+crises, a lot of business failures and so on, I do not see why the
+United States—if there is no war with Japan—very little reduced from the
+large splendor of its present habits, should not still be getting along
+in a fashion. America is not tied up to the European system, to live and
+die with it, as France or Britain is tied.
+
+And there is a limit also to the areas of the Old World affected by the
+collapse of the cash and credit system in Europe. Outside the European
+seacoast towns, Asia Minor is not likely to go much lower than it is at
+present, though most of Europe sink to the level of the Balkans and Asia
+Minor. The dissolution of Asia Minor resulted from the great wars of the
+Eastern Empire and Persia; all that land was ruined country before the
+days of Islam. It has never recovered and Europe may never recover.
+
+Given an enfeebled Britain, there will probably be a collapse into
+conflict and discord throughout most of India; and China, unhelped, may
+continue in a state of confusion which is steadily destroying her
+ancient educated class and her ancient traditions without replacing them
+by any modernized educational organization. But here again upon the
+Western Pacific there may be regions which need not go the whole way
+down to citylessness, illiteracy and the peasant life.
+
+Japan is still solvent and energetic, the war has probably strained her
+very little more than it has strained America, and her participation in
+the world credit system is still so recent that, like America, she may
+be able to draw herself together and maintain herself and expand her
+rule and culture, unimpeded, over the whole of Eastern Asia. She will be
+the more able to do this if a phase of disarmament gives her time to
+rest and consolidate before her expansion is resumed. A war between
+Japan and America would be a long and costly affair and it would no
+doubt topple both powers into the same process of dissolution in which
+Europe now welters, but I am assuming that America takes no risk of such
+a war for the sake of China or suchlike remote cause and that Japan is
+not eager for California. An America indifferent to the fall of Europe
+would probably not trouble itself seriously if presently Australia came
+under Japanese domination. It would not trouble—until the Monroe
+Doctrine was invaded. And it would get along very comfortably and
+happily.
+
+So far as material considerations go, therefore, there is not much force
+in an appeal to the ordinary plain man in America to interest himself,
+much less to exert himself, in the tangled troubles of Europe and Asia
+now. He can remain as proudly “isolated” as his fathers; he can refuse
+help, he can “avoid entangling alliances,” and rely on his own strength;
+he can weather the smash, insist on pressing any sparks of recovery out
+of the European debtor, and so far as he and his children, and possibly
+even his children’s children, are concerned, America can expect to go on
+living an extremely tolerable life. There will still be plenty of Fords,
+plenty of food, movies and other amusing inventions; seed time, harvest
+and thanksgiving; no armament and very light taxation and as high a
+percentage of moral, well-regulated lives as any community has ever
+shown upon this planet. Until that long-distant time when the great
+Asiatic Empire of Japan turns its attention seriously to expansion in
+the New World.
+
+So far as present material considerations go....
+
+But I belong to one of the races that have populated America. I know the
+imagination of my own people and something of most of the peoples who
+have sent their best to this land, I have watched the people here, and
+listened to them and read about them; there has been no degeneration
+here but progress and invigoration, and I will not believe that the
+American spirit, distilled from all the best of Europe, will tolerate
+this surrender of the future, this quite hoggish abandonment of the
+leadership of mankind that continuing isolation implies.
+
+The American people has grown great unawares; it still does not realize
+its immense predominance now in wealth, in strength, in hope, happiness
+and unbroken courage among the children of men. The cream of all the
+white races did not come to this continent to reap and sow and eat and
+waste, smoke in its shirtsleeves in a rocking-chair, and let the great
+world from which its fathers came go hang. It did not come here for
+sluggish ease. It came here for liberty and to make the new beginning of
+a greater civilization upon our globe. The years of America’s growth and
+training are coming to an end, the phase of world action has begun. All
+America is too small a world for the American people; the world of their
+interest now is the whole round world.
+
+I have no doubt of the heart and enterprise of America—if America
+understands.
+
+But does America understand the scale and urgency of the present
+situation? Is she prepared to act now? This decadence of Europe is
+urgent—urgent. So far, this Washington Conference has not touched more
+than the outer threads of the writhing international tangle that has to
+be dealt with if European civilization is to be saved.
+
+So far, these economic and financial troubles which are already at a
+crisis of disaster in Europe have been treated as though they did not
+exist. But they are the very heart of the trouble across the Atlantic,
+and with America, the rich creditor of all Europe and the holder of most
+of the gold in the world, lie enormous possibilities of salvation. The
+political situation becomes more and more subordinated to the economic.
+
+If America is willing, America is able to reinstate Europe and turn back
+the decline, _and she is in so strong a position that she can make the
+effectual permanent disarmament of Europe a primary condition of her
+assistance_. If she have the clearness of mind to set aside the eloquent
+apologetics of that one power that is still militant, adventurous and
+malignant among the ruins, she can oblige the remnant of Europe to get
+together and settle outstanding differences by the sheer strength of her
+financial controls. She can demand a “League to Enforce Peace,” and she
+can enforce it.
+
+Will she do that now, or will she let this occasion pass from her—never
+to return?
+
+
+
+
+                                  XVII
+                         EBB TIDE AT WASHINGTON
+
+
+                                                    Washington, Nov. 28.
+
+The League of Nations was the first American initiative toward an
+organized world peace. Its beginning, the world-wide enthusiasm evoked
+by its early promise, its struggle to exist, its abandonment by America,
+its blunders and omissions and the useful, incomplete body that now
+represents it at Geneva, are the material of an immense conflicting
+literature. For a time at least the League is in the background. It has
+not kept hold of the popular imagination of the world.
+
+I will not touch here upon the mistakes and disputes, the possible
+arrogance, the possible jealousies, the inadvisable compromises, the
+unnecessary concessions that made the League a lesser thing than it
+promised to be. I will not discuss why so entirely American a project,
+into which many nations came mainly to please America, failed to retain
+the official support of the American Government. Of such things the
+historian or the novelist may write but not the journalist. The fact
+remains that the project was a project noble and hopeful in its
+beginnings, a very great thing indeed in human history, a dawn in the
+darkness of international conflict and competition, an adventure which
+threw a halo of greatness about the Nation that produced it and about
+that splendid and yet so humanly limited man who has been chiefly
+identified with its promise and its partial failure.
+
+It was, I insist, very largely an American idea, and only America,
+because of her freedom from the complex and bitter-spirited traditions
+of the European Foreign Offices, could have brought such a proposal into
+the arena of practical politics. The American Nation is exceptionally
+free from ancient traditions of empire, ascendancy, expansion, glory and
+the like. It is haunted by a dream, an obstinate recurrent dream, of a
+whole world organized for peace. It comes back to that with a notable
+persistence.
+
+The League of Nations stands now, as it were, on the shelf, an
+experiment not wholly satisfactory, not wholly a failure, destined for
+searching reconsideration at no distant date. Meanwhile, the American
+mind, with much freshness and boldness, has produced this second
+experiment, in a widely different direction, the First Washington
+Conference for the Limitation of Armaments. The League of Nations was
+too definite and cramped in its constitution, too wide in its powers. It
+was a premature superstate. One standard objection, and a very
+reasonable one, was that America might be outvoted by quite minor powers
+and be obliged to undertake responsibilities for which it had no taste.
+The second experiment, therefore, has been tried, very properly, with
+the loosest of constitutions, and the most severely defined and limited
+of aims. We are beginning to see that it too is an experiment, likely to
+be successful within its limits but again not wholly satisfactory.
+Instead of a world constitution we have had a world conversation.
+
+That conversation has passed from the open sessions of the conference to
+the two committees of five upon the limitation of land and sea armaments
+and the Pacific Committee of nine. In all these committees there are
+wide fluctuations of thought and temper. There are daily communications
+to the press from this committee or that, from this delegation or that,
+from a score of propagandas. It is really not worth the while of the
+ordinary citizen to follow these squabbles and flights and
+recriminations and excitements. Certain broad principles have been
+established. The ordinary citizen will be advised to hold firmly to
+these and see that he gets them carried through.
+
+And now there has been a decided ebb in the high spirit of the
+conference. These disputes about details have produced a considerable
+amount of fatigue, attention is fatigued and the exploit of M. Briand
+has for a time shattered and confused the general mentality. The
+American public was in a state of pure and simple enthusiasm for peace
+and disarmament and quite unprepared for the exploit of M. Briand. Like
+all serious shocks, it did not at first produce its full result.
+
+The mood was so amiable here, so eager for cheering and emotional human
+brotherhood, that when France, in the person of M. Briand, snapped her
+fingers at the mere idea of disarmament and quoted a twenty-year-old
+passage from a dead German Field Marshal to justify a vast army and an
+aggressive naval programme in the face of an exhausted Europe, there was
+a touching disposition on the part of a considerable section of the
+American press to greet this display as in some way conducive to our
+millennial efforts. Only a few of us called a spade a spade right away
+and declined to pretend that the irony and restrained indignation of Mr.
+Balfour and Signor Schanzer were “indorsements” of M. Briand’s
+stupendous claim that France with her submarines and Senegalese might do
+as she pleased in Europe.
+
+The facts that the caustic and restrained utterances of these gentlemen
+could be so construed, and that the London Daily Mail should attempt to
+break and mutilate my comments on the French attitude, demonstrate
+beyond doubt the need there was for the utmost outspokenness in this
+matter. But the situation is now better realized. The air is already
+clearer for the outburst. France, we realize, has to stop bullying
+Germany and threatening Italy; Europe can only be saved by the honest
+and unreserved co-operation of Italy, France and Britain for mutual aid
+and reassurance.
+
+The repercussion of the Franco-British clash was immediately evident
+upon the other issues of the conference. The practical refusal of France
+to join in the generous renunciations of America and Britain, the
+feeling of insecurity created in Western Europe weakened Britain in her
+ability to work with America on the Pacific for a secure China and for
+restraint upon the possible imperialism of Japan. Britain cannot do that
+with a hostile neighbor behind her and an uncertain America at her side,
+and the prospects of a free China and for an effective limitation of the
+Japanese naval strength were greatly imperilled. Japanese demands
+stiffened. “Ten to six,” said America. “Ten to seven,” answered Japan.
+
+The effect upon what I might call the Washington state of mind
+throughout the world was depressing. The easy onrush of the opening days
+was checked. Here was hard work ahead, complications, the traditions and
+mental habits of two great European peoples were in conflict and had
+somewhat to be adjusted if we were to get on. The Anglo-French Entente,
+we discovered, was in a very unsatisfactory state; it had suddenly to be
+sent to the wash and the washing had to be done in public, and this
+happened at a phase of lassitude. In the ebb of the great enthusiasm all
+sorts of buried rocks and shoals became apparent again. Party politics
+reappeared—and remained showing.
+
+I am an innocent child in American politics; I know that I make my
+artless remarks upon these things at considerable peril. But I gather
+from the self-betrayals of one or two influential people that things are
+somewhat in this frame. The Democrats feel that so far they have been
+almost supernaturally “good” about the conference. They haven’t said a
+word by way of criticism; they have hailed and helped and smiled and
+cheered. Still——If things should so turn out that a kind of
+insufficiency should appear, and if people’s minds should revert
+thereupon toward the Democratic League of Nations idea, so much under a
+cloud at present, it would be rather more than human not to feel a faint
+gleam of pleasure and perhaps even to give the gentlest of pushes to the
+process of disillusionment.
+
+And on the other hand, there betrays itself now and then a slight
+nervous eagerness on the part of loyal rather than good Republicans to
+call anything that happens a success and to become indignant when, as in
+the case of the Briand oration, a spade is called a spade. And that
+childish, undignified and dwindling tendency of certain American types
+to regard all foreign powers in general, and Britain in particular, as
+forever engaged in diabolical machinations against the peace and purity
+of American life is also increasingly evident. There is an open, if
+incoherent, press campaign against disarmament, against the British,
+against foreigners generally, against—any troublesome thing you like.
+
+These are ebb tide phenomena. These are the limitations of our poor
+humanity under fatigue. None the less, matters have to be thrashed out
+and will be thrashed out. As I said in the beginning, it is hard to keep
+hold.
+
+And so it was high time that the President, who embodies so much of the
+simplicity and strength of that real America, in which I am a profound
+and obstinate believer, should come back into the limelight from which
+he receded after delivering his great speech and leaving the chair on
+the opening day of the conference. In the indirect way customary with
+Presidents here he has been making some very important pronouncements.
+
+My friend Mr. Michelson some days ago published a sketch of very
+important proposals that had already received wide support in the
+informal discussions that pervade Washington—for partial rescinding of
+the Allied debts, subject to disarmament conditions, to be considered by
+a second conference to be presently assembled. Following on this news
+the President has been talking for publication of a third experiment in
+the form of a second Washington Conference to take up these issues. And
+he has also been talking of a third conference to confirm and go on with
+the disarmament arrangements, a conference at which Germany and the
+Spanish-speaking powers, if not Russia, are apparently to have a voice.
+Such a periodic repetition of the conference would presently organize
+itself for a continuing life and so develop gradually and naturally into
+that Association of Nations we are all seeking.
+
+These are refreshing promises in these days of ebb; they show that the
+impulse that began so splendidly two weeks ago is not dead, that the
+tide rises toward world discussion and world organized peace will flow
+again presently, wider and stronger than its previous flow. And
+meanwhile these frank discussions of attitude and detail must go on;
+they cannot be ignored, but at the same time they must not be magnified
+into incurable quarrels and insurmountable difficulties. They are
+unavoidable and necessary things, but not the big things, the main
+things. While the tide is out our main projects, stranded in this
+estuary that leads perhaps to the ocean of peace, must needs keel over
+and look askew; we must scrape our keels, calk leaks and wait for the
+great waters to return.
+
+
+
+
+                                 XVIII
+                    AMERICA AND ENTANGLING ALLIANCES
+
+
+                                                    Washington, Nov. 30.
+
+The power of the American impulse toward a world peace is undeniable. It
+has produced in succession the great dream of a League of Nations and
+now this second great dream of a gradually developing Association of
+Nations arising out of a series of such conferences as this one. No
+other nation could have raised such hopes and no other political system
+has the freedom of action needed to give these projects the substance
+and dignity which the initiative of the head of the state involves.
+
+But if these projects are to carry through into the world of
+accomplished realities, if in a lifetime or so this glorious dream of a
+world peace—going on, as a world at peace must now inevitably do, from
+achievement to achievement—if that dream is to be realized, certain
+peculiarities of the American people and the American situation have at
+no very distant date to be faced.
+
+All such gatherings and conferences as this are haunted by a peculiar
+foggy ghost called “Tact,” which is constantly seeking to cover up and
+conceal and obliterate some vitally important but rather troublesome
+reality in the matter. “Tact” is apparently a modern survival of the
+ancient “Tabu.” For example, a pleasant Indian gentleman sits among the
+British delegates at the conference; “Tact” demands that no one shall
+ever ask him or of him, “What do you conceive will be the place of India
+in that great World Association half a century ahead? Will it still be a
+British appendix?” And “Tact” becomes hysterical at the slightest
+whisper of the word “Senegalese,” or any inquiry about the possible uses
+of the French submarine. And a third question, hitherto veiled by “Tact”
+under the very thickest wrappings of fog, to which, greatly daring, I
+propose to address myself now, is: “How far is America really prepared
+to fix and adhere to any wide schemes for the permanent adjustment of
+the world’s affairs that may be arrived at by this conference or its
+successors?”
+
+The other day a friend of mine in New York made a profoundly wise remark
+to me. “I have found,” she said, “that one can have nothing and do
+nothing without paying for it. If you do well or if you do ill, just the
+same you have to pay for it. If a mother wants to do her best by her
+children, she must pay for it, in giving up personal ambitions, dreams
+of writing or art, throughout the best years of life. If a man wants to
+do his best in business or politics, he must sacrifice dreams of travel
+and adventure.” And whatever America does with herself in the next few
+years, she too must be prepared to pay.
+
+If she desires isolation, moral exaltation, irresponsibility and
+self-sufficiency, “America for the Americans and never mind the
+consequences,” she must be prepared to witness the decline and fall of
+the white civilization in Europe and the consolidation of a profoundly
+alien system across the Pacific. If, on the other hand, she now takes up
+this task for which she seems so inclined, as the leader and helper of
+white civilization, the task of organizing the permanent peace of the
+world upon the lines of the system of civilization to which she belongs,
+then for that nobler role also there is a price to be paid. She has to
+assume not only the dignity but the responsibilities of leadership. She
+has not merely to express noble sentiments, but to lay hold upon the
+difficulties and intricacies of the problem before her. She has not
+merely to criticise but to consider and sympathize and help, and she has
+to make decisions and abide by them.
+
+When America really makes decisions, she abides by them—vigorously. The
+Monroe Doctrine was such a decision. It has saved South America for
+South Americans; it has saved Europe from a ruinous scramble for the
+Spanish inheritance. It was the first great feat of Americanism in world
+politics. The exponents of “Tact” will, I know, be outraged by the
+reminder that for a long time tacit approval of Britain and the
+existence of the British fleet provided a support and shield to the
+Monroe Doctrine, and also by the further reminder that the one serious
+attack upon it was made by Napoleon III. during the American Civil
+War—at which time, I admit, the attitude of Great Britain to the
+disunited States was also far from impeccable. But helped or assailed,
+the Monroe Doctrine held good.
+
+The Washington Conference has developed a position with regard to the
+Pacific that calls for an American decision of equal vigor. It is as
+plain as daylight that Japanese liberal tendencies can be supported and
+the aggressive ambitions of Japanese imperialism can be restrained, that
+China can be saved for the Chinese and Eastern Siberia from foreign
+conquest, provided America places herself unequivocally side by side
+with Great Britain and France in framing and _sustaining_ a definite
+system of guarantees and prohibitions in Eastern Asia. The
+Anglo-Japanese agreement could be ended in favor of such a new
+peace-pact and an enormous step forward toward world peace be made. It
+would mark an epoch in world statecraft.
+
+But this means an agreement of the nature of a treaty; a mere
+Presidential declaration, which means some later President might set
+aside or some newly elected Senate reverse, is not enough. If the reader
+will study the position of Australia and of the British commitments in
+Eastern Asia, he will see why it is not enough. Britain is not strong
+enough to risk being left alone as the chivalrous protector of a weak,
+if renascent, China. She has her own people in Australia to consider.
+And besides, Britain alone—as the protector of China—after all that has
+happened in the past.... It is moral as well as material help in
+sustaining the new understanding that the British will require.
+
+The plain fact of the Pacific situation is that there are only three
+courses before the world—either unchallenged Japanese domination in
+Eastern Asia from now on, or a war to prevent it soon, or an alliance of
+America, Britain and Japan, with whatever government China may develop,
+and with the other powers concerned, though perhaps less urgently
+concerned—an alliance of all these, for mutual restraint and mutual
+protection. And it is an equally plain fact, though “Tact” cries “Hush!”
+at the words, that the tradition of America for a hundred years, a
+tradition which was sustained in her refusal to come into the League of
+Nations, has been against any such alliance.
+
+George Washington’s advice to his countrymen to avoid “permanent
+alliances” for the balance of power and suchlike ends, and Jefferson’s
+reiterated council to his countrymen to avoid “entangling alliances”
+have been interpreted too long as injunctions to avoid any alliances
+whatever, entangling or disentangling. The habit of avoiding association
+in balance-of-power schemes and the like has broadened out into a
+general habit of non-association. But alliances which are not aimed at a
+common enemy but only at a common end were not, I submit, within the
+intention of George Washington.
+
+At any rate, I do not see how the disarmament proposals of Mr. Secretary
+Hughes can possibly he accepted without a Pacific settlement, nor how
+that settlement can be sustained except by some sort of alliance,
+meeting periodically in conference to apply or adapt the settlement to
+such particular issues as may arise. If America is not prepared to go as
+far as that, then I do not understand the enthusiasm of America for the
+Washington Conference. I do not understand the mentality that can
+contemplate world disarmament without at least that much provision for
+the prevention of future conflicts.
+
+And similarly, I do not see how any effectual disarmament is possible in
+Europe or how any dealing with the economic and financial situation
+there can be possible unless America is prepared to bind itself in an
+alliance of mutual protection and accommodation with at least France,
+Germany, Britain and Italy to sustain a similar series of conferences
+and adjustments. At the back of the French refusal to disarm there is a
+suppressed demand for a protective alliance. That is an entirely
+reasonable demand. The form of this alliance that the French have
+demanded hitherto is an entangling alliance, an alliance of America and
+Britain and France against, at least, Germany and Russia. The necessary
+alliance to which France and Britain will presently assent, and which
+America will come to recognize as the only way to its peacemaking aims,
+will be against no one; it is an alliance of an entirely beneficial
+character, an alliance not to entangle but to release.
+
+The disposition of the European delegations and of the British and
+foreign writers at Washington to treat the idea of America making
+treaties of alliance as outside the range of possibility, as indeed an
+idea _tabu_, seems to me a profoundly mistaken one. It is “Tact” in its
+extremest form. I have heard talk of the “immense inertia” of political
+dogmas held for a hundred years. For “immense inertia” I would rather
+write “expiring impulse.” The policy of non-interference in affairs
+outside America was an excellent thing, no doubt, for a young Republic
+in the self-protective state; it is a policy entirely unworthy of a
+Republic which has now become the predominant state in the world.
+
+
+
+
+                                  XIX
+                       AN ASSOCIATION OF NATIONS
+
+
+The futility of the idea of a limitation of armaments or any limitation
+of warfare as a possible remedy for the present distresses of mankind,
+without some sort of permanent settlement of the conflicts of interest
+and ambition which lie at the root of warfare, has grown clearer and
+clearer with each day’s work of the Washington Conference. And the
+conviction that no permanent settlement is conceivable without a binding
+alliance to sustain it also grows stronger each day. For security and
+peace in the Pacific an alliance of at least America, Britain and Japan
+is imperative, and Britain cannot play her part therein unless Europe is
+safe also, through a binding alliance of at least France, Germany,
+Britain and America. To arrest the economic decadence of the world a
+still wider bond is needed.
+
+So the inflexible logic of the situation brings us back to the problem
+of a world alliance and a world guarantee, the problem of which the
+League of Nations was the first attempted solution. The conference is
+being forced toward that ampler problem again, in spite of the severe
+restrictions of its agenda. After President Wilson’s “League” comes
+President Harding’s “Association.” Senator Borah, in alarm, emerges from
+the silence he has hitherto kept during the conference to declare that
+this “Association” is only another name for the “League.” On that we may
+differ from him. Association and League are alike in seeking to organize
+the peace of the world but in every other respect they are different
+schemes, differing in aims, scope and spirit.
+
+The primary difference is that, while the League was a very clearly
+defined thing, planned complete from the outset, a thing as precise and
+inalterable as the United States Constitution, the Harding project is a
+tentative, experimental thing, capable of great adaptations by trial and
+corrected error, a flexible and living thing that is intended to grow
+and change in response to the needs of our perplexing and incalculable
+world.
+
+The Harding idea, as it is growing up in people’s minds in Washington,
+seems to be something after this fashion: That this present conference
+shall be followed by others having a sort of genetic relationship to it,
+varying in their scope, in their terms of reference, in the number of
+states invited to participate. A successor to the present one seems to
+be already imminent in the form of a conference on the economic and
+financial disorder of the world. Such a conference would probably
+include German and Spanish, and possibly Russian, representatives, and
+it might take on in addition to its economic discussion any issues that
+this present conference may leave outstanding.
+
+These Washington Conferences, it is hoped, will become a sort of
+international habit, will grow into a world institution in which
+experience will determine usages and usage harden into a customary rule.
+They will become by insensible degrees a World Parliament, with an
+authority that will grow or decline with the success or failure of the
+recommendations.
+
+One advantage of having experiments made will occur at once to those who
+have been present at the plenary sittings of the present conference. The
+method of trial and error will afford an opportunity of working out the
+grave inconveniences of the language difficulty. It is plain that, with
+only three languages going, French, Japanese and English, proceedings
+may easily become very tedious; there is no true debate, no possibility
+of interpolating a question or a comment, no real and vivid discussion.
+The real debating goes on in notes and counter notes, in prearranged
+speeches, communications to the press representatives, and so forth.
+
+The plenary sessions exist only to announce or confirm. They are
+essentially _ceremonial_. In any polyglot gathering it seems inevitable
+that this should be so. The framers of the League of Nations
+constitution, with its Council and Assembly, seem to have been far too
+much influenced by the analogy of single language governing bodies in
+which spontaneous discussion is frequent and free. World conferences are
+much more likely to do their work by translated correspondence and by
+private sessions of preparatory committees, and to use the general
+meeting only for announcement, indorsement and confirmation.
+
+But the preparatory committees are only the first organs developed by
+the conference. Certain other organs are also likely to arise out of it
+as necessary to its complete function. Whatever agreements are arrived
+at here about either the limitation of armaments or the permanent
+regulation of the affairs of China and the Pacific, it is clear that
+they will speedily become seed beds of troublesome misunderstanding and
+divergent interpretation unless some sort of permanent body is created
+in each case, with very wide powers intrusted to it by the treaty making
+authorities of all the countries concerned to interpret, defend and
+apply the provisions of the agreement. Such permanent commissions seem
+to me to be dictated by the practical logic of the situation. Quite
+apart from the later conferences that President Harding has promised, a
+standing Naval Armament Commission and a Pacific Commission, with very
+considerable powers to fix things, seems to be a necessary outcome of
+the First Washington Conference.
+
+But these two commissions will not cover all the ground involved. This
+conference cannot leave European disarmament and the European situation
+with its present ragged and raw ends. Nothing has been more remarkable,
+nothing deserves closer study by the thoughtful Americans, than the
+fluctuations of the British delegation at this conference with regard to
+a Pacific settlement. I see that able writer upon Chinese affairs, Dr.
+John Dewey, comments upon these changes of front and hints at some
+profound disingenuousness on the part of the British. But the reasons
+for these fluctuations lie on the surface of things. They are to be
+found in the European situation.
+
+Britain, secure in Europe, unthreatened on her Mediterranean routes, can
+play the part of a strong supporter of American ideals in China. She
+seems, indeed, willing and anxious to do so—in spite of her past. But
+threatened in Europe, she can do nothing of the sort. She cannot extend
+an arm to help shield China while a knife is held at her throat. So the
+Pacific is entangled with the Mediterranean and the coasts of France,
+and it becomes plain that a Peace Commission for Europe is a third
+necessary consequence of this conference, if this conference is to count
+as a success.
+
+Suppose now that this present conference produces the first two
+commissions I have sketched and gives way to a second conference, with
+an ampler representation of the European powers, which will direct its
+attention mainly to the reassurance and disarmament of France and
+Germany and Britain, a second conference whose findings may be finally
+embodied in this third commission I have suggested; and suppose,
+further, that an International Debt and Currency Conference presently
+gets to effective work, surely we may claim that the promised
+Association of Nations is well on its way towards crystallization.
+
+Simply and naturally, step by step, the President of the United States
+will have become the official summoner of a rudimentary World
+Parliament. By the time that stage is reached a series of important
+questions of detailed organization will have arisen. Each executive
+commission, as the successive conference brings these commissions into
+being, will require in its several spheres agents, officials, a
+secretariat, a home for its archives, a budget. These conferences cannot
+go on meeting without the development of such a living and continuing
+body of world administration through the commissions they must needs
+create. Presumably that body of commissions will grow up mainly in and
+about Washington. If it does, it will be the most amazing addition to
+Congress conceivable; it will be the voluntary and gradual aggregation
+of a sort of loose World Empire round the monument of George Washington.
+
+But I do not see that all these commissions and Parliaments need sit in
+Washington or that it is desirable that they should. A world commission
+for land disarmament might function in Paris or Rome, a world commission
+for finance in New York or London. And meanwhile, at Geneva or in
+Vienna, to which place there is some project of removal, the League of
+Nations, that first concrete realization of the American spirit, will be
+going on in its own rather cramped, rather too strictly defined lines.
+
+It also will have thrown out world organizations in connection with
+health, with such world interests as the white slave traffic, and so
+forth. It will be conducting European arbitrations and it will be
+providing boundary commissions and the like. And somewhere there will
+also be a sort of World Supreme Court getting to work upon judicial
+international differences.
+
+Now this, I submit, is the way that world unity is likely to arise out
+of our dreams into reality, and this partial, dispersed, experimenting
+way of growth is perhaps the only way in which it can come about. It is
+not so splendid and impressive a vision as that of some World
+Parliament, some perfected League, suddenly flashing into being and
+assuming the leadership of the world. It will not be set up like a
+pavilion but it will grow like a tree. But it is a reality and it comes.
+The Association of Nations grows before our eyes.
+
+And meanwhile there is an immense task before teachers and writers,
+before parents and talkers and all who instruct and make and change
+opinion, and that is the task of building up a new spirit in the hearts
+of men and a new dream in their minds, the spirit of fellowship to all
+men, the dream of a great world released forever from the obsession of
+warfare and international struggle; a great world of steadily developing
+unity in which all races and all kinds of men will be free to make their
+distinctive contributions to the gathering achievements of the race.
+
+
+
+
+                                   XX
+             FRANCE AND ENGLAND—THE PLAIN FACTS OF THE CASE
+
+
+If we are to have any fundamental improvements in the present relations
+of nations, if we are to achieve that change of heart which is needed as
+the fundamental thing for the establishment of a world peace, then we
+must look the facts of international friction squarely in the face. It
+is no good pretending there is no jar when there is a jar. This business
+of the world peace effort, of which the Washington Conference is now the
+centre, is not to smooth over international difficulties; it is to
+expose, examine, diagnose and cure them.
+
+Now here is this Franco-British clash, a plain quarrel and one very
+disturbing to the American audience. The Americans generally don’t like
+this quarrel. They are torn between a very strong traditional affection
+for the French and a kind of liking for at least one or two congenial
+things about the British. They would like to hear no more of it,
+therefore. They just simply want peace. But there the quarrel is. Was it
+an avoidable quarrel? Or was it inevitable? Perhaps it is something very
+fundamental to the European situation. Perhaps if we analyze it and
+probe right down to the final causes of it we may learn something worth
+while for the aims and ends of the Washington Conference.
+
+Now, let us get a firm hold upon one very important fact, indeed. This
+clash is a clash between the present French Government and the present
+British Government, but it is not a clash between all the French and all
+the British. It is not an outbreak of national antipathy or any
+horrible, irreconcilable thing of that sort. There are elements in
+France strongly opposed to the French Government upon the issues raised
+in this dispute. There is a section of the English press fantastically
+on the “French” side and bitterly opposed even to the public criticism
+of the public speeches of the French Premier in English. The party
+politics of both France and Britain and, what is worse, those bitter
+animosities that centre upon political personalities have got into this
+dispute.
+
+It may help to clear the issue if we disregard the attitude of the two
+Governments in naming the sides to the dispute, and if instead of
+speaking of the “French” or the “British” sides we speak of the
+“Keep-Germany-down” and the “Give-Germany-a-chance” sides, or better, if
+we call them the “Insisters,” who insist upon the uttermost farthing of
+repayment and penitence from Germany, and the “Believers,” who don’t.
+For it is upon Germany that the whole dispute turns.
+
+There is a very powerful “Insister” party in Great Britain; there is a
+growing “Believer” party in France. And while France has been steadily
+“Insister” since the armistice, Britain and the British Government have
+changed round from “Insister” to “Believer” in the last year or so. This
+change has produced extraordinary strains and recriminations between
+French and British political groups and individuals, as such changes of
+front must always do. Such disputes often make far more noise than deep
+and vital national misunderstandings, and it is well that the
+intelligent observer, and particularly the American observer, should
+distinguish the note of the disconcerted party man in a rage from the
+note of genuine patriotic anger.
+
+The beginnings of the present trouble are to be found in the Versailles
+Conference. There the only “Relievers” seem to have been the American
+representatives. Those were the days of the British Khaki election, when
+“Hang the Kaiser” and “Make the Germans Pay!” were the slogans that
+carried Mr. Lloyd George to power. For about four months the dispute
+went on between moderation and overwhelming demands. America stood alone
+for moderation. The British insisted upon the uttermost farthing, at
+least as strenuously as the French, and it was Gen. Smuts, of all
+people, who added the last straw to the intolerable burden of
+indebtedness that was then piled upon vanquished and ruined Germany. And
+both America and Britain were parties to the arrangements that give
+France the power, the Shylock right, of carving into Germany and
+disintegrating her more and more if Germany fail to keep up with the
+impossible payments that were then fixed upon her.
+
+The position of the French Government in this business is therefore a
+perfectly legal and logical one. France can adhere, as M. Briand says
+she will, to the Treaty of Versailles, she can flout and disregard any
+disposition of the Washington Conference to qualify or revise that
+treaty, and the British Government, in a hopelessly embarrassed and
+illogical position, can appeal only to the hard logic of reality.
+
+Britain is much more dependent upon her overseas trade than France, and
+so the British have earlier realized the enormous injury that the social
+and economic breakdown of Russia has done and the still more enormous
+injury that the breaking up of Central European civilization will do.
+
+“You are quite within your rights,” these newly converted “Relievers”
+say to the obdurate “Insisters,” “but you will wreck all Europe.”
+
+That idea that the possible destruction of civilization has not yet
+entered so many minds in France as it has in Britain. Germany is nearer
+to France than to Britain, and the fear of a renascent and vindictive
+Germany is greater in France than in Britain. In the French mind, the
+possibility of a German invasion for revenge twenty years hence still
+overshadows the possibility of an economic breakdown in a year or two
+years’ time. The British are nearer the breakdown and further from the
+Germans. That is the reality of this Franco-British clash.
+
+Upon that reality bad temper, party feeling, personal spites, irrational
+prejudices, are building up a great mass of nasty, quarrelsome matter.
+And the French Government and the French nationalist majority are
+pressing on to naval and military preparations that distinctly threaten
+Britain. It is no good pretending that they do not do so when they do.
+The French submarines are aimed at Britain.
+
+Empty civilities between France and Britain are of no value in a case of
+this sort. Both countries are being worried by their infernal
+politicians and both are in a state of financial distress and raw
+nerves. It is not a time when deliberation and clear reasoning are easy.
+But when we get down to the fundamentals of the case we find that the
+antagonism comes out to these two propositions that are not necessarily
+irreconcilable:
+
+  (I) _That Germany, for the good of the whole world, must not be
+  destroyed further, but, instead, assisted to keep upon her feet
+  (“Relievers”), and_
+
+  (II) _That Germany must nevermore become a danger to France
+  (“Insisters”)_.
+
+And these two propositions are completely reconcilable, and this
+particular clash can be entirely cured and ended by one thing and by one
+thing only, a binding alliance, watched and sustained by a standing
+commission of France, Germany, Britain, America, and possibly Italy and
+Spain, to guarantee France and Germany from further invasions and
+internal interference, if France follows the dictates of her better
+nature and the advice of her wiser citizens, foregoes her impossible
+claims and lets up on Germany from now on.
+
+_And from no country can the initiative of such an alliance come more
+effectively than from the United States of America, the universal
+creditor, who can bring home to France, as no other power can, the
+beauty and desirability of financial mercifulness._
+
+I submit that these are the broad lines, the elements, the A B C of the
+present situation and that there is nothing whatever between France and
+Britain that is not entirely secondary and subordinate to this issue
+between Insistence and Relief.
+
+And moreover the issue between France in general and Britain in general
+is an issue that is going on in parallel forms all over the world. Old
+Japan _insists_ upon the Versailles treaty; young Japan would relieve
+China,—how much is not yet clear. The American scene is a conflict
+between those who insist fiercely upon the British debt and those who
+would devise relieving conditions. It is nowhere a struggle between
+peoples and races, it is everywhere a struggle between logic and reason,
+between the stipulated thing, the traditional thing and the humane and
+helpful thing, between old ways of thinking and new, between the letter
+and the spirit. Old Shylock was the supreme insister, and since Portia
+was the triumphant reliever, we may reasonably look to the woman voter
+and the women’s organizations of Britain and America for a particular
+impetus towards relief. And the sooner relief comes the better, for once
+Shylock’s knife has cut down sufficiently to the living flesh, the cause
+of the reliever and of civilization will have been lost forever.
+
+
+
+
+                                  XXI
+                          A REMINDER ABOUT WAR
+
+
+                                                 Washington, December 5.
+
+An examination of the situation that has arisen in Europe between
+France, England and Germany brings us out to exactly the same conclusion
+as an examination of the Pacific situation. There is no other
+alternative than this: Either to fight it out and establish the definite
+ascendancy of some one power or to form an alliance based on an explicit
+settlement, an alliance, indeed, sustaining a common executive
+commission to watch and maintain the observance of that settlement.
+There is no way out of war but an organized peace. Washington
+illuminates that point. We must be prepared to see an Association of
+Nations in conference growing into an organic system of world controls
+for world affairs and the keeping of the world’s peace, or we must be
+prepared for—a continuation of war. So it is worth considering what that
+continuation of war will be like. If you will not organize peace through
+some such association, then organize for war, for certainly war will
+come again to you, or to your children.
+
+And for reasons set out in my earlier papers, reasons amply confirmed by
+the experiences of the Washington gathering, a mere limitation of
+armaments can be little more than a strategic truce. It may indeed even
+cut out expensive items and so cheapen and facilitate war.
+
+Let me note here in passing that the case for some Association of
+Nations to discuss and control the common interests of mankind rests on
+a wider basis than the mere prevention of war; the economic and social
+divisions and discords of mankind provide, perhaps, in the long run, a
+stronger and more conclusive argument for human unity than the mere war
+evil, but in this paper I will narrow the issue down to war, simply, and
+ask the reader to consider the probable nature of war in the future if
+the development of warfare is not checked by deliberate human effort.
+
+And I will not deal with the ill-equipped cut-throat war that has been
+going on, and, thanks to the divisions and rivalries of France and
+Britain, is likely still to go on in Eastern Europe for some time to
+come; the wars of the little, self-determined nations that the Treaty of
+Versailles set loose upon each other; the raids of Poland into Ukrainia,
+and of Roumania into Hungary; and of Serbia into Albania; the
+old-fashioned game enlivened by rape and robbery that was brought to its
+highest perfection long ago in the Thirty Years’ War. These are not so
+much wars as spasms of energy, phases of accelerated destruction, in the
+rotting body of East European civilization.
+
+But I mean the sort of war that will come if presently France attacks
+England, or if America and Japan start in for a good, long, mutually
+destructive struggle. You may say that war between France and England is
+unthinkable, but so far from that being the case, certain worthy souls
+in France have been thinking about it hard. Hard but not intelligently.
+They do not understand the moral impossibility of Britain fighting
+America, they have never heard of Canada, they have never examined the
+text of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, and so they dream of a wonderful
+time when America will be fighting England and Japan, and when France,
+with magnificent gestures and with submarines and Senegalese at last
+gloriously justified, will “come to her aid.” So France will divide and
+rule and clamber to dizzy destinies. Blushing and embarrassed American
+statesmen have already had to listen, I guess, to some insidious
+whispers. Even among our distresses there is something amusing in the
+thought of this hot breath of Old World diplomacy on the fresh American
+cheek. I do not say that these are the thoughts and acts of France, or
+of any great section of the French people, but they are certainly the
+thoughts and proceedings of a noisy Nationalist minority in France which
+is at present in a position of dangerous ascendancy there.
+
+Still, apart from the fact that the British will always refuse to fight
+America, there does seem to be no real reason why, in the absence of a
+developing peace alliance to prevent it, either of the other two matches
+I have cited should not be played. In the long run, you cannot avoid
+fighting if you avoid comprehensive alliances and standing arrangements
+for the settlement of differences with the people you may otherwise
+fight.
+
+So let us try and imagine a war between a pair of these four powers,
+five or ten years ahead. They have avoided any entangling alliances, or
+agreements, or settlements, kept their freedom of action and are
+thoroughly—_prepared_.
+
+Let us not fall into the trap of supposing that these wars will follow
+the lines of the Great War of 1914–18 and that we shall have a rapid
+line-up of great entrenched armies, with massed parks of artillery
+behind them, tank attacks and all the rest of it. That sort of war is
+already out of fashion, and the fact that these wars that we are
+considering will be overseas wars puts any possibility of such a dead
+lock of land armies out of the case. The combatants will have to set
+about getting at each other in quite other fashions.
+
+Let us recall the maxim that the object of all fighting is to produce a
+state of mind in the adversary, a state of mind conducive to a
+discontinuance of the struggle and to submission and acquiescence to the
+will of the victor. Old-time wars aimed simply at the small antagonist
+army and at the antagonist Government, but in these democratic days the
+will for peace or war has descended among the people and diffused itself
+among them, and it is the state of mind of the whole enemy population
+that has become the objective in war. The old idea of an invading army
+marching on a capital, gives place, therefore, to a new conception of an
+attack through propaganda, through operations designed to produce acute
+economic distress, and through the air, upon the enemy population.
+
+I will take the latter branch first. Few people have any clear ideas at
+present of the possibilities of air warfare. The closing years of the
+Great War gave the world only a very slight experience of what aerial
+offensives can be. Always, air operations were subsidiary to the vast
+surface engagements of the European belligerents; they were scouting,
+irritating, raiding operations; there were neither the funds nor the
+energy available to work them out thoroughly. In these possible overseas
+wars we are considering, the land armies and the big guns will not be
+the main factors and the air and sea forces will. The powers we have
+considered will therefore push their air equipment on a quite different
+scale; they will be bound to deliver their chief blows with it; we may
+certainly reckon on the biggest long-range airplanes possible, on the
+largest bombs and the deadliest contents for them. We may certainly
+reckon that, within three or four hours of a declaration of war between
+France and England, huge bombs of high explosive, or poison gas, or
+incendiary stuff, will have got through the always ineffectual barrage
+and be livening up the streets of Paris and London. Because it is the
+peculiarity of air warfare that there are no _fronts_ and no effectual
+parries. You bomb the other fellow almost anywhere, and similarly he
+bombs you.
+
+Many people seem to think that America and Japan are too far from each
+other for this sort of thing, but I believe there is nothing
+insurmountable in these distances for an air offensive. It will be a
+question of days instead of hours, that is all, before the babies of
+Tokio or San Francisco get their whiffs of the last thing in gas. The
+job will be a little more elaborate; it will involve getting the air
+material to a convenient distance from the desired objective by means of
+a submersible cruiser; that is all the difference.
+
+All the fleets in the world could hot prevent a properly prepared Japan
+from pouncing upon some unprotected point of the California or Mexican
+coast, setting up a temporary air base there, and getting to work over a
+radius of a thousand miles. She might even keep an air base at sea. And
+it would be equally easy for America to do likewise to Japan. The
+citizen of Los Angeles, as he blew to pieces, or coughed up his lungs
+and choked to death, or was crushed under the falling, burning
+buildings, could at least console himself by the thought that America
+was so thoroughly _prepared_ that his fellow man in Tokio was certainly
+getting it worse, and that he blew to pieces on the soundest American
+lines unentangled by any alliances with decadent Old World powers. And
+an air war between America and Japan need not be confined to the Pacific
+Slope. I do not see anything to prevent Japan, if she wanted to do so,
+with the aid of a venial neutral or so, getting around into the Atlantic
+to New York and testing the stability of the great buildings downtown
+with a few five-ton bombs. The submarine would certainly be able to
+prevent any armies landing on either side of the Pacific to stop the
+preparation and launching of such expeditions.
+
+I do not know how American populations would stand repeated bombing. In
+the late war there was not a single intrusion of air warfare into
+American home life. The hum of the Gotha and the long crescendo of the
+barrage as the thing gets near were not in the list of familiar American
+war sounds. Some of the European populations subjected to that kind of
+thing got very badly “rattled.” And yet, as I have noted, the whole
+force of the combatants was not in the air operations in Europe. One
+result in nearly every country was an outbreak of spy mania; everybody
+with a foreign name or a foreign look in England, for example, was
+suspected of “signalling.” There was much mental trouble; London
+possesses now a considerable number of air raid lunatics and air raid
+defective children, and these are only the extreme instances of a
+widespread overstrain. As the war went on, air stress interwoven with
+the acute stresses produced in public life by the development of
+propaganda. Public life in France, Germany and England got more and more
+crazy about propaganda; there was a fear of insidious whispering
+mischief afoot, more like the fear of witchcraft than anything else;
+until at last it became dangerous and ineffective to make any utterance
+at all except the most ferocious threats and accusations against the
+enemy. And a kind of paralysis of suspicion even affected the adoption
+of inventions. All this mental and moral confusion and deterioration is
+bound to happen in any highly organized community that goes into a well
+prepared war again. The only difference will be that it will all be
+larger, and intenser, and bitterer, and worse. And I will not even
+attempt to elaborate the consequences of the economic attack by
+submarines, upon shipping, and by raids of airplane fleets, assisted
+possibly by spies and traitors, upon the bridges, factories, depots,
+grain stores, ports and so forth, of the combatant countries.
+
+If such things are not practicable across the Pacific now they will be
+practicable in ten years’ time.
+
+But my subject at Washington is peace, and not war. I think it was
+Nevinson’s recent account of the new things in poison gas that set my
+imagination wandering into these possibilities of the Great Alternative
+to entangling treaties and difficult settlements. I will return to
+certain neglected problems of the Peace Conference in my next article.
+
+
+
+
+                                  XXII
+                          SOME STIFLED VOICES
+
+
+                                                 Washington, December 6.
+
+I do not think my outline sketch of the Washington Conference will be
+complete if I do not give an account of certain figures and groups in
+this simmering Washington gathering who have no official standing
+whatever and who are here in the unpopular role of qualifications and
+complications of the simpler conception of the Washington issues. They
+are not conspicuous absentees as are Germany and Russia. They come upon
+the scene but they come rather like that young woman with the baby who
+stands reproachfully at the church door watching the wedding in the
+melodramatic picture. They are full of reproaches—and intimations of
+troubles yet in store.
+
+The other evening, for example, I found myself dining with a comfortably
+housed Corean delegation and listening to the tale of a nation
+overwhelmed.
+
+Corea is as much of a nation as—Ireland. She had so recent an
+independence that she has treaties with the United States recognizing
+and promising to respect her independence. Yet she is now gripped, held
+down and treated as Posen was in the days of Prussian possession. She is
+being “assimilated” by Japan. “What is to be done about us?” my hosts
+asked.
+
+One fellow guest thought nothing could be done because the Corean vote
+in the United States is not strong enough to affect an election.
+
+Amid the tumult of voices here one hears ever and again an appeal for
+something to be done for Corea. Such appeals are addressed chiefly to
+American public opinion, but it is also felt to be worth while to let
+Britain know, at least to the extent of letting me in on this occasion.
+I was introduced to an editor of a Corean paper which had recently been
+suppressed, and I listened to an account, an amazing account, of the
+freedom of the press as it is understood in Corea under Japanese rule.
+
+Yet it sounded very familiar to me. Indeed, I had listened to much the
+same story of suppressions, rather worse suppressions, the night before.
+Then I had been the host of two friends of mine, Mr. Houssain and Mr.
+Sapre, who have had extensive experiences of suppression in India. They
+are both here in much the same spirit as the Coreans.
+
+Whenever I talk to Mr. Houssain we always get to a sort of polite
+quarrel in which he treats me more and more like the Indian Government
+in its defense, and I become more and more like the British ascendancy.
+I adopt, almost inadvertently, as much as is adoptable of the manner and
+tone of the late Lord Cromer and say: “Yes, yes. But are you _ripe_ for
+self-government?” These gentlemen say frankly that the British rule in
+India has displayed so much stupidity in such cases as the Amritsar
+massacre, and the recent suffocation of the Moplah prisoners, and that
+its complete suppression of any frank public discussion of Indian
+affairs in India is so intolerable, that it is becoming unendurable.
+
+Everybody is talking of insurrection in India now; nobody talked of it
+three years ago. These have been three years of stupid “firmness.” Now
+that that dinner party is past and gone, I can confess that I think Mr.
+Houssain’s argument that under British rule India has no chance of
+getting politically educated, because she is prevented from airing her
+ideas, and that if her discontent is incoherent and disorderly it is
+because of the complete suppression, completer now than ever before, of
+discussion, is a very strong argument indeed.
+
+India and Britain cannot talk together about their common future if
+India remains gagged and without ever a chance of learning to talk. If a
+break comes in India it is likely to be a bad and hopeless one, because
+of her lack of worked-out political conceptions, due to her long mental
+restraint, while all the rest of the world from Corea to Peru has been
+trying over political self-expression.
+
+But it is interesting and perhaps not quite so pathetically hopeless as
+it seems at the first glance to find these two men in this city, side by
+side with the Coreans, trying to get “something done about it” at the
+Washington assembly. And a day or so ago I had a call from another
+unofficial delegate, a Syrian Moslem who wanted to talk over the
+education of his people, also fretting beneath the wide surfaces of the
+Treaty of Versailles, with the ambition to manage the affairs of Syria
+for themselves.
+
+And as another case of the stifled voice here are the representatives of
+the Cantonese Chinese Government, who made a scene the other day when
+the Peking representatives went into secret session with the Japanese.
+There was an assembly of hostile Chinese shouting “Traitor!” and
+things—apparently very disagreeable things—in Chinese. Here again there
+is a clamor for attention that gets short drift from the official
+conference.
+
+And, lest these stifled outcries should fill the American reader with
+self-righteousness, I will note in passing that the entrance to the
+second plenary conference was besieged by an array of banners reminding
+us that that evidently most gentle and worthy man, Mr. Debs, is still in
+prison for saying his honest thought about conscription, and also that I
+have received, I suppose, over twenty letters about an unfortunate young
+Englishman, a minor poet named Mr. Charles Ashleigh, who seems to have
+come into America looking like a person of advanced views, to have done
+some publicity work for the I. W. W., and to have been caught in a gale
+of indiscriminate suppression and given a sentence of ten years for
+nothing at all. The offense of Mr. Debs and the alleged offense of Mr.
+Ashleigh, I may note further, were a premature craving for universal
+peace which might have weakened the will for war.
+
+All these suppressions of opinion strike me as black sins against
+civilization, which can only maintain itself and grow and flourish
+through the free expression and discussion of ideas. The temptation to
+ride off from the main business of the conference upon some Quixotic
+championship of Corea or India or Mr. Ashleigh is therefore very
+considerable. But when we consider that all these particular injustices
+are incidents in that general disorder which permits the aggression of
+nation upon nation and which blinds justice with cruel passion and
+urgent necessities of war, these cases appear in a different light.
+
+Corea and the suppressed and imprisoned Indian Liberals and Mr. Ashleigh
+are like people hit casually in a great combat, and the immediate work
+of the ordinary combatant is surely not to specialize upon these special
+cases but to go on with the general fight for world peace which will
+render the atmosphere that created these particular wrongs impossible.
+Japan is attempting to crush and assimilate Corea because Japan wants to
+be bigger and stronger, and she wants to be bigger and stronger because
+of the fear of war and humiliation. Britain holds down India and is
+reluctant to loose her hold on Ireland for the same cause; if she relax,
+some one else may seize and use. America also crushes out the
+anti-conscriptionist because otherwise he may embarrass the conduct of
+the next war.
+
+In the present conference the liberal forces of the world may be able to
+establish a precedent that will at once reflect upon the position of
+both Corea and India, and to open such a prospect of peace as will make
+the release of Messrs. Debs and Ashleigh inevitable. But that can only
+be if we stick to the main business of the conference and do not fuss
+things up at present with too much focusing upon Corea or India or the
+case of Mr. Debs.
+
+The precedent that may be established through the conference is the
+liberation of China, when China is militarily impotent and politically
+disordered, not only from fresh foreign aggression but from existing
+foreign domination. The establishment of such a precedent is a thing of
+supreme importance to all men. If the conference does not get so far as
+that—so far as to establish the principle that an Asiatic people has a
+right to control its own destinies and to protection while it adjusts
+these destinies, in spite of the fact that it cannot as an efficient
+power defend that right—it will have made a very wide step indeed not
+only toward world peace but toward a general liberation of Asiatic
+peoples held in tutelage.
+
+It is so important to mankind that that step should be made that I
+grudge any diversion of energy to minor injustices, however glaring, or
+any complication of the issue whatever. So far as the conference goes, I
+am convinced that “Stick to the freedom of China” is the watchword for
+all liberal thinkers. By the extent to which China is liberated and
+secured the conference will have to be judged. Even the vast problem of
+India cannot overshadow that issue.
+
+
+
+
+                                 XXIII
+        INDIA, THE BRITISH EMPIRE AND THE ASSOCIATION OF NATIONS
+
+
+                                                     Washington, Dec. 7.
+
+It is difficult to think of any subject more completely out of the
+agenda of the Washington Conference than the future of India. But none
+demands our attention more urgently, if we are to build up anything like
+a working conception of an Association of Nations.
+
+Some days ago Senator Johnson declared he had received assurances from
+President Harding that no further steps toward a definite organization
+of an Association of Nations were to be taken for the present; but these
+assurances will not hinder the drift of thoughts and events toward such
+a developing system of understandings as must at last, in fact if not in
+name, constitute a World Association. Indeed, the less we try to fix
+such a thing at present, and the more we think it out, the more probable
+and safe is its coming.
+
+Let the President go on, therefore, taking no steps directly toward his
+Association but proceeding, as he must do very soon, with some sort of
+international conference upon the economic disorders of the world, and
+also with the creation of some arrangement, permanent understanding or
+whatever other name may be given to that commission which is inevitable
+if the peace of the Pacific is to be made secure. Let us who are dealers
+in the flimsier preparatory stuff of ideas and public opinion get on
+with our discussion of the wider stabilizing understanding that looms
+behind.
+
+I have already said that from every country world peace and universal
+prosperity will demand a price. The price America will need to pay if
+she is to impose her conception of a universal peace upon the world is a
+great intellectual effort—an effort of sympathy, an abandonment of some
+venerated traditions. And in addition she must nerve herself to what may
+seem at first very great financial generosities. France must pay by
+laying aside an ancient and cherished quarrel, her glorious and tragic
+militarism and the last vestige of her imperial ambition. The thought of
+predominance and the thought of revenge must be the German sacrifice.
+And Britain also must pay in an altered attitude to those wide
+“possessions” of hers inhabited by alien peoples that have hitherto
+constituted the bulk of her empire.
+
+The destiny of all the English speaking democracies that have risen now
+from being British colonies to semi-independent states seems fairly
+clear. They will go on to nationhood; their links to Great Britain,
+continually less formal and legal and more and more strongly
+sympathetic, will be supplemented by their attraction toward America,
+due to affinity and a common character. All the mischief makers in the
+world cannot, I think, prevent the Dutch-English of South Africa, the
+English-French of Canada, the English-French of Australia, the
+English-Scotch of New Zealand, the Americans, this new emancipated
+Ireland and Britain, being drawn together at last by all their common
+habits of thought and speech, and even by the mellowed memories of their
+past conflicts, into a conscious brotherhood of independent but
+co-operative nations.
+
+The day has come for the Irish to recognize that the future is of more
+value than the past. Even without any other states, this girdle of
+English speaking states about the globe could be of a great predominant
+association. Within this English speaking circle of peoples a whole
+series of experiments in separation, independent action, readjustment,
+co-operation and federation have been made in the last century and a
+half, and are still going on, of the utmost significance in the problem
+of human association.
+
+No other series of communities have had such experiences. No other
+communities have so much to give mankind in these matters. The German
+coalescences have been marred by old methods of force, methods which
+have usually failed in the English cases. Spain and Latin America are at
+least half a century behind the English speaking world in the arts and
+experience of political co-operation.
+
+But when we turn to India we turn to something absolutely outside the
+English speaking world girdle.
+
+One of the many manifest faults of that most premature project the
+League of Nations was the fiction that brought in India as a
+self-governing nation, as if she were the same sort of thing as these
+self-governing Western states. It was indeed a most amazing assumption.
+India is not a nation, or anything like a nation. India is a confused
+variety of states, languages and races, and so far from being
+self-governing, her peoples are under an amount of political repression
+which is now perhaps greater there than anywhere else in the world.
+
+Politically she is a profound mystery. We do not know what the political
+thoughts of these peoples are, nor indeed whether they have in the mass
+any political concepts at all parallel to those of the Western
+civilizations. The Indian representative at the Washington Conference,
+Mr. Srinivastra Sastri, is obviously a British nominee; he is not so
+much a representative as a specimen Indian gentleman. We do not know
+what national forces there are behind him, or indeed if there is any
+collective will behind him at all. But it would be hard to substitute
+for him anything very much more representative.
+
+What constituency is there, what Electoral College, to send any one?
+India is not in fact so constituted as to send a real representative to
+a conference or an Association of Nations at the present time. She is a
+thing of a different kind, a different sort of human accumulation. She
+belongs to a different order of creature from the English speaking and
+European states and from Japan. She is as little fitted to deal on equal
+terms with them as a jungle deer, let us say, is to join a conference of
+the larger Cetacea in the North Polar seas.
+
+India is far less able to play an effective and genuine part as a member
+of an Association of Nations even than China. She has no real democratic
+institutions and she may never develop them in forms familiar to
+European and American minds. We American and English are too apt to
+suppose that our own democratic methods, our voting and elections and
+debates and press campaigns and parliamentary methods, which have grown
+up through long ages to suit our peculiar idiosyncracies, are
+necessarily adaptable to all the world. In India they may prove
+altogether misfitting.
+
+India, were she given freedom of self-government, under the stimulus of
+modern appliances and modern thought, would probably induce an entirely
+different series of institutions from those of Europe, institutions
+perhaps equally conducive to freedom and development but different in
+kind. And China also, with untrammelled initiatives, may invent methods
+of freedom and co-operation at once dissimilar and parallel to Western
+institutions.
+
+But the mention of China brings us back to the possibility of applying
+the precedent of China to India. The discussions and perplexities of the
+last two or three years which have culminated in the Washington
+Conference have slowly worked out and made clear the possibility of a
+new method in Asia. This is the method of concerted abstinence and
+withdrawal, the idea of a binding agreement of all the nations
+interested in China and tempted to make aggressions upon China to come
+out of and to keep out of that country while it consolidated itself and
+develops upon its own lines.
+
+This new method, which has had its first trial at the Washington
+Conference, is a complete reversal of the method of dealing with
+politically confused or impotent countries and regions adopted at
+Versailles. It is an altogether more civilized and more hopeful method.
+
+Versailles and the League of Nations were ridden by the idea of
+mandates. All over the world where disorder or weakness reigned a single
+mandatory power was to go in, making vague promises of good behavior, to
+rule and exploit that country. It was the thinnest, cheapest camouflage
+for annexation; it was a hopeless attempt to continue the worst
+territory-seizing traditions of the nineteenth century while seeming to
+abandon them. It was Pecksniff imperialism. So we had the snatching of
+Syria, of Mesopotamia, and so forth. But any soundly constituted League
+or Association of Nations should render that sort of thing unnecessary
+and inexcusable.
+
+The reason lying at the base of the British occupation of India, of the
+Japanese occupation of Corea, of the French in Indo-China, and so forth,
+is a perfectly sound reason so long as there is no Association of
+Nations, and it is an entirely worthless one when there is such an
+association—it is that some other power may otherwise come into the
+occupied and dominated country and use it for purposes of offense. The
+case of the British in India, that they have kept an imperial peace for
+all the peoples of that land, that they warded off the Afghan raiders
+who devastated India in the early eighteenth century and afterward the
+long arm of Russia, is a very good one indeed. The British have little
+cause to be ashamed of their past in India and many things to be proud
+of. But they have very good cause, indeed, for being ashamed of their
+disregard of any Indian future. They have sat tight and turned peace
+into paralysis. They have not educated enough or released enough. Always
+the excuse for suppression has been that fear of the rival.
+
+Well, the whole purpose of an Association of Nations is to eliminate
+that fear of a rival and all that that fear entails in war
+possibilities.
+
+The Asiatic “empires” over alien peoples, these “possessions” of other
+people’s lands and lives, have played their part in the world’s
+development. They have become tyrannies and exasperations and tawdry
+grounds for rivalry. A real Association of Nations can have no place for
+“possessions,” “mandates” or “subject peoples” within its scheme.
+
+
+
+
+                                  XXIV
+   THE OTHER END OF PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE—THE SIEVE FOR GOOD INTENTIONS
+
+
+                                                     Washington, Dec. 9.
+
+I went to hear the President address Congress on its reassembling on
+Tuesday. He spoke to a joint session of the Senate and House of
+Representatives held, as is customary, in the chamber of Representatives
+because it is the larger of the two chambers.
+
+Hitherto my observations have centred upon the Continental Building and
+the Pan-American Building, up by the White House, and they have
+concerned the good intentions and great projects that glow and expand
+like great iridescent bubbles about the conference that is going on in
+this region.
+
+But the conference, whatever freedom it has to think and discuss, has no
+power to act. Until the Senate by a two-thirds majority has indorsed the
+recommendations of the President, the United States cannot be committed
+to any engagement with the outside world. This is a fact that needs to
+be written in large letters as a perpetual reminder in the editorial
+rooms and diplomatic offices of all those Europeans who write about or
+deal with the foreign relations of the United States. For the
+Constitution of the United States is as carelessly read over there as
+the Anglo-Japanese alliance has been read here, and it is as dangerously
+misconceived. Through that first disastrous year of the peace Europe
+imagined that the President was the owner rather than the leader of the
+United States.
+
+It was with great interest and curiosity, therefore, that I went down to
+this assembly at the Capitol to see the President dealing with his
+Legislature. Here was the place not of suggestions but of decisions.
+What goes through here is accomplished and done—subject only to one
+thing, the recognition by the Supreme Court, if it is challenged, that
+the thing is constitutional.
+
+I went down with—what shall I say?—some prejudiced expectations. The
+Americans resemble the English very closely in one particular—they abuse
+their own institutions continually. Prohibition and the police—but these
+are outside my scope! I have heard scarcely a good word for Congress
+since I landed here, and the Senate, by the unanimous testimony of the
+conversationalists of the United States, combines the ignoble with the
+diabolical in a peculiarly revolting mixture. Even individual Senators
+have admitted as much—with a sinister pride.
+
+It is exactly how we talk about Parliament in London—though with more
+justice. But this sort of talk soaks into the innocent from abroad, and,
+though one takes none of it seriously, the whole of it produces an
+effect. I had the feeling that I was going to see a gathering of
+wreckers, a barrier, perhaps an insurmountable barrier, in the way to
+the realization of any dream of America taking her place as the leading
+power in the world, as the first embodiment of the New Thing in
+international affairs.
+
+It puts all this sort of feeling right to see these two bodies in their
+proper home and to talk to these creatures of legend, the
+Representatives and the Senators. One perceives they are not a malignant
+sub-species of mankind; one discovers a concourse of men very interested
+about and unexpectedly open-minded upon foreign policy. They are
+critical but not hostile to the new projects and ideas. One realizes
+that Congress is not a blank barrier but a sieve, and probably a very
+necessary sieve, for the new international impulse in America.
+
+The ceremonial of the gathering was simple and with the dignity of
+simplicity. The big galleries for visitors, which always impress the
+British observer by their size, were full of visitors after their kind,
+ladies predominating, and particularly full was the press gallery, which
+overhangs the Speaker and the Presidential chair. Some faint vestige of
+a sound religious upbringing had reminded me that the first are
+sometimes last and the last first; I had fallen into the tail of the
+procession of my fellow newspaper men from their special room to the
+House of Representatives, and so I found myself with the overflow of the
+journalists, not with everything under my chin but very conveniently
+seated on the floor of the House behind the Representatives, and feeling
+much more like a Congressman than I could otherwise have done.
+
+Away to the right were the members of the Cabinet—the British visitor
+always has to remind himself that they cannot be either Representatives
+or Senators. Presently the ninety-odd Senators came in by the central
+door, two by two, and were distributed upon the seats in front of their
+hosts; the Representatives.
+
+There was applause, and I saw Sir Auckland Geddes, with that large, bare
+smile of his, and the rest of the British delegation entering from
+behind the Chair, for the delegations had also been invited to come down
+from the unrealities of the conference and had been assigned the front
+row of seats. Other delegations followed and seated themselves. At last
+came a hush and the clapping of hands, and the President entered and
+went to his place, looking extremely like a headmaster coming in to
+address the school assembly at the beginning of the term. He is more
+like George Washington in appearance, I perceive, than any intervening
+President.
+
+He read his address in that effective voice of his which seems to get
+everywhere without an effort. I listened attentively to every sentence
+of it, although I knew that upstairs there would be a printed copy of it
+for me as soon as the delivery was over. Yet, although I was listening
+closely, I also found I was thinking a great deal about this most potent
+gathering, for potent it is, which has been raised up now to a position
+of quite cardinal importance in human affairs.
+
+President Harding is on what are nowadays for a President exceptionally
+good terms with Congress. He means to keep so. In his address he
+reiterated his point that even the full constitutional powers of the
+President are too great and that he has no intention to use them, much
+less to strain them. Nevertheless, or even in consequence of that, he is
+very manifestly the leader of his Legislature. The atmosphere was
+non-contentious. He was not like a party leader speaking to his
+supporters and the opposition. He was much more like America
+soliloquizing. His address was a statement of intentions.
+
+I think the President feels that officially he is not so much the elect
+of America as the voice of America, and instead of wanting to make that
+voice say characteristic and epoch-making things, he tries to get as
+close as he can to the national thought and will. What President Harding
+says today America will do tomorrow. One human and amusing thing he
+did—he was careful to drag in that much-disputed word of his,
+“normalcy,” which he has resolved, apparently, shall oust out
+“normality” from current English.
+
+And from the point of view of those who are concerned about the dark
+troubles of the world outside America it was, I think, a very hopeful
+address. It reinforced the impression I had already received of
+President Harding as of a man feeling his way carefully but steadily
+towards great ends. America’s growing recognition of her “inescapable
+relationship to world finance and trade” came early and his little
+lecture on the need to give and take in foreign trade was a lecture that
+is being repeated in every main street in America.
+
+He spoke of Russia and returned to that topic. “We do not forget the
+tradition of Russian friendship” was a good sentence that some countries
+in Europe may well mark. The growing belief in America of the
+possibility of going into Russia through the agency of the American
+Relief Administration and of getting to dealing with the revived
+co-operative organizations of Russia is very notable. And though there
+was no mention of the Association of Nations as such, there were
+allusions to the “world hope centered upon this capital city” and to the
+universal desire for permanent peace.
+
+And while I listened I was also thinking of all these men immediately
+before me, between four and five hundred men, including the ninety-six
+Senators, with whom rested the power of decision upon the role America
+will play in the world. I have met and talked now with a number of them,
+and particularly with quite a fair sample of the Senatorial body. And I
+think now that it is going to be a much better body for international
+purposes than my reading about it before I came to Washington has led me
+to suppose.
+
+We hear too much in Europe of the rule of “jobs” and “interests” in
+Washington. No doubt that sort of thing goes on here, as in every
+Legislature, but it has to be borne in mind that it has very little
+bearing upon the international situation. It is not a matter affecting
+the world generally. I doubt if there is nearly as much business and
+financial intrigue in the lobbies of Washington as in the lobbies of
+Westminster; but, anyhow, what there is here is essentially a domestic
+question. Both Representatives and Senators approach international
+questions as comparatively free—if rather inexperienced—men.
+
+Probably the only strong permanent force hitherto in international
+affairs here has been the anti-British vote, based on the Irish hate of
+Britain. If the Irish settlement weakens or abolishes that, Congress
+will deal with the world’s affairs without any perceptible bias at all.
+The average Senator is a prosperous, intelligent, American-thinking man,
+elected to the Senate upon political grounds that have no bearing
+whatever upon international affairs. He is an amateur in matters
+international.
+
+A bitter political issue at home may make him do any old thing with
+international affairs, and that was the situation during the last years
+of President Wilson. Poor, war-battered Europe became a pawn in a
+constitutional struggle. But the Harding regime is to be one of
+co-operation with the Senate, and the dignity of the Senate is restored.
+This very various assembly of vigorous-minded Americans, for that and
+other reasons, is getting to grips now with international questions with
+all the freshness and vigor of good amateurs, with a detached
+disinterestedness, a growing sense of responsibility and the old
+peace-enforcing traditions of America strong in it.
+
+If only it does not delay things too long; I doubt if those who desire
+to see the peace of the world organized and secure are likely to have
+any quarrel with the Senate of the United States. The worst evil I fear
+from the American Senate, now that I have seen something of it
+individually and collectively, is the impartial leisureliness of the
+detached in its dealings with international affairs.
+
+The President finished his discourse and the stir of dispersal began. I
+had assisted at America reviewing her position in the world. I thought
+the occasion simple and fine and dignified. I found myself leaving the
+Capitol in a mood of quite unanticipated respect.
+
+
+
+
+                                  XXV
+                 AFRICA AND THE ASSOCIATION OF NATIONS
+
+
+                                                     Washington, Dec. 9.
+
+In a previous paper I wrote of certain “stifled voices” at Washington.
+There is yet another stifled voice here that I have heard, and to speak
+of it opens up another great group of questions that stand in the way to
+any effectual organization of world peace through an Association of
+Nations. Until we get some provisional decision about this set of issues
+the Association of Nations remains a project in the air.
+
+This stifled voice of which I am now writing is the voice of the colored
+people. As a novelist—a novelist in my spare time—and as a man very
+curious by nature, about human reactions, the peculiar situations
+created by “color” in America have always appealed to me. I do not
+understand why American fiction does not treat of them more frequently.
+It is the educated, highly intelligent colored people who get my
+interest and sympathy. I cannot get up any race feeling about them.
+
+I am particularly proud to have known Booker T. Washington and to know
+Mr. Dubois, and this time, in spite of a great pressure of engagements,
+I was able to spend two hours last Sunday listening to the proceedings
+of the Washington Correspondence Club, an organization which battles by
+letter and interview and appeal against the harsh exclusions from
+theatres, schools, meetings, restaurants, libraries and the like, that
+prevail here.
+
+I will not discuss here the rights and wrongs of a bar that cuts off
+most of the intellectual necessities and conveniences of life from many
+people who would pass as refined and cultivated whites in any European
+country. I mention this gathering merely to note a very interesting
+topic upon which I was called to account thereat.
+
+Once or twice in these papers—I do not know if the reader has noted it—I
+have mentioned the French training of Senegalese troops and the
+objection felt by other European peoples to their extensive employment
+in Europe. I was asked at the Correspondence Club whether the objections
+I had made to this were not “fostering race prejudice,” and some
+interesting exchanges followed.
+
+I was inclined to argue that the importation of African negroes into
+Europe for military purposes was as objectionable as their importation
+to America for economic services, but some of my hosts, some of the
+younger men, did not see it in that light. They are warmed toward the
+French by the notable absence of racial exclusiveness in France, and
+they see the ideals of that epoch-making book, “La France Negre,” from
+an entirely different angle. Why not a black France as big or bigger
+than white France and a new people who have learned military discipline,
+military service and united action from Europe?
+
+“Why not an African Napoleon presently?” said the young man, a little
+wanting, I thought, in that abject meekness which is the American ideal
+of colored behavior.
+
+He was imagining, I suppose, something happening in Africa rather after
+the fashion of the emancipation of Hayti and of great African armies
+pushing their former rulers back to the sea. But Col. Taylor has
+recently suggested another possibility, namely, that of France finding
+herself in the grip of a black Pretorian Guard. It is a just,
+conceivable fancy—a Pretorian Guard, French-speaking and
+ultra-patriotic, keeping French Socialists and pacifists and Bolsheviks
+in their proper place.
+
+I do not believe very much in either of these possibilities nor even in
+the third possibility of European powers fighting each other with black
+armies in Africa, but I do perceive that dreams of a world peace will
+remain very insubstantial dreams, indeed, until we can work out a scheme
+or at least general principles of action for the treatment of Africa
+between the Sahara and the Zambesi River, a scheme that will give some
+sort of a quietus to the jealousies and hostilities evoked by the
+economic and political exploitations of annexed and mandatory
+territories upon nationalist and competitive lines in this region of the
+earth.
+
+For it seems to be the fact that tropical and sub-tropical Africa has
+another function in the world than to be the home of the great family of
+negro peoples. Africa is economically necessary to European civilization
+as the chief source of vegetable oils and fats and various other
+products of no great value to the native population. European
+civilization can scarcely get along without these natural resources of
+Africa.
+
+Now here we are up against a problem entirely different from the problem
+that arises in the case of India, Indo-China and China, which is the
+problem of a politically powerless but essentially civilized population
+which can be trusted to modernize itself and come into line with the
+existing efficient powers if only it is protected from oppressive and
+disintegrating forces while it adjusts itself.
+
+Africa is quite incapable of anything of the sort. Negro Africa is
+mainly still in a state of tribal barbarism; in the latter half of the
+nineteenth century its peoples were in a condition of deepening disorder
+and misery due to the spread of European diseases and to the raiding of
+the Arab and native adventurers who had obtained possession of modern
+firearms. The small village communities of tropical Africa were quite
+unable to stand up against the brigand enterprises of mere bands of
+ruffians armed with rifles.
+
+The scramble for Africa on the part of the European great powers toward
+the close of the nineteenth century—a scramble largely dictated by
+economic appetites—did a little to mitigate the miseries and destruction
+in progress by establishing a sort of order through large areas of
+Africa, a sort of order that in some regions was scarcely less cruel
+than the disorders it replaced. But if continuing access to the
+resources of Africa is to be maintained, and if a return to the Arab
+raider and general chaos and massacres is to be avoided, it is clear
+that in some form the control of the central parts of Africa by the
+modern civilized world must continue.
+
+But we must be clear upon one point. If that control is to be
+maintained, as at present it is maintained by various European powers
+acting independently of one another and competing against one another,
+in the not very remote future Central Africa is bound to become a cause
+of war. Central Africa was one of the great prizes before the German
+imagination in 1914, and it is now held in a state of unstable
+equilibrium by the chief European victors in the Great War.
+
+As they recuperate the African danger will increase. Africa, next after
+Eastern Europe and the Near East, is likely to become in the course of a
+dozen years or so the chief danger region of the world.
+
+It behooves all those who are dreaming of an organized world peace
+through an Association of Nations to keep this African rock ahead in
+mind and to think out the possible method of linking this great region
+with the rest of the world in a universal peace scheme.
+
+I submit that it is not premature for those who are concerned with the
+future of our race to consider the necessity of three chief things:
+
+(1) The complete abandonment and prohibition now of the enlistment and
+military use of the African native population.
+
+(2) The application of the principle of the “open door” and equal
+trading opportunities for all comers in the regions between the Sahara
+and the Zambesi.
+
+(3) A more organized care of the native African population by a
+tightening up of the existing restrictions upon the arms and drink
+trades and the development of some sort of elementary education
+throughout Africa that will give these very various and largely still
+untried peoples a chance of showing what latent abilities they have for
+self-government and participation in the general human common weal.
+
+For my own part, it seems to me that any real “League of Nations,” any
+effective “Association of Nations,” must necessarily supersede the
+existing “empires” and imperial systems and take over their alien
+“possessions” and that one commission embodying the collective will of
+all the efficient civilized nations of the world is the only practicable
+form of security for all those parts of Africa incapable or not yet
+capable of self-government.
+
+
+
+
+                                  XXVI
+                       THE FOURTH PLENARY SESSION
+
+
+                                                    Washington, Dec. 12.
+
+The reader will have seen verbatim reports of the speeches at the fourth
+plenary session of the Washington Conference and he will know already
+what decisions were handed out to us from the more or less secret
+session that prepared them for us.
+
+There has been a good deal of discussion here about the secret sessions
+and a certain indignation at their secrecy that I do not share. It is a
+matter of decency rather than concealment that men speaking various
+languages, representing complicated interests and feeling their way
+toward understandings, should not be exposed to embarrassing observation
+and comment until they have properly hammered out what they have to say.
+It is far better to digest conclusions under cover and to present the
+agreed-upon conclusion. This is no offense against democracy, no
+conspiracy against publicity. The mischief of secrecy lies in secret
+treaties and secret understandings and not in protected interchanges.
+There is no sound objection to secret bargaining in committee provided
+that finally the public is informed of the agreement arrived at and _of
+all the considerations in the bargain_.
+
+The conclusions announced are important enough in themselves; but to all
+who care for the peace of the world they are far more important in the
+vista of possibilities they open up. Certain notable precedents are
+established. The four Root resolutions do put very clearly those ideals
+of withdrawal and abstinence which must become the universal rule of
+conduct between efficient and politically confused or enfeebled states
+if the peace of the world is to be preserved. That is the new way in
+international politics. _It is the beginning of the end of all Asiatic
+imperialisms._
+
+And, following upon its assent to those resolutions, the conference
+voted upon certain special applications of them. The abolitions of the
+extra territorial grievance, the right of China as a neutral power to
+escape the fate of Belgium and the right of China to be informed on the
+article of any treaty affecting her were established as far as a
+resolution of the conference could establish them.
+
+And then came Senator Lodge. For the fourth plenary session “featured”
+Senator Lodge just as previous ones had “featured” Secretary Hughes, Mr.
+Balfour and M. Briand. Fifteen years ago I came to Washington and
+Senator Lodge showed me a collection of prehistoric objects from Central
+America and talked very delightfully about them. Fifteen years have
+changed Washington very greatly but they have not changed Senator Lodge.
+
+He seems perhaps just a little slenderer and neater than before, but
+that may be a change in my own standards, and it was entirely in
+character with my former impressions of him that in putting the
+four-power treaty before the conference he should indulge himself and
+his hearers in a vision of the realities of the Pacific, the
+multitudinous interests of its innumerable islands, its infinite variety
+of races, customs, climates and atmospheres.
+
+It was a most curious and attractive phase of the always-interesting
+conference to have this gray-headed, cultivated gentleman breaking
+through all the abstract jargon of diplomacy and militarism, all the
+talk of powers, radii of action, fortifications, spheres of influence,
+and so forth, in his attempt to make us realize the physical loveliness
+and intellectual charm of this enormous area of the world’s surface that
+the four-power treaty may perhaps save now and forevermore from the fear
+and horrors of war.
+
+The proposed four-power treaty which thus starts upon its uncertain but
+hopeful journey toward ratification by the Senates, Legislatures and
+Governments of the world is essentially a departure from the normal
+tradition of the treaties of the nineteenth century. It is the first
+attempt to realize—what shall I call it?—the American way or the new way
+in international affairs. Its distinctive feature is the participation
+of two possible antagonists, America and Japan. Instead of a war they
+make a treaty and call in Britain and France to assist. It is a treaty
+for peace and not against an antagonist.
+
+I think that the difference between “treaties for” and “treaties
+against” is one that needs to be stressed. The Anglo-Japanese treaty was
+a “treaty against,” a treaty against first Russia, then Germany and then
+against some vaguely conceived assailant. It is a great thing to have
+Japan and England cordially immolating that treaty now that this
+four-power treaty of the new spirit may be born.
+
+After Senator Lodge came M. Viviani with a very fine, if guarded,
+speech. M. Viviani is a great speaker but he is not merely eloquent, and
+I find people here saying little about his wonderful voice or his
+overtones and undertones or his romantic charm but much about the subtle
+things he said. In a gathering that is tense with attention one is apt,
+perhaps, to transfer one’s own thoughts and expectations to the
+gathering as a whole, but it seems to me that when M. Viviani rose to
+welcome this great beginning on the Pacific, we were all thinking: “And
+how much further and to what other regions of the world are you prepared
+to extend this spirit and method of this Pacific bond? There is another
+rather threadbare ‘treaty against’ or at least an ‘understanding
+against,’ known as the Anglo-French entente. Is the time due yet for the
+merger of that also in another and greater bond of peace?”
+
+I do not know how far the question that was in his mind was in the mind
+of the meeting, but I think that M. Viviani made it very plain that it
+was in the background of his own mind. His speech was designed to bring
+the simplicity, the easiness of the Pacific problem into sharp contrast
+with the tortured complexity of the Atlantic—the Afro-European problem.
+He spoke of the freedom of the Pacific from long established hate
+traditions. He reminded us of the twenty centuries of war and trampled
+frontiers and outrages and counter-outrages that had left Europe and
+North Africa scarred and festering.
+
+He conjured up no bogies; he had nothing to say about those 7,000,000
+phantom Germans ready to extract their hidden rifles from 7,000,000
+mattresses and haylofts and rush upon France; but he reminded the
+conference, gravely and wisely, of the relative complexity of the
+European problem, of the new untried nationalities that had been
+liberated, of the vast heritage of tradition and suspicion that had to
+be overcome. He addressed not only the conference but the impatient
+liberal aspirations of the world. “I ask you for forbearance,” he said,
+and repeated that—“I ask for forbearance.”
+
+Now that was a great speech, and M. Viviani is manifestly the sort of
+Frenchman with whom the new spirit can deal. “Forbearance” might well
+serve now as the watchword of Europe. And I wish that Mr. Balfour could
+have shown a fuller recognition of what M. Viviani had said. Mr. Balfour
+had been so fine on several occasions at this conference that I felt it
+is a little ungracious to him to confess, as I must do, that twice in
+this day of the fourth plenary session, once in the conference and also
+in the evening when he replied for the Allies at the Gridiron Club, he
+seemed to be missing an opportunity—the opportunity of holding out a
+hand of friendship to liberal France.
+
+For the reactionary France, for the France of submarines and Senegalese
+and inflated army and navy estimates, neither Britain nor America nor
+any other part of the world has any use, and the more often we say that
+and the more distinctly we say it the better for every one; but toward a
+France that can teach and practice forbearance and come into great
+associations for the common welfare of mankind we ought to hold out both
+hands. Most of the bitterness that has been directed towards France of
+late is not the bitterness of any natural hatred; it is the bitterness
+of acute disappointment that France, the generous leader of freedom upon
+both the American and European Continents, no longer leads, seems to
+care no longer for either freedom or generosity. And twice I have seen
+opportunities lost for an appropriate gesture of reconciliation.
+
+Sooner or later France and England have to say to each other: “We have
+been sore and sick and exasperated and suspicious and narrow. Let us
+take a lesson from this American plan and set about discussing an
+Atlantic treaty, an Afro-European treaty, worthy to put beside this
+Pacific treaty.”
+
+And since this has to be said, it was a pity that Mr. Balfour could not
+take up M. Viviani’s half lead and begin to say it at the fourth plenary
+session of the Washington Conference.
+
+
+
+
+                                 XXVII
+                          ABOUT THE WAR DEBTS
+
+
+                                                    Washington, Dec. 13.
+
+In the official proceedings of the Washington Conference the war debts
+are never mentioned. It is an improper subject.
+
+In the talks and discussions and the journalistic writings round and
+about the Washington Conference the war debts are perpetually debated.
+The nature of the discussion is so curious and interesting, it throws so
+strong a light upon the difficulties that impede our path to any
+settlement of the world’s affairs upon the sound democratic basis of a
+world-wide will, that some brief analysis of it is necessary if this
+outline of the peace situation is to be complete.
+
+In private talk almost universally, in the weekly and monthly
+publications that are here called “highbrow,” I find a very general
+agreement that the bulk of these war debts and war preparation debts as
+between Russia and France, and between the European allies and Britain,
+and between Britain and America, and the bulk of the indemnity and
+reparation debt of Germany to the Allies, cannot be paid and ought not
+to be paid, and that the sooner that this legend of indebtedness is
+swept out of men’s imaginations the sooner we shall get on to the work
+of world reconstruction.
+
+Only one of these debts is even remotely payable and that is the British
+debt to America. But with regard to that debt the situation rises to a
+high level of absurdity. The British authorities—it is an open
+secret—have been offering to begin the liquidation of their debt now.
+They cannot pay in gold, because most of the gold in the world is
+already sleeping uselessly in American vaults; but they offer what gold
+they have and, in addition, they are willing to get their factories to
+work and supply manufactured goods to the American creditor—clothes,
+boots, automobiles, ships, agricultural and other machinery, crockery,
+and so on, and so on.
+
+Nothing could be fairer. Britain is full of unemployed—they must be fed
+anyhow—and if America insists upon her industries being buried under a
+pyramid of gold and manufactured articles, the British bankers and
+manufacturers believe they can, with an effort, manage the job and pull
+through. The exchange may take some strange flights and dives in the
+process, the British system may collapse even as the German system seems
+to be collapsing, but it is a strained situation anyhow. The British
+think the effort worth trying and the risk worth taking. And so behind
+the scenes it is Washington rather than London that wants at present to
+hold up the payment of the British debt.
+
+Only one other of the outstanding debts looks at all payable at the
+present time, and that is so much of the reparation debts of Germany to
+France as can be paid in kind, in building material and manufactured
+goods not produced in France. The idea of any other European debt
+payments in full is just nonsense. The gold is not there and the stuff
+is not there, and there is no ability to produce anything like
+sufficient stuff under present conditions.
+
+Now the interesting thing about the situation here is that the
+understanding people in America do not seem to be explaining this very
+simple situation as frankly as they might do to the mass of American
+people or at least that this explanation has not got through to the
+American people. There is a widespread conviction, which is sedulously
+sustained by the less intelligent or less scrupulous organs of the
+American press, that the wicked old European countries, and particularly
+Britain, that arch deceiver, are trying very meanly and cunningly to
+evade the payment of a righteous obligation.
+
+Every effort to present the financial and economic disorder of the world
+as a world task in which the prosperous and fortunate American people
+may reasonably play a leading, intelligent and helpful part is
+misrepresented in this fashion. There is a vast vague clamor for
+repayment—aimed at Britain. Dealers in the old Irish hate business and
+the German hate business, now a little out of their original stock of
+grievances, join with shrill but syndicated Hindus in warning the simple
+citizen against counsels of financial sanity as though they were
+insidious propaganda. Until at last an Englishman is sorely tempted to
+an exasperated, “Well, _take_ your debt!”—which does no justice to the
+patience and intelligence of either England or America.
+
+Let us be clear upon one point. So far as the British debt goes, the
+Americans can have it if they prefer to take that line. The British here
+in Washington and the British writers here are here because the
+Americans invited them to come to discuss the world situation and the
+possibilities of world peace. They are not here to beg. The time is not
+likely to arrive when one English speaking community will beg from
+another. It certainly has not arrived now.
+
+However, I am an obstinate believer in the common sense and good will of
+the American people, and I do not believe that a press campaign,
+designed to make a great people behave after the fashion of some
+hysterical back-street Oriental usurer who has struck a bad debt, is
+likely to do anything but recoil severely on the heads of those who have
+set it going. And I am not a believer in that sort of “tact” which would
+avoid reminding the American public of the circumstances under which
+these war debts were incurred.
+
+The Russian debt to France was spent largely upon war and war
+preparations while Russia was the ally and helper of France; the war
+debts of the European Allies to Britain and America and the British debt
+to America were spent upon war material. All these debts are for efforts
+spent upon a common cause. Each country spent according to its
+resources, as good allies should. Russia gave life and blood—and blood.
+She gave 4,000,000 men; she smashed up her own social fabric. France and
+Britain gave the lives of men beyond the million mark. Also they gave
+much material, an enormous industrial effort. So also did Italy,
+according to her power.
+
+The British developed a vast production of munitions as the war went on,
+using great supplies of material from America, for which they paid high
+prices and on which great profits were made in America. At last America
+joined the war, with her enormous reserves and strength, and gave not
+only great stores of material but the lives of between 50,000 and 75,000
+men. And so, altogether, America and the Allied Powers, giving their
+lives and substance as they could, saved civilization from imperialism.
+
+The British do not grudge the contribution they have made and all that
+they have still to contribute for their share in that colossal victory,
+but some of us English here are growing a little irritated at being
+dunned as defaulters when we are not going to default, and at having our
+attempts to work in co-operation with the Americans for the
+rehabilitation of a strained and collapsing civilization explained as
+the interested approaches of a cadging poor relation.
+
+I wish that Americans would think of the Europeans more frequently as
+people like themselves. The boys who came to Europe saw the European
+armies in ranks like their own, good stuff and kindred stuff. They were
+their comrades in arms; they fought and died beside them. They saw
+countries and a common life very like the American country life; they
+discovered that the French and British and Italians were also “just
+folk.”
+
+But these American papers of the hostile sort write of France or Britain
+as if they were wicked old spiders. They write of Britain as a monster
+with a crown and an eyeglass and such like concomitants loathsome to all
+sound democratic instincts. They write of the “designs” of France and
+Italy and Britain as if these horrid monsters were all playing a
+fearsome game with each other for the soul and body of America. It is
+easy enough then to clamor for repayments of war debts. It is easy then
+to excite people by a clamor for a war bonus for the veterans of the
+Great War to be saddled upon the European debtor.
+
+But let me remind the American soldier that the real European debtor,
+the fellow on whom it will fall, the fellow who will have to toil and
+pay and want, if you can realize that dream of pitiless exaction, is no
+legendary monster France or Britain; it is that other fellow over there
+you fought beside, it is the wounded man in blue or khaki you passed by
+as you went into action, it is the man who smiled his courage at you as
+you blundered against him in the din and confusion of battle.
+
+If you listen to these stay-at-home patriots and these exotic advisers
+of yours, it is he who will pay, he and his wife and his child; they
+will all pay in toil and privation and worry and stunted lives. It is
+they who will pay—but you will not receive. You too will pay in
+disorganized business, in restricted production, in underemployment. You
+will get nothing else out of it except whatever satisfaction you may
+feel in having made those other fellows over there in Europe pay—and pay
+bitterly.
+
+
+
+
+                                 XXVIII
+                 THE FOUNDATION STONE AND THE BUILDING
+
+
+                                                    Washington, Dec. 14.
+
+Beginning with the fourth plenary session of the Washington Conference,
+the registration of “results” in the Pacific, in disarmament, in China,
+has begun. They are good results, assembled on a basis of broad
+principles, that may sustain at last an organized permanent peace for
+the whole world. If there is one thing to be noted more than another
+about the work that has led up to this settlement it is the
+adaptability, the intelligent and sympathetic understanding shown by
+Japan in these transactions. The Japanese seem to be the most flexible
+minded of peoples. They win my respect more and more.
+
+In the days of imperialistic competition they stiffened to a
+conscientious selfishness and a splendid fighting energy. Now that a new
+spirit of discussion, compromise and the desire for brotherhood spreads
+about the world, they catch the new note and they sound it with obvious
+sincerity and good will. No people has been under such keen and
+suspicious observation here as the Japanese. The idea of them as of a
+people insanely patriotic, patriotically subtle and treacherous,
+mysterious and mentally inaccessible has been largely dispelled. I
+myself have tried that view over in my mind and dismissed it, and
+multitudes of the commonplace men have gone through the same experience
+here. Our Western world, I am convinced, can work with the Japanese and
+understand and trust them.
+
+It will be for other and abler pens to record the detailed working out
+of the results of this great conference, this new experiment in human
+reasonableness, as far as it affects Shantung and Yap and Hongkong and
+Port Arthur and so forth. My time in Washington is drawing to an end,
+and I will confine myself now rather to that broader and vaguer question
+in which I am more interested—the question of what lies behind and
+beyond this most successful and hopeful beginning in open international
+co-operation.
+
+Great and important as the conference is, the growth of a real and
+understandable project for the steady, systematic development of an
+effective international world peace, which has been going on in men’s
+minds here and in the world generally in the last two months is a much
+greater thing. It is a quite amazing mental growth; something very quiet
+and simple and yet astonishing, like a clear crystallization out of a
+turbid solution. Before the conference gathered, civilized people
+throughout the world were, I think, quite confused about how the peace
+of the world could ever be organized and rather hopeless about its being
+done.
+
+Now I think there is a widespread and spreading unanimity that there is
+a way, a practicable way and a hopeful way, by successive conferences,
+by widening peace agreements, by the establishment of permanent joint
+commissions, by systematic education and the sedulous cultivation of
+confidence, along which humanity may struggle and will struggle out of
+its present miseries and dangers toward the dawn of a new life.
+
+The next conferences that are indicated will gather in a mood of
+hopefulness and experience that will be the most precious legacy of the
+present conference. One that must follow very soon must deal with the
+economic rehabilitation of Europe. Here, it seems to me, America,
+Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia at least must meet. And soon.
+In the Christmas mood, in the phase of relief that radiates from
+Washington and Ireland now, we must not let our elation blind us to the
+fact that, for all the light that breaks in upon us, we are not yet out
+of the woods. Millions are starving today, great masses of men
+degenerate physically and morally in unemployment, European
+industrialism crawls and staggers still.
+
+We have laid the foundations of a new era, but the building has scarcely
+begun. And in addition to the world economic conference there is also
+need of another conference to face the still more difficult task of
+military disarmament and the re-examination of the factors of conflict
+in the Afro-European area. Personally, I want to see America in that
+conference also, because I do recognize that the freshness of mind, the
+deliberate diplomatic inexperience of America, is a factor of priceless
+value in these discussions. I would like to see that conference also
+held in an American atmosphere and before an American audience—if only
+for the sake of Europe. And if America can be interested in Kwangtung, I
+don’t see why America should not also be interested in Silesia, or
+Cilicia, or Senegal, or the Congo, which are all very much nearer.
+
+The appetite for conferences, the belief in conferences, will grow with
+what it feeds upon. One sees these gatherings, with their accessory
+commissions, permanent secretariats and increasing world services,
+becoming a customary and necessary peace control of the earth.
+
+And the peace control, growing in this natural fashion, will consist
+always and solely of the efficient and willing nations of the world.
+There will be no forced conclusions and no premature admission of
+incompetent and feeble peoples. The pedantry that would give every
+sovereign power, however little or rotten, a vote, a nice, saleable
+vote, in the management of the world’s affairs will play no part in this
+evolution.
+
+The Association of Nations will be a growing brotherhood of strong and
+healthy and understanding peoples, bound only by a bond of self-denial
+and mutual restraint toward the weaker folk of the earth. The
+co-operation of the English speaking peoples, and particularly the
+American will for peace, must needs play a very conspicuous part in the
+crystallization of this Association, and so it is inevitable that a
+certain sort of international “expert” will be screaming that the world
+is threatened by an Anglo-American imperialism. It may be worth while to
+say a word or so to dispel this idea.
+
+Let us bear in mind that the Washington Conference, whose results may be
+the cornerstone of the organized peace of the world, is a conference of
+withdrawal and abstinence, self-restraint and mutual restraint, with
+regard to China and the Pacific; its key idea is the cessation of
+aggressions upon weaker or less advantageously circumstanced people. If
+America and her kindred nations are most active in pressing for such
+results, it is not that they are moved by any thoughts of world
+predominance but by liberal ideas that are the monopoly of no race and
+people. It is their fortunate lot to have been most accessible to such
+ideas and to be able now to play the leading, most powerful part in
+establishing them in the world. But these ideas have a broader basis and
+claim a wider allegiance than merely that of the English speaking
+peoples.
+
+Liberalism, the idea of great nations of free citizens held together by
+bonds of mutual confidence, roots very wide and deep in humanity. It
+derives from the great traditions of the Greek and Roman Republics and
+from the traditions of freedom of the Scandinavian and Teutonic peoples.
+The America of today did not grow from American seed. Let America bear
+that in mind. The American idea is the embodiment particularly of the
+liberal thought of England and France in the seventeenth and eighteenth
+centuries. France cannot destroy the greatness of her past or the
+greatness of her future by a phase of momentary folly with her
+submarines and Senegalese, her Polish ally and all the rest of it.
+
+All peoples have such lapses. A few years ago Britain was disgusting
+with her jingoistic imperialism. Let us forget our lapses and get back
+to our more enduring selves. Latin America, quite as much as English
+speaking America, belongs to that great tradition of Franco-British
+liberalism. Liberal Germany in 1848 and again today struggles to take
+its fitting place among the emancipated peoples, as Italy did half a
+century ago. These are the peoples who can best understand now and help
+now. They are all in our system of ideas; they can be brought together
+into one purpose.
+
+It is natural and necessary that the peoples most saturated in that
+great tradition of European liberalism should be the first full members
+of the coming Association and should be prepared to lead the rest of the
+world toward the new order. All peoples are not equally prepared. It is
+not a question of ascendancy; it is a question of those who are able
+doing the task that they alone are prepared to perform.
+
+When I think of an Association of Nations I think, therefore, of a sort
+of club or brotherhood, not of every state in the world but of the
+peoples who speak English, French, German, Spanish, Italian and
+Japanese, as the big brotherhood of the world, with such states as
+Holland and Norway and Bohemia, and so forth, great in quality if not
+great in power and entirely sympathetic by training and tradition,
+associated with them in a great bond for two ends; for peace among
+themselves and for restraint and patience toward the rest of mankind. I
+think of such a brotherhood as the brain and backbone of the organized
+peace of the world, and I cannot see how it is possible to take in the
+other peoples of the world as helpers until they respond to the same
+ideals.
+
+I think first of a recovered Russia and then of a unified and educated
+China and a freed and reconstructed India and of many other states which
+can claim to be of a civilized quality, such as Egypt, gradually winning
+their way from a non-participating to a participating level. The
+relationship of China to Japan in a developing Association of Nations
+will be something rather analogous to the relationship of a Territory to
+a State in the Constitution of the United States of America.
+
+Unless there is a strong, well organized collective mentality in a
+nation or state, I do not see how there can be anything but a sham
+representation of it upon an Association of Nations, nor how it can be
+anything but a responsibility and weakness to such an Association.
+
+And outside the system of participating states, and non-participating
+states, there are great regions of the earth—tropical Africa is the most
+typical case—which must necessarily have a sort of order imposed upon
+them from without and for which a joint control by interested associated
+nations is probably the best method of government at the present time.
+
+That, I think, is the vision of the political future of mankind that is
+opening out before us; a great system of associated states, locked and
+interlocked together by fourfold and sixfold and tenfold treaties, open
+treaties, of peace and co-operation, ruling jointly the still barbaric
+regions of the earth and pledged to respect and to keep and at last to
+welcome to their own ranks the now politically enfeebled regions of old
+civilization. Such an Association must necessarily supersede the
+“empires” of the nineteenth century and put an end forever to the
+imperialistic idea. Of such an Association the fourfold treaty may be
+the foundation stone. And within the security of such an edifice of
+peace mankind will be able to go on to achievements such as we at
+present can scarcely imagine.
+
+
+
+
+                                  XXIX
+         WHAT A STABLY ORGANIZED WORLD PEACE MEANS FOR MANKIND
+
+
+I have now come to the last paper I shall write about the Washington
+Conference. I have tried to give the reader some idea of the nature of
+that gathering and a broad view of the issues involved. I have tried to
+prevent the sharp discussions of the foreground, the dramatic moments
+and eloquent passages, from blinding us to the dark and darkening
+background of Old World affairs. I have tried to show that even the
+horrors of war are not the whole or the main disaster which results from
+human disunion and disorder in the presence of increasing mechanical
+power. I have stressed the theme of economic and social dissolution.
+Necessarily, I have had to write much of dangers impending and miseries
+which gather and increase, and of hates, suspicions and failures to
+comprehend. And on the other hand, when one has turned to the
+possibilities and methods of escape from the present conflicts and
+apprehensions, necessarily one has been very largely in the thin and
+unattractive atmosphere of unrealized projects. I have written of the
+defects of the League of Nations scheme, its premature explicitness, its
+thinly theoretical and imitative forms, its frequent mere camouflage, as
+in the mandatory system, of existing wrongs, and I have brought into
+contrast with it this newer and I think more natural and hopeful project
+of successive Conferences, throwing off Committees, embodying their
+results in treaties and Standing Commissions, and growing at last not so
+much into a World Parliament, which I perceive more and more clearly is
+an improbable dream, as into a living, growing, organic network of World
+Government.
+
+But now in conclusion I will ask the reader to turn his mind from this
+necessary discussion of political devices and administrative
+contrivances, these bleak inventions that may form the ladder of escape
+from the divisions and bitterness of the present time, and to join in an
+attempt to realize what the world may become if men do struggle through
+these tiresome and perplexing problems to a working solution, if our
+race really does get from these wearisome yet hopeful wranglings and
+dealings to an organized world peace, to a disarmed world, to a steady
+reduction of racial and national antipathies and distrusts, to a growing
+confidence in the permanence of peace and the prevalence of good will
+throughout our planet, to a comprehensive system of world controls of
+the common interests of mankind. Suppose that after these present
+darknesses of famine and almost universal insecurity, these confused and
+often conflicting efforts we are making; suppose that in ten, or twenty,
+or thirty years we shall begin to realize that the thing is, after all,
+getting done, that we are indeed pushing through, moving towards the
+light, that human affairs are on the up-grade again and on new and
+greater and safer lines; let us suppose that and then let us ask what
+sort of world it will be for our kind that we shall be moving towards?
+
+Let us go back to one fundamental fact in the present break-up in human
+affairs. That break-up is not a result of debility; _it is a result of
+ill-regulated power_. It is important to bear that in mind.
+Disproportionate development of energy and overstrain are the immediate
+causes of our present troubles; the scale of modern economic enterprise
+has outgrown the little boundaries of the European States; science and
+invention have made war so monstrously destructive and disintegrative
+that victory is swallowed up in disaster; we are in a world of little
+nations wielding world-wide powers to the general destruction. And it
+follows that if, after all, we do struggle out of our old-fashioned and
+now altogether disastrous rivalries and hatreds before they destroy us,
+we shall still have all this science and power, which are things that
+seem now to increase by a sort of inner necessity, on our hands. So that
+getting through to an organized world peace does not mean simply
+avoiding death and destruction and getting back to “as you were.” It
+means getting hold of power by the right end instead of the wrong end
+and going right ahead. We are not struggling simply to escape, we are
+struggling for the opportunity to achieve.
+
+Personally, I do not think I would have bothered to come to Washington
+or to interest myself in this peace business, and to work and blunder
+and feel incompetent and be worried and distressed here, if it meant
+working for just peace, flat, empty, simple peace. I do not see why the
+killing of a few score millions of human beings a few years before they
+would naturally and ingloriously die, or the smashing up of a lot of
+ordinary, rather ugly, rather uncomfortable towns, or, if it comes to
+that sort of thing, the complete depopulation of the earth, or the
+prospect of being killed myself presently by a bomb or a shot or a
+pestilence, should move me to any great exertions. Why bother to
+exchange suffering for flatness? The worst, least endurable of miseries
+is boredom. One must die somewhere; few deaths are as painful as a
+first-class toothache or as depressing as a severe fit of indigestion;
+you can suffer more on a comfortable death bed than on a battlefield;
+and meanwhile, there is a very good chance of sunshine and snatched
+happiness here or there. But what does stir me is my invincible belief
+that the life I lead and the human life about me are not anything like
+the good thing that could be and might be. I am not so much frightened
+and distressed by these wars and national clashes and all the rest of
+this silly flag-wagging, bragging, shoving business as bored and
+irritated by these things. I have had some vision of what science and
+education can do for life and I am haunted by the fine uses that might
+be made of men and of our splendid possibilities. I do not think of war
+as a tragic necessity but as a blood-stained mess. When I think of my
+Europe now, I do not feel like a weakling whose world has been invaded
+by stupendous and cruel powers; I feel like a man whose promising garden
+has been invaded by hogs. There is the pacificism of love, the
+pacificism of pity, the pacificism of commercialism, but also there is
+the pacificism of utter contempt. This is not a doomed world we live in
+or anything so tragically dignified; it is a world idiotically spoilt.
+
+Do any of us fully realize the promise of that garden, the promise that
+can still be rescued from the trampling dullness of old animosities and
+rivalries which is wrecking it? Given unity of purpose throughout the
+world, given a surcease of mutual thwarting and destruction, do we
+realize what science has made possible now and here for mankind?
+
+I shall not indulge in any imaginative anticipations of things still
+undiscovered in the scientific realm, I will only suppose that things
+already known and tested are systematically used all over the world,
+that the good knowledge we have already stored in our laboratories and
+libraries is really applied with some thoroughness and with some
+community of purpose to the needs and enlargement of life.
+
+And first let us deal with the commoner material aspects of life in
+which there have been great changes and improvements in recent times and
+in which, therefore, it is easiest to imagine still further betterment,
+given only an assuagement of strife and blind struggle and a spreading
+out of generosity and the feeling of community from international to
+social affairs.
+
+Take transport, that very fundamental social concern. It is ripe for
+great advances. There is all the labor needed in the world, all the
+skill and knowledge needed, and all the material needed, for these
+advances. There is everything needed but peace and the recognition of a
+common purpose. At present, there are railways only over a part of the
+inhabited world; there are vast areas of Asia and Africa and South
+America with no railway nor road communication at all and with enormous
+natural resources scarcely tapped, in consequence. Roads are as yet not
+nearly so widespread as railways, abundant good roads are founded indeed
+only in Western Europe and the better developed regions of the United
+States; there are a few good main roads in such countries as India,
+South Africa, and so forth. And in many parts of Europe now, and
+especially in Russia roads and railways are going out of use. Large
+parts of the world are still only to be reached by a specially equipped
+expedition; they are as inaccessible to ordinary travelling people as
+the other side of the moon. And if you will probe into the reasons why
+road and rail transport fails to develop and is even over wide areas
+undergoing degradation, you will come in nearly every case upon a
+political bar, a national or an imperial rivalry. These are the things
+that close half our world to us and may presently close most of the
+world to us. And consider even the railroads and roads we have; even
+those of America or Britain, how poor and uncomfortable they are in
+comparison with what we know they might be.
+
+And then take housing. I have been motoring about a little in Maryland
+and Virginia and I am astounded at the many miserable wood houses I see,
+hovels rather than houses, the abodes very often of white men. I am
+astounded at the wretched fences about the ill-kept patches of
+cultivation and by the extreme illiteracy of many of the poorer folk,
+white as well as colored, with whom I have had a chance of talking. I
+have to remind myself that I am in what is now the greatest, richest,
+most powerful country in the world. But with this country now as with
+every country, army, navy, contentious service, war debt charges and the
+rest of the legacy of past wars consume the national revenue. America is
+not spending a tithe of what she ought to be spending upon schools, upon
+the maintenance of a housing standard and upon roads and transport. She
+improves in all these things, but at no great pace, because of the
+disunion of the world and the threat of war. England and France, which
+were once far ahead of her in these respects of housing, transport and
+popular education, are now on the whole declining, through the excessive
+fiscal burthens they are under to pay for the late war and prepare for
+fresh ones. But I ask you to think what would happen to a world from
+which that burthen of preparedness was lifted. The first result of that
+relief would be a diversion of the huge maintenance allowance of the
+war-God to just these starved and neglected things.
+
+Stanch that waste throughout the earth, and the saved wealth and energy
+will begin at once to flow in the direction of better houses, towards a
+steady increase in the order and graciousness of our unkempt and
+slovenly countrysides, to making better roads throughout the globe,
+until the globe is accessible, and to a huge enrichment and invigoration
+of education.
+
+How fair and lovely such countries as France and Germany and Italy might
+be today if the dark threat of war that keeps them so gaunt and
+poverty-struck could be lifted from them. Think of the abundant and
+various loveliness of France and the wit and charm of its varied
+peoples, now turned sour by the toil and trouble, the fears and bitter
+suspicions the threat of further war holds over them. Think of France,
+fearless and at last showing the world what France can do and be. And
+Italy at last Italy, and Japan, Japan. Think of the green hills of
+Virginia, covered with stately homes and cheerful houses. Think of a
+world in which travel is once more free and in which every country in
+absolute security has been able to resume its own peace-time development
+of its architecture, its music and all its arts in its own atmosphere
+upon the foundations of its own past. Because world unity does not mean
+uniformity; it means security to be different. It is war that forces all
+men into the same khaki and iron-clad moulds.
+
+But all this recovery of the visible idiosyncracies of nations, all this
+confident activity and progressive enrichment which will inevitably
+ensue upon the diversion of human attention from war and death and
+conflict and mutual thwarting to peace and development, will be but the
+outer indication of much profounder changes. Relieved of our war
+burthens, it will be possible to take hold of education as educationists
+have been longing to do for many years.
+
+They tell us now that every one could be educated up to sixteen or
+seventeen and that most people may be kept learning and growing mentally
+all their lives, that no country in the world has enough schools, or
+properly equipped schools, nor enough properly educated teachers in the
+schools we have. The supply of university resources is still more
+meager. There is hardly anyone alive who has not a sense of things that
+he could know but cannot attain and of powers he can never develop. The
+number of fully educated and properly nurtured people in the world,
+people who can be said to have come reasonably near to realizing their
+full birth possibilities, is almost infinitesimal. The rest of mankind
+are either physically or mentally stunted, or both. This insolvent,
+slovenly old world has begotten them, and starved them. Our lives, in
+strength, in realized capacity, in achievement and happiness are perhaps
+20% or 30% of what they ought to be. But if only we could sweep aside
+these everlasting contentions, these hates and disputes that waste our
+earth, and get to work upon this educational proposition as a big
+business man gets to work upon a mineral deposit or the development of
+an invention, instead of a 20% result we might clamber to an 80% or a
+90% result in educated efficiency. I ask you to go through the crowded
+streets of a town and note the many under-grown and ill-grown, the
+under-sized, the ill-behaved; to note the appeals to childish,
+prejudiced and misshapen minds in the shop windows, in the
+advertisements, in the newspaper headlines at the street corners, and
+then to try and think of what might be there even now in the place of
+that street and that crowd.
+
+The wealth and energy were there to make schools and give physical and
+mental training to all these people, and they have gone to burst shells
+and smash up the work of men, the organizing power has been wasted upon
+barren disputes; the science was there and it has been cramped and
+misused; even the will was there, but it was not organized to effective
+application. And scarcely a man in the crowd who begets a child, or a
+woman who bears one, but will dream of its growing to something better
+than the thwarted hope it will become.
+
+Have you ever examined an aeroplane or a submarine, and realized the
+thousand beautiful adjustments and devices that have produced its
+wonderful perfection? Have you ever looked at a street corner loafer and
+thought of the ten thousand opportunities that have been cast away of
+saving him from what he has become?
+
+When we follow this line of thought, it becomes clear that our first
+vision of a world-wide net of fine roads, great steady trains on renewed
+and broader tracks, long distance aeroplane flights of the securest
+sort, splendid and beautiful towns, a parklike countryside, studded with
+delightful homes, was merely the scene and frame for a population of
+well-grown, well-trained, fully adult human beings. All the world will
+be accessible to them, mountains to climb, deserts to be alone in,
+tropics to explore in wonder, beautiful places for rest. And they will
+be healthy, and happy in the way that only health makes possible. For
+surely it is no news to any one that a score of horrible tints and
+diseases that weaken and cripple us, a number of infections, a multitude
+of ill-nourished and under-nourished states of body, can be completely
+controlled and banished from life, they and all the misery they
+entail—given only a common effort, given only human co-operation instead
+of discussion. The largest visible material harvest of peace is the
+least harvest of peace. The great harvest will be health and human
+vigor.
+
+And happiness! Think of the mornings that will some day come, when men
+will wake to read in the papers of something better than the great 5–5–3
+wrangle, of the starvation and disorder of half the world, of the stupid
+sexual crimes and greedy dishonesties committed by the adults with the
+undeveloped intelligence of vicious children, of suggestions of horrible
+plots and designs against our threadbare security, of the dreary
+necessity for “preparedness.” Think of a morning when the newspaper has
+mainly _good_ news, of things discovered, of fine things done; think of
+the common day of a common citizen in a world where debt is no longer a
+universal burthen, where there is constant progress and no
+retrogression, where it is the normal thing to walk out of a beautiful
+house into a clean and splendid street, to pass and meet happy and
+interesting adults instead of aged children obsessed by neglected spites
+and jealousies and mean anxieties, to go to some honorable occupation
+that helps the world forward to a still greater and finer life. You may
+say that a world may be prosperous and men and women healthy and free
+and yet there will still be spites and jealousies and all the bitterness
+of disputation, but that is no more true than that there will still be
+toothache. A mind educated and cared for, quite as well as a body, can
+be healed and kept clean and sweet and free from these maddening
+humiliations and suppressions that now fester in so many souls. There is
+no real necessity about either physical or mental miserableness in human
+life. Given, that is, a sufficient release of human energy to bring a
+proper care within the reach of all. And consider the quality of
+interest in such a world. Think of the mental quality of a world in
+which each day the thought and research of a great host of intelligences
+turns more and more the opaque and confused riddles of yesteryear into
+transparent lucidity. Think of the forces of personal and national
+idiosyncracy, of patriotic and racial assertion, seeking and finding
+their expression not in vile mutual thwarting and a brutish
+destructiveness, but in the distinctive architecture of cities, in the
+cultivated and intensified beauty of the countryside, in a hundred forms
+of art, in costume and custom. Think of the freedom, the abundance, the
+harmonious differences of such a world!
+
+This is not idle prophecy, this is no dream. Such a world is ours
+today—if we could but turn the minds of men to realize that it is here
+for the having. These things can be done, this finer world is within
+reach. I can write that as confidently today as I wrote in 1900 that men
+could fly. But whether we are to stop this foolery of international
+struggle, this moral and mental childishness of patriotic aggressions,
+this continual bloodshed and squalor, and start out for a world of adult
+sanity in ten years, or in twenty years, or a hundred years, or never,
+is more than I can say. In Washington, I have met and seen hopes that
+seemed invincible, and stupidities and habits and prejudices that seemed
+insurmountable; I have lived for six weeks in a tangled conflict of
+great phrases, mean ends, inspiration, illogicality, forgetfulness,
+flashes of greatness and flashes of grossness. I am no moral accountant
+to cast a balance and estimate a date. My moods have fluctuated between
+hope and despair.
+
+But I know that I believe so firmly in this great World at Peace that
+lies so close to our own, ready to come into being as our wills turn
+towards it, that I must needs go about this present world of disorder
+and darkness like an exile doing such feeble things as I can towards the
+world of my desire, now hopefully, now bitterly, as the moods may
+happen, until I die.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+¶ Mr. WELLS has also written the following novels:
+
+    LOVE AND MR. LEWISHAM
+    KIPPS
+    MR. POLLY
+    THE WHEELS OF CHANCE
+    THE NEW MACHIAVELLI
+    ANN VERONICA
+    TONO BUNGAY
+    MARRIAGE
+    BEALBY
+    THE PASSIONATE FRIENDS
+    THE WIFE OF SIR ISAAC HARMON
+    THE RESEARCH MAGNIFICENT
+    MR. BRITLING SEES IT THROUGH
+    THE SOUL OF A BISHOP
+    JOAN AND PETER
+    THE UNDYING FIRE
+
+¶ The following fantastic and imaginative romances:
+
+    THE WAR OF THE WORLDS
+    THE TIME MACHINE
+    THE WONDERFUL VISIT
+    THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU
+    THE SEA LADY
+    THE SLEEPER AWAKES
+    THE FOOD OF THE GODS
+    THE WAR IN THE AIR
+    THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON
+    IN THE DAYS OF THE COMET
+    THE WORLD SET FREE
+
+    And numerous Short Stories now collected in One Volume under the
+       title of
+    THE COUNTRY OF THE BLIND
+
+
+
+
+¶ A Series of books on Social, Religious, and Political questions:
+
+    ANTICIPATIONS (1900)
+    MANKIND IN THE MAKING
+    FIRST AND LAST THINGS
+    NEW WORLDS FOR OLD
+    A MODERN UTOPIA
+    THE FUTURE IN AMERICA
+    AN ENGLISHMAN LOOKS AT THE WORLD
+    WHAT IS COMING?
+    WAR AND THE FUTURE
+    IN THE FOURTH YEAR
+    GOD THE INVISIBLE KING
+
+¶ And two little books about children’s play, called:
+
+    FLOOR GAMES and LITTLE WARS
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
+
+
+ 1. Added table of Contents.
+ 2. Moved ads from before the title page to the end.
+ 3. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.
+ 4. Retained anachronistic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as
+      printed.
+ 5. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Washington and the Riddle of Peace, by 
+H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WASHINGTON AND THE RIDDLE OF PEACE ***
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Washington and the Riddle of Peace, by 
+H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+Title: Washington and the Riddle of Peace
+
+Author: H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
+
+Release Date: February 12, 2019 [EBook #58877]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WASHINGTON AND THE RIDDLE OF PEACE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class='tnotes covernote'>
+
+<p class='c000'><b>Transcriber’s Note:</b></p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='titlepage'>
+
+<div>
+  <h1 id='title' class='c001'>Washington and the Riddle of Peace</h1>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c002'>
+    <div>BY</div>
+    <div><span class='large'>H. G. WELLS</span></div>
+    <div class='c003'><span class='large'><b>New York</b></span></div>
+    <div><span class='large'>THE MACMILLAN COMPANY</span></div>
+    <div><span class='large'>1922</span></div>
+    <div><i>All rights reserved</i></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c004'>
+    <div>Copyright, 1921,</div>
+    <div><span class='sc'>By</span> THE PRESS PUBLISHING COMPANY</div>
+    <div>AND</div>
+    <div>THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE.</div>
+    <div class='c002'>Copyright, 1922,</div>
+    <div><span class='sc'>By</span> H. G. WELLS.</div>
+    <div class='c002'>Set up and electrotyped. Published January, 1922.</div>
+    <div class='c002'>Printed in the United States of America</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='pbb'>
+ <hr class='pb c003' />
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_v'>v</span>
+  <h2 id='INTRODUCTION' class='c005'>INTRODUCTION</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c006'>These twenty-nine papers do not profess to
+be a record or description of the Washington
+Conference. They give merely the impressions
+and fluctuating ideas of one visitor to that conference.
+They show the reaction of that gathering
+upon a mind keenly set upon the idea of
+an organized world peace; they record phases
+of enthusiasm, hope, doubt, depression and irritation.
+They have scarcely been touched, except
+to correct a word or a phrase here or
+there; they are dated; in all essentials they are
+the articles just as they appeared in the <cite>New
+York World</cite>, the <cite>Chicago Tribune</cite>, and the other
+American and European papers which first
+gave them publicity. It is due to the enterprise
+and driving energy of the <cite>New York World</cite>, be
+it noted, that they were ever written at all. But
+in spite of the daily change and renewal of
+mood and attitude, inevitable under the circumstances,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_vi'>vi</span>they do tell a consecutive story; they
+tell of the growth and elaboration of a conviction
+of how things can be done, and of how they
+need to be done, if our civilization is indeed to
+be rescued from the dangers that encompass it
+and set again upon the path of progress. They
+record—and in a very friendly and appreciative
+spirit—the birth and unfolding of the “Association
+of Nations” idea, the Harding idea,
+of world pacification, they note some of the
+peculiar circumstances of that birth, and they
+study the chief difficulties on its way to realization.
+It is, the writer believes, the most practical
+and hopeful method of attacking this riddle
+of the Sphinx that has hitherto been proposed.</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'><span class='sc'>H. G. Wells.</span></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 id='CONTENTS' class='c005'>CONTENTS</h2>
+</div>
+ <dl class='dl_1 c002'>
+    <dt>&nbsp;</dt>
+    <dd><a href='#INTRODUCTION'>INTRODUCTION</a>
+    </dd>
+    <dt><a href='#I'>I</a></dt>
+    <dd>THE IMMENSITY OF THE ISSUE AND THE TRIVIALITY OF MEN
+    </dd>
+    <dt><a href='#II'>II</a></dt>
+    <dd>ARMAMENTS THE FUTILITY OF MERE LIMITATION
+    </dd>
+    <dt><a href='#III'>III</a></dt>
+    <dd>THE TRAIL OF VERSAILLES TWO GREAT POWERS ARE SILENT AND ABSENT
+    </dd>
+    <dt><a href='#IV'>IV</a></dt>
+    <dd>THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER OF THE GREAT WAR
+    </dd>
+    <dt><a href='#V'>V</a></dt>
+    <dd>THE PRESIDENT AT ARLINGTON
+    </dd>
+    <dt><a href='#VI'>VI</a></dt>
+    <dd>THE FIRST MEETING
+    </dd>
+    <dt><a href='#VII'>VII</a></dt>
+    <dd>WHAT IS JAPAN?
+    </dd>
+    <dt><a href='#VIII'>VIII</a></dt>
+    <dd>CHINA IN THE BACKGROUND
+    </dd>
+    <dt><a href='#IX'>IX</a></dt>
+    <dd>THE FUTURE OF JAPAN
+    </dd>
+    <dt><a href='#X'>X</a></dt>
+    <dd>“SECURITY”—THE NEW AND BEAUTIFUL CATCHWORD
+    </dd>
+    <dt><a href='#XI'>XI</a></dt>
+    <dd>FRANCE IN THE LIMELIGHT
+    </dd>
+    <dt><a href='#XII'>XII</a></dt>
+    <dd>THUS FAR
+    </dd>
+    <dt><a href='#XIII'>XIII</a></dt>
+    <dd>THE LARGER QUESTION BEHIND THE CONFERENCE
+    </dd>
+    <dt><a href='#XIV'>XIV</a></dt>
+    <dd>THE REAL THREAT TO CIVILIZATION
+    </dd>
+    <dt><a href='#XV'>XV</a></dt>
+    <dd>THE POSSIBLE BREAKDOWN OF CIVILIZATION
+    </dd>
+    <dt><a href='#XVI'>XVI</a></dt>
+    <dd>WHAT OF AMERICA?
+    </dd>
+    <dt><a href='#XVII'>XVII</a></dt>
+    <dd>EBB TIDE AT WASHINGTON
+    </dd>
+    <dt><a href='#XVIII'>XVIII</a></dt>
+    <dd>AMERICA AND ENTANGLING ALLIANCES
+    </dd>
+    <dt><a href='#XIX'>XIX</a></dt>
+    <dd>AN ASSOCIATION OF NATIONS
+    </dd>
+    <dt><a href='#XX'>XX</a></dt>
+    <dd>FRANCE AND ENGLAND—THE PLAIN FACTS OF THE CASE
+    </dd>
+    <dt><a href='#XXI'>XXI</a></dt>
+    <dd>A REMINDER ABOUT WAR
+    </dd>
+    <dt><a href='#XXII'>XXII</a></dt>
+    <dd>SOME STIFLED VOICES
+    </dd>
+    <dt><a href='#XXIII'>XXIII</a></dt>
+    <dd>INDIA, THE BRITISH EMPIRE AND THE ASSOCIATION OF NATIONS
+    </dd>
+    <dt><a href='#XXIV'>XXIV</a></dt>
+    <dd>THE OTHER END OF PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE—THE SIEVE FOR GOOD INTENTIONS
+    </dd>
+    <dt><a href='#XXV'>XXV</a></dt>
+    <dd>AFRICA AND THE ASSOCIATION OF NATIONS
+    </dd>
+    <dt><a href='#XXVI'>XXVI</a></dt>
+    <dd>THE FOURTH PLENARY SESSION
+    </dd>
+    <dt><a href='#XXVII'>XXVII</a></dt>
+    <dd>ABOUT THE WAR DEBTS
+    </dd>
+    <dt><a href='#XXVIII'>XXVIII</a></dt>
+    <dd>THE FOUNDATION STONE AND THE BUILDING
+    </dd>
+    <dt><a href='#XXIX'>XXIX</a></dt>
+    <dd>WHAT A STABLY ORGANIZED WORLD PEACE MEANS FOR MANKIND
+    </dd>
+    </dl>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_1'>1</span>
+  <h2 id='I' class='c005'>I<br /> THE IMMENSITY OF THE ISSUE AND THE TRIVIALITY OF MEN</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r c002'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Washington, Nov. 7.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c007'>The conference nominally for the limitation
+of armaments that now gathers at Washington
+may become a cardinal event in the history of
+mankind. It may mark a turning point in
+human affairs or it may go on record as one
+of the last failures to stave off the disasters
+and destruction that gather about our race.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>In August, 1914, an age of insecure progress
+and accumulation came to an end. When at
+last, on the most momentous summer night in
+history, the long preparations of militarism
+burst their bounds and the little Belgian village
+Vise went up in flames, men said: “This is a
+catastrophe.” But they found it hard to anticipate
+the nature of the catastrophe. They
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_2'>2</span>thought for the most part of the wounds and
+killing and burning of war and imagined that
+when at last the war was over we should count
+our losses and go on again much as we did before
+1914.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>As well might a little shopkeeper murder his
+wife in the night and expect to carry on “business
+as usual” in the morning. “Business as
+usual”—that was the catchword in Britain in
+1914; of all the catchwords of the world it carries
+now the heaviest charge of irony.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The catastrophe of 1914 is still going on. It
+does not end; it increases and spreads. This
+winter more people will suffer dreadful things
+and more people will die untimely through the
+clash of 1914 than suffered and died in the first
+year of the war. It is true that the social collapse
+of Russia in 1917 and the exhaustion of
+food and munitions in Central Europe in 1918
+produced a sort of degradation and enfeeblement
+of the combatant efforts of our race and
+that a futile conference at Versailles settled
+nothing, with an air of settling everything, but
+that was no more an end to disaster than it
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_3'>3</span>would be if a man who was standing up and receiving
+horrible wounds were to fall down and
+writhe and bleed in the dust. It would be
+merely a new phase of disaster. Since 1919
+this world has not so much healed its wounds
+as realized its injuries.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Chief among these injuries is the progressive
+economic breakdown, the magnitude of which
+we are only beginning to apprehend. The
+breakdown is a real decay that spreads and
+spreads. In a time of universal shortage there
+is an increasing paralysis in production; and
+there is a paralysis of production because the
+monetary system of the world, which was sustained
+by the honest co-operation of Governments,
+is breaking down. The fluctuations in
+the real value of money become greater and
+greater and they shake and shatter the entire
+fabric of social co-operation.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Our civilization is, materially, a cash and
+credit system, dependent on men’s confidence in
+the value of money. But now money fails us
+and cheats us; we work for wages and they give
+us uncertain paper. No one now dare make
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_4'>4</span>contracts ahead; no one can fix up a stable
+wages agreement; no one knows what one hundred
+dollars or francs or pounds will mean in
+two years’ time.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>What is the good of saving? What is the
+good of foresight? Business and employment
+become impossible. Unless money can be
+steadied and restored, our economic and social
+life will go on disintegrating, and it can be
+restored only by a world effort.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>But such a world effort to restore business
+and prosperity is <i>only possible between governments
+sincerely at peace</i>, and because of the
+failure of Versailles there is no such sincere
+peace. Everywhere the Governments, and notably
+Japan and France, arm. Amidst the
+steady disintegration of the present system of
+things, they prepare for fresh wars, wars that
+can have only one end—an extension of the
+famine and social collapse that have already
+engulfed Russia to the rest of the world.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>In Russia, in Austria, in many parts of Germany,
+this social decay is visible in actual
+ruins, in broken down railways and suchlike
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span>machinery falling out of use. But even in
+Western Europe, in France and England, there
+is a shabbiness, there is a decline visible to any
+one with a keen memory.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The other day my friend Mr. Charlie Chaplin
+brought his keen observant eyes back to
+London, after an absence of ten years.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>“People are not laughing and careless here
+as they used to be,” he told me. “It isn’t the
+London I remember. They are anxious. Something
+hangs over them.”</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Coming as I do from Europe to America, I
+am amazed at the apparent buoyancy and
+abundance of New York. The place seems to
+possess an inexhaustible vitality. But this towering,
+thundering, congested city, with such a
+torrent of traffic and such a concourse of people
+as I have never seen before, is, after all,
+the European door of America; it draws this
+superabundant and astounding life from trade,
+from a trade whose roots are dying.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>When one looks at New York its assurance
+is amazing; when one reflects we realize its tremendous
+peril. It is going on—as London is
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_6'>6</span>going on—by accumulated inertia. With the
+possible exception of London, the position of
+New York seems to me the most perilous of
+that of any city in the world. What is to happen
+to this immense crowd of people if the trade
+that feeds it ebbs? As assuredly it will ebb
+unless the decline of European money and business
+can be arrested, unless, that is, the world
+problem of trade and credit can be grappled
+with as a world affair.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The world’s economic life, its civilization, embodied
+in its great towns, is disintegrating and
+collapsing through the strains of the modern
+war threat and of the disunited control of modern
+affairs.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>This in general terms is the situation of mankind
+today; this is the situation, the tremendous
+and crucial situation, that President Harding,
+the head and spokesman of what is now
+the most powerful and influential state in the
+world, has called representatives from most of
+the states in the world to Washington to
+discuss.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Whatever little modifications and limitations
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>the small cunning of diplomatists may impose
+upon the terms of reference of the conference,
+the plain common sense of mankind will insist
+that its essential inquiry is, “What are we to
+do, if anything can possibly be done, to arrest
+and reverse the slide toward continuing war
+preparation and war and final social collapse?”
+And you would imagine that this momentous
+conference would gather in a mood of exalted
+responsibility, with every conceivable help and
+every conceivable preparation to grasp the
+enormous issues involved.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Let us dismiss any such delusion from our
+minds.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Let us face a reality too often ignored in the
+dignified discussion of such business as this
+Washington Conference, and that is this: that
+the human mind takes hold of such very big
+questions as the common peace of the earth and
+the general security of mankind with very great
+reluctance and that it leaves go with extreme
+alacrity.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>We are all naturally trivial creatures. We
+do not live from year to year; we live from day
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>to day. Our minds naturally take short views
+and are distracted by little, immediate issues.
+We forget with astonishing facility. And this
+is as true of the high political persons who will
+gather at Washington as it is of any overworked
+clerk who will read about the conference
+in a street car or on the way home to supper
+and bed. These big questions affect everybody,
+and also they are too big for anybody.
+A great intellectual and moral effect is required
+if they are to be dealt with in any effectual
+manner.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I find the best illustration of this incurable
+drift toward triviality in myself. In the world
+of science the microscope helps the telescope
+and the infinitely little illuminates the infinitely
+great.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Let me put myself under the lens: Exhibit 1—If
+any one has reason to focus the whole of
+his mental being upon this Washington Conference
+it is I. It is my job to attend to it and
+to think of it and of nothing else. Whatever I
+write about it, wise or foolish, will be conspicuously
+published in a great number of newspapers
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>and will do much to make or mar my
+reputation. Intellectually, I am convinced
+of the supreme possibilities of the occasion.
+It may make or mar mankind. The smallest
+and the greatest of motives march together;
+therefore my self-love and my care for mankind.
+And the occasion touches all my future
+happiness.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>If this downward drift toward disorder and
+war is not arrested, in a few years’ time it will
+certainly catch my sons and probably mutilate
+or kill them; and my wife and I, instead of
+spending our declining years in comfort, will be
+involved in the general wretchedness and possibly
+perish in some quite miserable fashion, as
+thousands of just our sort of family have already
+perished in Austria and Russia. This is
+indeed the outlook for most of us if these
+efforts to secure permanent peace which are
+now being concentrated at Washington fail.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Here surely are reasons enough, from the
+most generous to the most selfish, for putting
+my whole being, with the utmost concentration,
+into this business. You might imagine I think
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>nothing but conference, do nothing but work
+upon the conference.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Well, I find I don’t.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Before such evils as now advance upon humanity,
+man’s imagination seems scarcely more
+adequate than that of the park deer I have seen
+feeding contentedly beside the body of a shot
+companion.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I am, when I recall my behavior in the last
+few weeks, astonished at my own levity. I
+have been immensely interested by the voyage
+across the Atlantic; I have been tremendously
+amused by the dissertations of a number of
+fellow-travellers upon the little affair of Prohibition;
+I have been looking up old friends and
+comparing the New York City of today with the
+New York City of fifteen years ago. I spent an
+afternoon loitering along Fifth Avenue, childishly
+pleased by the shops and the crowd, I find
+myself tempted to evade luncheon where I shall
+hear a serious discussion of the Pacific question,
+because I want to explore the mysteries of
+a chop suey without outside assistance.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Yet no one knows better than I do that this
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>very attractive, glitteringly attractive, thundering,
+towering city is in the utmost danger.
+Within a very few years the same chill wind of
+economic disaster that has wrecked Petersburg
+and brought death to Vienna and Warsaw
+may be rusting and tarnishing all this glistening,
+bristling vitality. In a little while, within
+my lifetime, New York City may stand even
+more gaunt, ruinous, empty and haunted than
+that stricken and terrible ruin, Petersburg.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>My mind was inadequate against the confident
+reality of a warm October afternoon,
+against bright clothes and endless automobiles,
+against the universal suggestion that everything
+would shine on forever. And my mind is
+something worse than thus inadequate; I find it
+is deliberately evasive. It tries to run away
+from the task I have set it. I find my mind, at
+the slightest pretext, slipping off from this difficult
+tangle of problems through which the
+Washington Conference has to make its way.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>For instance, I have got it into my head that
+I shall owe it to myself to take a holiday after
+the conference, and two beautiful words have
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>taken possession of my mind—Florida and the
+Everglades. A vision of exploration amidst
+these wonderful sun-soaked swamps haunts me.
+I consult a guide book for information about
+Washington and the procedure of Congress,
+and I discover myself reading about Miami or
+Indian River.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>So it is we are made. A good half of those
+who read this and who have been pulling themselves
+together to think about the hard tasks
+and heavy dangers of international affairs will
+brighten up at this mention of a holiday in the
+Everglades—either because they have been
+there or because they would like to go. They
+will want to offer experiences and suggestions
+and recommend hotels and guides.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>And apart from this triviality of the attention,
+this pathetic disposition to get as directly
+as possible to the nearest agreeable thoughts
+which I am certain every statesman and politician
+at the conference shares in some measure
+with the reader and myself, we are also encumbered,
+every one of us, with prejudices and
+prepossessions.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>There is patriotism—the passion that makes
+us see human affairs as a competitive game instead
+of a common interest; a game in which
+“our side,” by fair means or foul, has to get
+the better—inordinately—of the rest of mankind.
+For my own part, though I care very
+little for the British Empire, which I think a
+temporary, patched-up thing, I have a passionate
+pride in being of the breed that produced
+such men as Shakespeare, Milton, Bacon, Cromwell,
+Newton, Washington, Darwin, Nelson and
+Lincoln. And I love the peculiar humor and
+kindly temper of an English crowd and the soft
+beauty of an English countryside with a strong,
+possessive passion.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I find it hard to think that other peoples matter
+quite as much as the English. I want to
+serve the English and to justify the English.
+Intellectually I know better, but no man’s intelligence
+is continually dominant; fatigue him
+or surprise him, and habits and emotions take
+control. And not only that I have this
+bias which will always tend to make me run
+crooked in favor of my own people, but also
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>I come to Washington with deep, irrational
+hostilities.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>For example: Political events have exasperated
+me with the present Polish Government.
+It is an unhappy thing that Poland should rise
+from being the unwilling slave of German and
+Russian reaction to become the willing tool
+of French reaction. But that is no reason why
+one should drift into a dislike of Poland and all
+things Polish, and because Poland is so ill-advised
+as to grab more than she is entitled to,
+that one should be disposed to give her less than
+she is entitled to. Yet I do find a drift in that
+direction.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>And prejudice soon breaks away into downright
+quarrelsomeness. It is amusing or distressing,
+as you will, to find how easily I, as a
+professional peacemaker, can be tempted into a
+belligerent attitude. “Of course,” I say, ruffled
+by some argument, “if Japan chooses to be
+unreasonable”—</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I make no apologies for this autobiographical
+tone. It is easier and less contentious to dissect
+one’s self than to set to work on any one
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>else for anatomical ends. This is Exhibit No.
+1. We are all like this. There are no demigods
+or supermen in our world superior to such trivialities,
+limitations, prejudices and patriotisms.
+We have all got them, as we have all got livers.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Every soul that gathers in Washington will
+have something of that disposition to get away
+to the immediately pleasant, will be disposed to
+take a personal advantage, will have a bias for
+race and country, will have imperfectly suppressed
+racial and national animosities, will be
+mentally hurried and crowded. That mental
+hurrying and crowding has to be insisted upon.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>This will be a great time for Washington, no
+doubt, to have a very gay and exciting time. It
+becomes the focus of the world’s affairs. All
+sorts of interesting people are heading for
+Washington, bright-eyed and expectant. There
+will be lunches, dinners, receptions and such
+like social occasions in great abundance, dramatic,
+and encounters, flirtations, scandals,
+jealousies and quarrels. Quiet thought, reconsideration—will
+Washington afford any hole or
+cover for such things? A most distracting time
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>it will be and it will be extraordinarily difficult
+to keep its real significance in mind.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>So let us repeat here its real significance.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The great war has struck a blow at the very
+foundations of our civilization; it has shattered
+the monetary system which is the medium of all
+our economic life. A rotting down of civilization
+is spreading now very rapidly and nothing
+is being done to arrest it. Production stagnates
+and dwindles. This can only be restored
+by the frank collective action of the chief powers
+of the world.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>At present the chief powers of the world
+show no signs of the collective action demanded.
+They are still obsessed by old-fashioned ideas
+of national sovereignty and national competition,
+and though all verge on bankruptcy, they
+maintain and develop fresh armies and fleets.
+That is to say, they are in the preparatory
+stage of another war. So long as this divided
+and threatening state of affairs continues there
+can be no stability, no real general recovery;
+shortages will increase, famine will spread;
+towns, cities, communications will decay; increasing
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>masses of starving unemployed will
+resort to more and more desperate and violent
+protests, until they assume a quasi-revolutionary
+character. Education will ebb, and social
+security dwindle and fade into anarchy. Civilization
+as we know it will go under and a new
+Dark Age begin.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>And this fate is not threatening civilization;
+it is happening to civilization before our eyes.
+The ship of civilization is not going to sink in
+five years’ time or in fifty years’ time. It is
+sinking now. Russia is under the water line;
+she has ceased to produce, she starves; large
+areas of Eastern Europe and Asia sink toward
+the same level; the industrial areas of Germany
+face a parallel grim decline; the winter will be
+the worst on record for British labor. The
+pulse of American business weakens.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>To face which situation in the world’s affairs,
+this crowd of hastily compiled representatives,
+and their associates, dependents and satellites,
+now gathers at Washington. They are all,
+from President Harding down to the rawest
+stenographer girl, human beings. That is to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>say, they are all inattentive, moody, trivial,
+selfish, evasive, patriotic, prejudiced creatures,
+unable to be intelligently selfish even, for more
+than a year or so ahead, after the nature of
+our Exhibit No. 1.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Every one has some sort of blinding personal
+interest to distort the realities that he has to
+face. Politicians have to think of their personal
+prestige and their party associations;
+naval and military experts have to think of
+their careers.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>One may argue it is as good a gathering as
+our present circumstances permit. Probably
+there is some good will for all mankind in every
+one who comes. Probably not one is altogether
+blind to the tremendous disaster that towers
+over us, but all are forgetful.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>And yet this Washington Conference may
+prove to be the nearest approach the human
+will and intelligence has yet made to a resolute
+grapple against fate upon this planet. We
+cannot make ourselves wiser than we are, but
+in this phase of universal danger we can at
+least school ourselves to the resolve to be
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>charitable and frank with one another to the
+best of our ability, to be forgiving debtors,
+willing to retreat from hasty and impossible
+assumptions, seeking patience in hearing and
+generosity in action. High aims and personal
+humility may yet save mankind.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>
+  <h2 id='II' class='c005'>II<br /> ARMAMENTS<br /> <span class='small'>THE FUTILITY OF MERE LIMITATION</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r c002'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Washington, Nov. 8.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c007'>It would seem that the peculiar circumstances
+of its meeting demand that the Washington
+Conference should begin with a foregone
+futility, the discussion of the limitation of
+armaments and of the restrictions of warfare
+in certain directions, while nations are still to
+remain sovereign and free to make war and
+while there exists no final and conclusive court
+of decision for international disputes except
+warfare.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>A number of people do really seem to believe
+that we can go on with all the various states of
+the earth still as sovereign and independent of
+each other as wild beasts in a jungle, with no
+common rule and no common law, and yet that
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>we can contrive it that they will agree to make
+war only in a mild and mitigated fashion, after
+due notice and according to an approved set of
+regulations. Such ideas are quite seriously entertained
+and they are futile and dangerous
+ideas. A committee of the London League of
+Nations Union, for example, has been debating
+with the utmost gravity whether the use of poison
+gas and the sinking of neutral ships to enforce
+a blockade should be permitted and
+whether “all modern developments” in warfare
+should not be abolished. “The feasibility
+of preventing secret preparations and the advantages
+of surprise were also considered.”
+It is as if warfare was a game.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>It is a little difficult to reason respectfully
+against that sort of project. One is moved
+rather to add helpful suggestions in the same
+vein. As for example, that no hostilities shall
+be allowed to begin or continue except in the
+presence of a League of Nations referee, who
+shall be marked plainly on the chest and pants
+with the red cross of Geneva and who—for the
+convenience of aircraft—shall carry an open
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>sunshade similarly adorned. He shall be furnished
+with a powerful whistle or hand trumpet
+audible above the noise of modern artillery, and
+military operations shall be at once arrested
+when this whistle is blown. Contravention of
+the rules laid down by the League of Nations
+shall be penalized according to the gravity of
+the offense, with penalties ranging from, let us
+say, an hour’s free bombardment of the offender’s
+position to the entire forces of the enemy
+being addressed very severely by the referee
+and ordered off the field.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>In the event of either combatant winning the
+war, outright by illegitimate means, it might
+further be provided that such combatant should
+submit to a humiliating peace, just as if the
+war had been lost.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Unhappily war is not a game but the grimmest
+of realities, and no power on earth exists to
+prevent a nation which is fighting for existence
+against another nation from resorting to any
+expedient however unfair, cruel and barbarous
+to enforce victory or avert disaster. Success
+justifies every expedient in warfare, and you
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>cannot prevent that being so. A nation, hoping
+to win and afterward make friends with its
+enemy or solicitous for the approval of some
+powerful neutral, may conceivably refrain from
+effective but objectionable expedients, but that
+is a voluntary and strategic restraint. The fact
+remains that war is an ultimate and illimitable
+thing; a war that can be controlled is a war that
+could have been stopped or prevented. If our
+race can really bar the use of poison gas it can
+bar the use of any kind of weapon. It is indeed
+easier to enforce peace altogether than any
+lesser limitation of war.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>But it is argued that this much may be true
+nevertheless, that if the nations of the world
+will agree beforehand not to prepare for particular
+sorts of war or if they will agree to reduce
+their military and naval equipment to a
+minimum, that this will operate powerfully in
+preventing contraventions and in a phase of
+popular excitement arresting the rush toward
+war. The only objection to this admirable proposal
+is that no power which has desires or
+rights that can only be satisfied or defended, so
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>far as it knows, by war, will ever enter into
+such a disarmament agreement in good faith.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Of course countries contemplating war and
+having no serious intention of disarming effectually
+will enter quite readily into conferences
+upon disarmament, but they will do so partly
+because of the excellent propaganda value of
+such a participation and mainly because of the
+chance it gives them of some restriction which
+will hamper a possible antagonist much more
+than it will hamper themselves. For instance,
+Japan would probably be very pleased to reduce
+her military expenditure to quite small figures
+if the United States reduced theirs to the same
+amount, because the cost per head of maintaining
+soldiers under arms is much less in Japan
+than in America; and she would be still more
+ready to restrict naval armament to ships with
+a radius of action of 2,000 miles or less because
+that would give her a free hand with China and
+the Philippines. That sort of haggling was going
+on between Britain and Germany at The
+Hague at intervals before the great war.
+Neither party believed in the peaceful intentions
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>of the other nor regarded these negotiations
+as anything but strategic moves. And as
+things were in Europe it was difficult to regard
+them in any other way.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>No, the limitation of armaments quite as
+much as the mitigation of warfare is impossible
+until war has been made impossible, and then
+the complete extinction of armaments follows
+without discussion; and war can only be made
+impossible when the powers of the world have
+done what the thirteen original States of American
+Union found they had to do after their independence
+was won, and that is set up a common
+law and rule over themselves. Such a
+project is a monstrously difficult one no doubt,
+and it flies in the face of great masses of patriotic
+cant and of natural prejudices and natural
+suspicion, but it is a thing that can be done. It
+is the only thing that can be done to avert the
+destruction of civilization through war and war
+preparation. Disarmament and the limitation
+of warfare without such a merging of sovereignty
+look, at the first glance, easier and
+more modest proposals, but they suffer from
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>the fatal defect of absolute impracticability.
+They are things that cannot be made working
+realities. A world that could effectually disarm
+would be a world already at one, and disarmament
+would be of no importance whatever.
+Given stable international relations, the world
+would put aside its armaments as naturally as
+a man takes off his coat in winter on entering
+a warm house.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>And as a previous article has pointed out,
+wars, preparations for war and the threat of
+war are only the more striking aspect of human
+disunion at the present time. The smashing up
+of the world’s currency system and the progressive
+paralysis of industry that follows on
+that is a much more immediate disaster. That
+is rushing upon us. This war talk between
+Japan and America may end as abruptly as the
+snarling of two dogs overtaken by a flood.
+There may not be another great war after all,
+because both in Japan and America social disruption
+may come first. Upon financial and
+economic questions the powers of the earth
+must get together very quickly now or perish;
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>the signs get more imperative every day; and if
+they get together upon these common issues,
+then they will have little reason or excuse for
+not taking up the merely international issues
+at the same time.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>There is a curious exaggeration of respect
+for patriotism and patriotic excesses in all
+these projects for disarmament and the mitigation
+of warfare. We have to “consider patriotic
+susceptibilities”; that is the stereotyped
+formula of objection to the plain necessity of
+overriding the present barbaric sovereignty of
+separate states by a world rule and a world law
+protecting the common interests of the common
+people of the world. In practice these “patriotic
+susceptibilities”; will often be found to resolve
+themselves into nothing more formidable
+than the conceit and self-importance of some
+foreign office official. In general they are little
+more than a snarling suspiciousness of foreign
+people. Most people are patriotically excitable,
+it is in our human nature, but that no more excuses
+this excessive deference to patriotism
+than it would excuse a complete tolerance of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span>boozing and of filthy vices and drunken and
+lustful outrages because we are all more or less
+susceptible to thirst and desire. And while
+there is all this deference for the most ramshackle
+and impromptu of nationalisms there is
+a complete disregard of the influence and of the
+respect due to one of the greatest and most concentrated
+interests of our modern world, the
+finance, the science, the experts, the labor, often
+very specialized and highly skilled, of the armament
+and munitions and associated trades and
+industries.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>So far as I can ascertain, the advocates of
+what I may call mere disarmament propose to
+scrap this mass of interests more or less completely,
+to put its tremendous array of factories,
+arsenals, dockyards and so forth out of
+action, to obliterate its wide-reaching net of
+financial relationships, to break up its carefully
+gathered staffs, and to pour all its labor, its
+trained engineers and sailors and gunners and
+so forth into the great flood of unemployment
+into which our civilization is already sinking.
+And they do not seem to grasp how subtle, various
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>and effective the resistance of this great
+complex of capable human beings to any such
+treatment is likely to be. In my supply of
+League of Nations literature I find only two intimations
+of this real obstacle to the world common
+weal. One is a suggestion that there
+should be no private enterprise in the production
+of war material at all, and the other that
+armament concerns shall not own newspapers.
+As a Socialist I am charmed by the former proposal,
+which would in effect nationalize, among
+others, the iron and steel and chemical industries,
+but as a practical man I have to confess
+that the organization of no existing state is yet
+at the level of efficiency necessary if the transfer
+is to be a hopeful one, and so far as the
+newspaper restriction goes, it would surely
+pass the wit of man to devise rules that would
+prevent a great banking combination from controlling
+armament firms on the one hand while
+it financed newspapers on the other.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Yet the fact remains that this great complex
+of interests, round and about the armaments interest,
+is the most real of all the oppositions to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>a world federation. It supplies substance, direction
+and immediate rewards to the frothy
+emotions of patriotism; it rules by dividing us
+and it realizes that its existence in its present
+form is conditional upon the continuance of
+our suspicions and divisions. It does not positively
+want or seek war, but it wants a continuing
+expectation of and preparation for war.
+On the other hand its ruling intelligences must
+be coming to understand that in the end it cannot
+escape sharing in the economic and social
+smash down to which we are all now sliding so
+rapidly. It is too high a type of organization
+to be altogether blind and obdurate. It will
+not, of course, be represented officially at Washington
+for what it is, but in the form of pseudo-patriotic,
+naval, military and financial experts
+it will be better represented than any other side
+of human nature. One of the most interesting
+things to do at the conference will be to watch
+its activities.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>How much can we common men ask for and
+hope for from this great power? Self extinction
+is too much—even if it were desirable.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span>But it is reasonable to demand a deflection of
+its activities to meet the urgent needs of our
+present dangers. We do not want the extinction
+of this great body of business, metallurgical,
+chemical, engineering and disciplined activities,
+but we do want its rapid diversion from
+all too easily attained destructive ends to creative
+purposes now. A world peace scheme
+that does not open out an immediate prospect
+for the release of financial and engineering
+energy upon world-wide undertakings is a hopeless
+peace scheme. Enterprise must out. Were
+this world one federated state concerned about
+our common welfare there would be no overwhelming
+difficulty in canalizing all this force
+now spent upon armament in the direction of
+improved transport and communications generally
+into the making of great bridges, tunnels
+and the like, into the rebuilding of our cities
+upon better lines, into the irrigation and fertilization
+of the earth’s deserts and so forth. The
+way to world peace lies not in fighting and destroying
+the armament interests but in turning
+them to world service.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>But to do such a thing requires a united financial
+and economic effort; it cannot be done
+nationally by little groups of patriots all scheming
+against one another. It must be big business
+for world interests, unencumbered by national
+frontiers, or it is impossible.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>All these considerations you see converge on
+the conclusion that there is no solution of the
+problem of war, no possibility of a world recovery,
+no possibility of arresting the rapid disintegration
+of our civilization, except a Pax
+Mundi, a federated world control, sufficiently
+authoritative to keep any single nation in order
+and sufficiently coherent to express a world
+idea. We need an effective world “Association
+of Nations,” to use President Harding’s
+phrase, or we shall perish. And even in this
+fantastic dream of Mere Disarmament, of a
+world of little independent states, all sovereign,
+all competing against each other and all carrying
+on a mean financial and commercial warfare
+against each other to the common impoverishment,
+all standing in the way of any large
+modern-spirited handling of modern needs, yet
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span>all remaining magically disarmed and never
+making actual war on each other—even if this
+dream were possible, it is still utterly detestable—more
+detestable even than our present dangers
+and miseries. For if there are any things
+in life worse than pain, fear and destruction,
+they are boredom, pettiness and inanity, and
+such would be the quality of such a world.
+However much the diplomatists at Washington
+may seek to ignore the fact, may fence their discussion
+within narrowly phrased agenda, and
+rule this, that and the other vital aspect outside
+the scope of the conference, the fact remains
+that there is no way out, no way of escape for
+mankind from the monstrous miseries and far
+more monstrous dangers of the present time
+except an organized international co-operation,
+based upon a frank and bold resolve to turn
+men’s minds from ancient jealousies and animosities
+to the common aims and the common
+future of our race.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>If the Washington Conference cannot rise to
+the level of that idea, then it were better that
+the Conference never gathered together.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>
+  <h2 id='III' class='c005'>III<br /> THE TRAIL OF VERSAILLES<br /> <span class='small'>TWO GREAT POWERS ARE SILENT AND ABSENT</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c006'>Washington, the guide books say, was
+planned by Major Pierre Charles L’Enfant in
+imitation of Versailles. If so, it has broken
+away from his intentions. I know Versailles
+pretty well, and I have gone about Washington
+looking vainly for anything more than the remotest
+resemblance. There is something European
+about Washington, I admit, an Italianate
+largeness, as though a Roman design has been
+given oxygen and limitless space. It is a capital
+in the expanded Latin style. It has none of
+the vertical uplift of a real American city. But
+Versailles!</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Versailles was the home and embodiment of
+the old French Grand Monarchy and of a Foreign
+Policy that sought to dominate, Frenchify
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>and “Versaillize” the world. A visit to Versailles
+is part of one’s world education, a visit
+to the rather faded, rather pretentious magnificence
+of its terraces, to that Hall of Mirrors, all
+plastered over with little oblongs of looking-glass,
+which was once considered so wonderful,
+to the stuffy, secretive royal apartments with
+their convenient back stairs, to the poor foolishness
+of the Queen’s toy village, the Little Trianon.
+A century and a half ago the people of
+France, wasted and worn by incessant wars of
+aggression, weary of a Government that was an
+intolerable burden to them and a nuisance to all
+Europe, went to Versailles in a passion and
+dragged French Policy out of Versailles for a
+time.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Unhappily it went back there.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>In 1871, when Germany struck down the
+tawdry imperialism of Napoleon III (who was
+also for setting up Emperors in the New
+World) the Germans had the excessive bad
+taste to proclaim a New German Empire in the
+Hall of Mirrors. So that Versailles became
+more than ever the symbol of the age-long,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>dreary, pitiful quarrel of the French and Germans
+for the inheritance of “the Empire” that
+has gone on ever since the death of Charlemagne.
+There the glory of France had shone;
+there the glory of France had been eclipsed. I
+visited Versailles one autumnal day in 1912,
+and it was then a rather mouldy, disheartened,
+empty, picturesque show place, pervaded by
+memories of flounces, furbelows, wigs and red
+heels and also by the stronger, less pleasant
+flavor of that later Prussian triumph.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>It was surely the least propitious place in the
+whole world for the making of a world peace in
+1919. It was inevitable that there the Rhine
+frontier should loom larger than all Asia and
+that the German people should be kept waiting
+outside to learn what vindictive punishment
+victorious France designed for them.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The Peace of Versailles was not a settlement
+of the world, it was the crowning of the French
+revanche. And since Russia had always been
+below the horizon of Versailles it was as inevitable
+that the Russian people, who had saved
+France from utter defeat in 1914, who had given
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>far more dead to the war than France and
+America put together, and who had collapsed
+at last, utterly exhausted by their stupendous
+war efforts, should be considered merely as the
+defaulting debtors of France. Their Government
+had incurred vast liabilities chiefly in
+preparation for this very war which had restored
+France to her former glorious ascendancy
+over Germany. And now a new, ungracious
+Government in Russia not only declared it
+could not pay up but refused to pretend that it
+had ever meant to perform this impossible feat.
+There could be no dealing with such a Government.
+The German people and the Russian
+people alike had no voice at Versailles,
+and the affairs of the world were settled with a
+majestic disregard of these outcast and fallen
+powers.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>They were settled so magnificently and badly
+that now the Washington Conference, whatever
+limitations it may propose to set upon itself,
+has in effect to review and, if it can, mend or
+replace that appalling settlement. The Washington
+conference has practically to revise the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>verdicts of Versailles, in a fresher air and with
+a wider outlook.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I do not know how near future historians
+may come to saying that the Washington conference
+was planned in imitation of that Versailles
+conference, but it certainly does start out
+with one most unfortunate resemblance. There
+seems to be the same tacit assumption that it
+is possible to come to some permanent settlement
+of the world’s affairs with no representation
+of either the German or the Russian people
+at the conference. The Japanese, the Italians,
+the French, the Americans and the British, assisted
+by modest suggestions from such small
+sections of humanity as China and Spanish
+America, are sitting down to arrangements that
+will amount practically to a settlement of the
+world’s affairs, and they are doing so without
+consulting these two great peoples, and quite
+without their consent and assistance. This
+surely runs counter to the fundamental principle
+of both American and British political life—that
+is to say, the principle of government
+with the consent of the governed—and it is indeed
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>an altogether deplorable intention. In
+some form these two great peoples will have
+to be associated with any permanent settlement,
+and it will be much more difficult to secure
+their assent to any arrangement arrived at
+without even their formal co-operation.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>It is necessary to remind ourselves of certain
+elementary facts about Germany and
+Russia and their position in the world today.
+They are facts within the knowledge of all, and
+yet they seem to be astonishingly forgotten in
+very much of the discussion of the Washington
+conference.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>First, let us recall certain points about Germany.
+The German people occupy the most
+central position in Europe; they exceed in numbers
+any other European people except the Russians;
+their educational level has been as high
+or higher than any other people in the world;
+they are, as a people, honest, industrious, and
+intelligent; upon their social and political well-being
+and economic prosperity the prosperity
+of Britain, Scandinavia, Russia, Italy—and in a
+lesser degree France—depends. It is impossible
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>to destroy such a people, it is impossible to
+wipe them off the map, but it is possible to ruin
+them economically and socially. And if Germany
+is ruined most of Europe is ruined.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Germany has been overthrown in a great war
+and it will be well to recall here certain elementary
+facts about that war. Under a particularly
+aggressive and offensive imperialism system
+the Germans were plunged into conflict
+with most of the rest of the civilized world.
+But it was repeatedly declared by the British
+and by the Americans, if not by others of the
+combatants, that they fought not against the
+German people but against this German imperialism.
+The British war propaganda in particular
+did its utmost to saturate Germany with
+that assurance and to hold out the promise of
+generous treatment and a complete restoration
+of friendship <i>provided there was a German renunciation
+of imperialism and militarism</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Germany, exhausted and beaten, surrendered
+in 1918 upon the strength of these promises and
+upon the similar promises implied in President
+Wilson’s Fourteen Points. The declared ends
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>of the war had been achieved. The Kaiser
+bolted, and Germany repented of him publicly
+and unequivocally.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>But the conference at Versailles treated these
+promises that had been made to Germany as
+mere “scraps of paper.” The peace imposed
+upon the young German republic was a punitive
+peace, exactly as punitive as though there
+were still a Kaiser in Berlin; it was a vindictive
+reversal of the Franco-German treaty of
+1871 without a shred of recognition or tolerance
+for the chastened Germany that faced her conquerors.
+The Germans were dealt with as a
+race of moral monsters, though no one in his
+senses really believes they are very different,
+man for man, from English, French or American
+people; every German was held to be individually
+responsible for the war, though every
+Frenchman, Englishman and American knows
+that when one’s country fights one has to fight,
+and it is quite natural to fight for it whether it
+is in the right or not; and a sustained attack of
+oppressive occupations, dismemberment, and
+impossible demands was begun and still goes on
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>upon the shattered German civilization—which
+is at least as vitally necessary to the world as
+the French. The British and French nationalist
+press openly confess that they do not intend
+to give Germany a chance of recovery. The
+European Allies have now been kicking the
+prostrate body of Germany for three years; in
+a little while they will be kicking a dead body;
+and since they are linked geographically to
+their victim almost as closely as the Siamese
+twins were linked together, they will share that
+victim’s decay.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>It is high time that this barbaric insanity,
+this prolongation of the combat after surrender,
+should cease and that the best minds and
+wills of Germany and the very reasonable republican
+government she has set up for herself
+should be called into consultation. I could
+wish that Washington could so far rise above
+Versailles as presently to make that invitation.
+Sooner or later it will have to be made if the
+peace of the world is to be secured.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The absence of Russia from the Washington
+conference is an even graver weakness. People
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>seem to have forgotten altogether how the Russians
+bore the brunt of the opening years of
+the great war. Their rapid offensive in 1914
+saved Paris and saved the little British Army
+from a disastrous retreat to the sea. The debt
+of gratitude Britain and France owe to Russia’s
+“Unknown Warrior,” that poor unhonored
+hero and martyr, is incalculable. But for
+Russia Germany would probably have won the
+war outright before the end of 1916. It was
+the blood and suffering of the Russian people
+saved victory for the Allies; those incredible
+soldiers fought often without artillery support,
+without rifle ammunition, without boots or food,
+under conditions almost inconceivable to the
+well-supplied French and British and Americans
+of the western front. And their tale of
+killed and wounded exceeds enormously that of
+any other combatant. In 1917 Russia collapsed;
+she was bled white, and she remained
+collapsed in spite of the sedulous kicking of her
+allies to rouse her to further efforts. The intolerable
+Rasputin-Czarism went down in the
+disaster. After a phase of extreme disorder,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span>and very largely because of the British hesitation
+to support the Kerensky Government by
+bold naval action in the Baltic, the hard, tyrannous,
+doctrinaire government of the Bolsheviki
+took control.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>That government is a bad government; its
+faults are indeed of a different order but on the
+whole, I will admit, it is almost as bad as the
+former Czarist Government it superseded. Yet
+let us remember certain plain facts about it. It
+has remained in power to this day because it is
+a Russian-speaking government standing for a
+whole and undivided Russia, and the Russian
+people support it because it has defended
+Russia against the subsidized raiders of France
+and Britain, against the Poles and against the
+Esthonians and against the Japanese and
+against every sort of outside interference with
+their prostrate country. They prefer fanatics
+to foreigners and Bolsheviks to brigands.
+Frenchmen or Americans in the same horrible
+position would probably make the same choice.
+The Entente, the Poles, a miscellany of adventurers,
+have given the Russians no breathing
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>time to deal with their own Government in their
+own fashion. And now, caught by the misadventure
+of an unprecedented drought, millions
+of Russians in the regions disorganized by Kolchak,
+Denikene and Wrangel, are starving to
+death—while Canada and America have wheat
+and corn to burn. There is even food to spare
+in some parts of Russia, but no adequate means
+of getting it to the starving provinces without
+outside assistance. And the Western World is
+letting these Russian millions starve because of
+the argumentative obstinacy of the Moscow
+Government, which hesitated for a time to
+acknowledge debts incurred by Russia—very
+largely for the military preparations which
+saved Europe—debts it is now inconceivable
+that Russia can ever under any circumstances
+pay, because of the pitiless resentment of the
+creditors of Russia. Yet the suffering of
+Russia cannot help the western money lender;
+they merely give him his revenge.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>But even if some millions of Russian men,
+women and children die this winter and are
+added to the count of those who have already
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>perished through the war—the war that saved
+Paris from Berlin—it does not follow that
+Russia will die. Peoples are not killed in this
+fashion. These distresses will not alter the fact
+that the Russians are the most numerous people
+in Europe, and a people of unexampled gifts
+and tenacity. Their magnificent resistance to
+outside interference since 1914 and their toleration
+of the Bolshevik Government when division
+would have been as fatal to them as it has
+been in China, is a proof of their solidarity and
+instinctive political wisdom. There are as
+many Russians as there are people in the
+United States of America, and they occupy an
+area as great and far richer in undeveloped resources.
+In spite of the monstrous Czarist
+Government which treated elementary education
+as an offense against the State, the prose
+literature, the drama, the music, the pictorial
+art—even the science of the Russians during
+the last hundred years—all this compares favorably
+with that of the United States. These
+Russians are indeed one of the very greatest of
+people and they have survived tragic experiences
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>that might well have destroyed any other
+race. And Washington, I gather, proposes to
+settle the peace of Europe, Asia and the Pacific
+without them.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>There is, I know, a very strong case to excuse
+Washington from sending an invitation to the
+existing Russian Government. I would be the
+last person in the world to minimize the difficulties
+the Bolshevik Government puts in the
+way of any fair dealings with the western
+powers; it is bound by its Communist theory
+not to recognize them fairly and to make gestures
+of preparation for their overthrow. In
+addition to its general theoretical obduracy
+Moscow is also afflicted with a particularly obdurate,
+pedantic, argumentative and disastrous
+Foreign Minister, Chicherin. But practical necessity
+knows no theories and the Bolshevik
+Government, if only it can save its face, is now
+extraordinarily anxious for recognition from
+and dealings with the western Governments.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I do not see why the western Governments,
+having regard to the needs of Russia, should
+try to outdo the Bolsheviks in obstinacy, pedantry
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span>and cruelty, nor why they should not make
+an honest attempt to get along with the de facto
+government until it develops naturally into
+something else. For such a development only a
+rough working peace is wanted. Given that,
+and a release from impossible debts, Russia,
+relieved forever from the black curse of Czarism,
+will go right on to become a land of restored
+cultivation, of resuscitated mines and
+presently of reawakening towns, a democratic
+land of common people more like the free, poor,
+farming, prospecting and developing United
+States of 1840 than anything else in history.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>So long as Russia suffers the Bolshevik Government
+I think Washington ought to suffer it,
+but perhaps in that opinion I go beyond the possibilities
+of the case. Then I suggest that at
+least Washington ought to set up some well-informed
+lawyer, some bureau, to play the part
+of the Russian advocate at the conference. If
+Russia is not to be allowed a vote in the decision
+of things, let her at least be heard.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Consider what the future must hold for this
+great people, and mark the amazing folly of the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>insults and evils we heap upon their land. Look
+it up in an atlas or encyclopaedia. Measure
+what it is we ignore. In a score of years Russia
+may be a renascent land as vigorous as the
+United States in 1840. In a century she may
+be as great and powerful and civilized as any
+state on earth. For such powers as France and
+Britain and Japan to sit in council upon the fate
+of the world without her is as if, in the dark
+years of 1863 and 1864, they had sat in council
+upon the future of America without the United
+States. Indeed, something of the sort did happen
+in those dark years; France, I recall, sent
+troops and munitions into Mexico, as recently
+she has sent them into Poland and South Russia.
+And somewhere in the world there is a
+grave, the grave of a “white hope,” a reactionary
+puppet who was to have restored Mexico to
+the European system—the friend of the Emperor
+Napoleon the Third, the Emperor Maximilian.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>When I was a small boy learning the rudiments
+of geography, the earth was presented to
+me in two hemispheres, the Old World and the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>new. Not once or twice only has America vindicated
+her right to that title. Will Washington
+confirm that great tradition and open a way
+of escape now from the tangled narrowness of
+Versailles? Are Germany and Russia to perish
+amid the incurable quarrels of the Old World
+or find their salvation in the New?</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span>
+  <h2 id='IV' class='c005'>IV<br /> THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER OF THE GREAT WAR</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r c002'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Washington, Nov. 11.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c007'>Britain, France, Italy and now the people
+of the United States, have honored and buried
+the bodies of certain Unknown Soldiers, each
+according to their national traditions and circumstances.
+Canada, I hear, is to follow suit.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>So the world expresses its sense that in the
+great war the only hero was the common man.
+Poor Hans and poor Ivan lie rotting yet under
+the soil of a hundred battlefields, bones and decay,
+rags of soiled uniform and fragments of
+accoutrements, still waiting for monuments and
+speeches. Yet they too were mothers’ sons,
+kept step, obeyed orders, went singing into battle,
+and knew the strange intoxication of soldierly
+fellowship and the sense of devotion to
+something much greater than themselves.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>In Arlington Cemetery soldiers of the Confederate
+South lie honored equally with the
+Federal dead, the right or wrong of their cause
+altogether forgotten and only their sacrifice remembered.
+A time will come when we shall
+cease to visit the crimes and blunders and misfortunes
+of their Governments upon the common
+soldiers and poor folk of Germany and
+Russia, when our bitterness will die out and we
+shall mourn them as we mourn our own, as
+souls who gave their lives and suffered greatly
+in one universal misfortune.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>A time will come when these vast personifications
+of conflict, the Unknown British Soldier,
+the Unknown American Soldier, the Unknown
+French Soldier, etc., will merge into the thought
+of a still greater personality, the embodiment
+of 20,000,000 separate bodies and of many million
+broken lives, the Unknown Soldier of the
+great war.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>It would be possible, I suppose, to work out
+many things concerning him. We could probably
+find out his age and his height and his
+weight and such like particulars very nearly.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>We could average figures and estimates that
+would fix such matters within a very narrow
+range of uncertainty. In race and complexion,
+I suppose he would be mainly North European;
+North Russian, German, Frankish, North Italian,
+British and American elements would all
+have the same trend toward a tallish, fairish,
+possibly blue-eyed type; but also there would be
+a strong Mediterranean streak in him, Indian
+and Turkish elements, a fraction of Mongolian
+and an infusion of African blood—brought in
+not only through the American colored troops
+but by the free use by the French of their Senegalese.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>None of these factors would be strong enough
+to prevent his being mainly Northern and much
+the same mixture altogether as the American
+citizen of 1950 is likely to be. He would be a
+white man with a touch of Asia and a touch of
+color. And he would be young—I should guess
+about twenty-one or twenty-two—still boyish,
+probably unmarried rather than married, with
+a father and mother alive and with the memories
+and imaginations of the home he was born
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>in still fresh and vivid in his mind when he died.
+We could even, I suppose, figure in general
+terms how he died. He was struck in daylight
+amid the strange noises and confusion of a modern
+battlefield by something out of the unknown—bullet,
+shell fragment or the like. At the
+moment he had been just a little scared—every
+one is a little scared on a battlefield—but much
+more excited than scared and trying hard to
+remember his training and do his job properly.
+When he was hit he was not so much hurt at
+first as astonished. I should guess that the first
+sensation of a man hard hit on a battlefield is
+not so much pain as an immense chagrin.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I suppose it would be possible to go on and
+work out how long it was before he died after
+he was hit, how long he suffered and wondered,
+how long he lay before his ghost fell in with
+that immense still muster in the shades, those
+millions of his kind who had no longer country
+to serve nor years of life before them, who had
+been cut off as he had been cut off suddenly
+from sights and sounds and hopes and passions.
+But rather let us think of the motives and feelings
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span>that had brought him, in so gallant and
+cheerful a frame of mind, to this complete sacrifice.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>What did the Unknown Soldier of the great
+war think he was doing when he died? What
+did we, we people who got him into the great
+war and who are still in possession of this
+world of his, what did we persuade him to think
+he was doing and what is the obligation we have
+incurred to him to atone for his death, for the
+life and sunlight he will know no more?</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>He was still too young a man to have his motives
+very clear. To conceive what moved him
+and what he desired is a difficult and disputable
+task. M. George Nobelmaire at a recent meeting
+of the League of Nations Assembly declared
+that he had heard French lads whisper “<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Vive
+la France!</span>” and die. He suggested that German
+boys may have died saying, “Colonel, say
+to my mother, ‘<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Vive l’Allemagne!</span>’” Possibly.
+But the French are trained harder in patriotism
+than any other people. I doubt if it was the
+common mood. It was certainly not the common
+mood among the British.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>I cannot imagine many English boys using
+their last breath to say “Rule Britannia!” or
+“King George for Merry England!” Some of
+our young men swore out of vexation and
+fretted; some, and it was not always the youngest,
+became childish again and cried touchingly
+for their mothers; many maintained the ironical
+flippancy of our people to the end; many
+died in the vein of a young miner from Durham
+with whom I talked one morning in the
+trenches near Martinpuich, trenches which had
+been badly “strafed” overnight. War, he said,
+was a beastly job, “but we’ve got to clean this
+up.” That is the spirit of the lifeboat man or
+fireman. That is the great spirit. I believe
+that was far nearer to the true mind of the
+Unknown Soldier than any tinpot Viva-ing of
+any flag, nation or empire whatever.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I believe that when we generalize the motives
+that took the youth who died in the great war
+out of the light of life and took them out at precisely
+the age when life is most desirable, we
+shall find that the dominating purpose was certainly
+no narrow devotion to the “glory” or
+“expansion” of any particular country, but a
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>wide-spirited hostility to wrong and oppression.
+That is clearly shown by the nature of the appeals
+that were made in every country to sustain
+the spirit of its soldiers.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>If national glory and patriotism had been the
+ruling motive of these young men, then manifestly
+their propaganda would have concerned
+themselves mainly with national honor and flag
+idolatry. But they did not do so. Nowadays
+flags fly better on parades and stoop fronts
+than on battlefields. The war propagandas
+dwelt steadily and insistently upon the wickedness
+and unrighteousness of the enemy, upon
+the dangers of being overwhelmed by foreign
+tyranny, and particularly upon the fact that the
+enemy had planned and made the war. These
+boys fought best on that—everywhere.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>So far as the common men in every belligerent
+country went, therefore, the great war was
+a war against wrong, against force, against war
+itself. Whatever it was in the thoughts of the
+diplomatists, it was that in the minds of the
+boys who died. In the minds of these young
+and generous millions who are personified in
+the Unknown Soldier of the great war, in the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span>minds of the Germans and Russians who fought
+so stoutly, quite as much as the Americans,
+British, French or Italians, the war was a war
+to end war.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>And that marks our obligation.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Every speech that is made beside the graves
+of these Unknown Soldiers who lie now in the
+comradeship of youthful death, every speech
+which exalts patriotism above peace, which hints
+at reparations and revenges, which cries for
+mean alliances to sustain the traditions of the
+conflict, which exalts national security over the
+common welfare, which wags the “glorious
+flag” of this nation or that in the face of the
+universal courage and tragedy of mankind, is
+an insult and an outrage upon the dead youth
+who lies below. He sought justice and law in
+the world as he conceived these things, and
+whoever approaches his resting place unprepared
+to serve the establishment of a world law
+and world justice, breathing the vulgar cants
+and catchwords of a patriotism outworn and of
+conflicts that he died to end, commits a monstrous
+sacrilege and sins against all mankind.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>
+  <h2 id='V' class='c005'>V<br /> THE PRESIDENT AT ARLINGTON</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r c002'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Washington, Nov. 11.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c007'>I am writing this just after my return from
+the funeral, in the National Cemetery, of the
+American Unknown Soldier at Arlington, a
+very stately and moving ceremony, under the
+bright blue sky and the cold, keen air of a Virginia
+November day. The body had been lying
+in state at the Capitol and it was carried
+through Washington to the cemetery at the
+head of a great procession in which the Supreme
+Court, the Cabinet, Senators, members
+of the House of Representatives, war veterans
+and a multitude of societies marched on foot,
+a march of nearly two hours and a half duration.
+Much of this gathering was of the substance
+of all such processions, but one or two
+of the contingents were rich with association
+and suggestion.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>There were fifty or sixty, I should guess, very
+old men, bent, white-headed—one with a conspicuous
+long, white beard—veterans of a civil
+war that was fought out to an end before I was
+born. They came close to a contingent of men
+who had been specially decorated in the great
+war, erect and eager, still on the better side of
+the prime of life. These older men had fought
+in a great fight against a division, a separation
+that today, thanks to their sacrifice, has become
+inconceivable. They had fought to seal the Federal
+Union of what were else warring States.
+The young men who marched before them had
+fought in a war upon the greater stage of the
+whole world. Some day the tale of those abundant
+heroes will have shrunken to the dimensions
+of that little band of pathetic and glorious
+old men. Will they live to as complete an
+assurance that their cause also has been won
+forever, the newer veterans of the greater union
+that has yet to come?</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>There were many points of contrast between
+the ceremony I have just witnessed in the graceful
+marble amphitheatre in the beautiful Virginian
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>open country and the burials that have
+taken place in the very hearts of London, Paris
+and Rome. In the face of a common identity
+of idea, they mark an essential difference in the
+nature of the occasion.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Thursday I went to see the people who were
+filing past the flag-covered coffin. It was a
+crowd fairly representative, I thought, of the
+Washington population as one sees it on the
+streets; all classes were represented, but chiefly
+it consisted of that well-dressed, healthy looking
+middle class sort of people who predominate
+in the streets of most American cities.
+They came to honor a national hero, the personification
+of American courage and loyalty. Few,
+I think, were actual mourners of a dead soldier.
+The couples and groups of people I saw hurrying
+up the sloping paths to the entrance of the
+Capitol, filing up the steps to the rotunda or dispersing
+on the other side were characterized
+by a sort of bright eagerness and approval.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>They contrasted very strongly with my memory
+of the great column of still and mournful
+people under the dark London sky, eight deep,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span>stretching all up Whitehall and down Northumberland
+Avenue and along the Embankment
+for a great distance, a column which moved on
+slowly, step by step, and which faded away at
+night to be replaced by fresh mourners on the
+morrow to do honor to the Unknown Warrior
+in London. That crowd, with its wreaths and
+flowers, represented the families, the lovers, the
+sisters and friends of perhaps a quarter of a
+million of dead men from London and the south
+and centre of England; the massed, mute tragedy
+of its loss was overwhelming. It reduced all
+the ceremony that had gathered it to comparative
+unimportance. But the remote distances
+of America forbade any such concentration of
+sorrow. There may have been the relations
+and friends of perhaps a thousand men upon
+the scene at Arlington. The loss to the District
+of Columbia itself was less than six hundred
+killed. A group of wounded men in the amphitheatre
+struck the most intimate note. The rest
+of the gathering at Arlington shared a less personal
+grief. They were sympathizers rather
+than sufferers.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>Because of this emotional difference, the Arlington
+ceremony presented itself primarily as
+a ceremony. For most there it was a holiday,
+a fine and noble holiday, but a holiday. By it,
+America did not so much mourn the tragedy of
+war as seek to arouse itself to that tragedy.
+Everywhere the Stars and Stripes, the most
+decorative and exhilarating of national flags,
+waved and fluttered, and an irresistible expression
+of America’s private life and buoyant well-being
+mingled in the proceedings. For most of
+the gathering that coffin under the great flag
+held nothing they had ever touched personally;
+it was not America’s lost treasure of youth, but
+rather a warning of the fate that may yet overtake
+the youth of America if war is not to
+end. At Arlington, throughout the length and
+breadth of America, when for two minutes at
+mid-day all work and movement stopped and
+America stood still, an innumerable host of
+fathers and mothers and wives and friends
+could whisper thanks to God in their hearts
+that their sons and their beloved remained
+alive.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>And I suppose it is largely because America
+is still so much less war-stricken than any of
+the other belligerents of the great war that so
+much more powerful a sense of will was apparent
+in all these proceedings. The burial of the
+Unknown Soldier in America was not a thing
+in itself as it was in London, in Paris or Rome;
+it was a solemn prelude to action, the action of
+the great conference which is to seek peace
+and enduring peace for all mankind. This note
+was struck even in the Chaplain’s opening invocation.
+He said:</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>“Facing the events of the morrow, when from
+the workbench of the world there will be taken
+an unusual task, we ask that Thou wilt accord
+exceptional judgment, foresight and tactfulness
+of approach to those who seek to bring about
+a better understanding among men and nations
+to the end that discord, which provokes war,
+may disappear and that there may be world
+tranquillity.”</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>And the very fine oration of President Harding,
+following closely upon this line.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I saw the President for the first time at Arlington.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>He is a very big, fine-looking man and
+his voice is a wonderful instrument. He spoke
+slowly and very distinctly, his gestures admirably
+controlled. He is—how can I say it?—more
+statuesque than any of the American
+Presidents of recent times, but without a trace
+in his movements or appearance of posturing
+or vanity. Men say he is a sincerely modest
+man, determined to do the best that is in him
+and at once appalled and inspired by the world
+situation in which he finds himself among the
+most prominent figures. Not only in its main
+circumstances but in many of its incidents is
+the position of the President of the United
+States appalling. The President stood in the
+apse to the right of the Unknown Soldier and
+to the other side of him was a black box upon
+a stand, a box perhaps two feet by one. This
+was the receiver that was to carry his voice, intensely
+amplified, to still greater gatherings in
+New York, in San Francisco and over the whole
+United States. Never was human utterance so
+magnified. Every syllable, every slip was recorded.
+He slipped once at an antithesis and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>was obliged to repeat. From the Atlantic to
+the Pacific that slip was noted.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I have heard much detraction of the President
+both before I came to America and since
+I have been here, but here I have found also
+a growing and spreading belief in him. And
+this address of his, rhetorical though it was in
+a simple and popular American way, was nevertheless
+a very dignified address and one inspired
+by a spirit that is undeniably great.
+Here is a fine saying:</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>“His patriotism was none less if he craved
+more than triumph of country; rather, it was
+greater if he hoped for a victory for all human
+kind. Indeed, I revere that citizen whose confidence
+in the righteousness of his country inspired
+belief that its triumph is the victory of
+humanity.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>“This American soldier went forth to battle
+with no hatred for any people in the world, but
+hating war and hating the purpose of every war
+for conquest.”</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>We are to seek “the rule under which reason
+and righteousness shall prevail.” There is to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span>be “the commanding voice of a conscious civilization
+against armed warfare,” “a new and
+lasting era of peace on earth.” And with a fine
+instinct for effect the President ended his oration
+with the Lord’s Prayer, with its appeal for
+one universal law for mankind: “Thy kingdom
+come on earth....”</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Every other gossip tells you that President
+Harding comes from Main Street and repeats
+the story of Mrs. Harding saying: “We’re just
+folk.” If President Harding is a fair sample
+of Main Street, Sinclair Lewis has not told us
+the full story and Main Street is destined to
+save the world.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span>
+  <h2 id='VI' class='c005'>VI<br /> THE FIRST MEETING</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r c002'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Washington, Nov. 13.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c007'>It was difficult at first to imagine the conference
+as anything more than an admirably well
+managed social occasion.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Continental Hall is a quite charming building,
+not too big for intimacy, not too small for
+a sufficient gathering of people. The chief
+members of the delegations had still to assemble;
+they were to sit at green baize covered
+tables in the body of the hall. About this central
+arena sat the massed attaches, and under
+the galleries the press representatives. In the
+boxes clustered the ladies of the diplomatic
+world. Members of the House of Representatives,
+the Senators, their friends and a sprinkling
+of privileged people occupied the big galleries
+above.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>There was a great chatter of conversation
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>when I entered. Everybody was greeting
+friends, flitting from group to group. It was
+one of those gatherings where everybody
+seemed to know everybody. Socially, it was
+extraordinarily like a very smart first night in
+a prominent London theatre.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>“Last time I came to America,” I found myself
+saying, “I brought a silk hat and morning
+coat, and never wore them once. Now everybody
+seems to be wearing a morning coat and a
+silk hat.” It was the sort of occasion one
+dresses for. And that was the tone of the conversation.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>It was difficult to believe that this gathering
+could be the beginning of anything of supreme
+historical importance.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Came a slight hush in the conversation. The
+delegates appeared, all with tremendously
+familiar faces taken out of the illustrated
+papers. They disposed themselves in their
+seats in leisurely fashion. One seat remained
+vacant for a time—the seat of the President.
+Then appeared President Harding, and there
+was a great clapping of hands. It became more
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>and more like a first night. Then a hushing of
+enthusiasm, and silence, and he spoke.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>It was a fine speech, less ornate and more
+direct than the Arlington oration. And the
+galleries above, behaving more and more like
+a first night audience, interrupted with rounds
+of applause whenever there were definite allusions
+to disarmament. He finished and declared
+the conference open and departed. Mr. Balfour
+followed, echoing the President’s sentiments in
+a few well chosen words and proposing Secretary
+Hughes for the Chairman of the conference.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The Hall became aware of a check in the onward
+flow of the proceedings. An interpreter
+got up and repeated Mr. Balfour’s speech in
+French for the benefit of the French delegation.
+He had made a shorthand note as Mr.
+Balfour spoke. This, we learned, was to be the
+procedure throughout the conference. Every
+speech, question and interruption was to be
+dealt with in this interlinear manner. Fortunately,
+it was not necessary to do this in the
+case of the President’s address, nor was it
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>necessary in the case of the address of
+Secretary Hughes, which was now impending
+because these had already been printed
+and distributed and a translation made of
+them.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Their linguistic isolation is likely to prove
+unfortunate for the French. The Belgian, the
+Dutch, the Chinese, Japanese and Portuguese
+delegations all speak in English and listen to
+the English speeches. Consequently, the French
+are in a position in which they seem to be the
+most foreign people present. This must be disconcerting
+to them now.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>It will be much more disconcerting if, at a
+later stage, German delegates speaking English
+should appear upon some extension or side
+committee of the conference. But I do not see
+how it can be avoided. The French are a little
+out of touch in the conference because of this;
+they must be much more out of touch with the
+incessant conversation in clubs and at dinner
+tables and everywhere in Washington, which
+makes the atmosphere in which the conference
+is working.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>This, however, is a note by the way. Secretary
+Hughes took the chair and delivered his
+address. It was a very carefully arranged surprise
+and its effect was really dramatical. It
+jumped the conference abruptly from the fine
+generalizations that had hitherto engaged it to
+immediately practical things. Secretary Hughes
+sketched out what was evidently a carefully
+worked out scheme, a most explicit scheme, for
+the complete cessation of naval armament competition.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>America wanted at the very outset, he said,
+to convince the world that she meant business
+in the conference, and so she had taken this
+unexpected step of putting immediate practical
+proposals upon the table. She would scrap
+completely all the ships she had still under construction
+and all her older ships and she would
+discontinue all naval construction for ten years
+if Britain and Japan would do the same.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>She proposed that the naval strength of the
+three powers concerned should remain for ten
+years in the ratio of: Britain, 22; America, 18,
+and Japan, 10. In other words, she proposed
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>so to fix things that no two of these three powers
+can wage a conclusive naval war against
+each other, but with America and Britain in a
+position to do so jointly against Japan and with
+Japan at a great disadvantage against America,
+even if she were to risk an inconclusive war
+with America on the chance of Britain’s not
+coming in. And having unfolded this scheme,
+Secretary Hughes concluded.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>We were a little stunned. We had expected
+the opening meeting to be preliminary, to stick
+to generalities. After Secretary Hughes had
+finished, there was a feeling that we wanted to
+go away and think. But the members of the
+House of Representatives were enjoying an unwonted
+sense of being in the gallery, quite irresponsibly
+in the gallery, with somebody else
+upon the floor. They burst in upon our statesmanlike
+thoughts below with loud cries for
+“Briand!”</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The atmosphere of friendly festival was reestablished.
+M. Briand spoke eloquently—saying
+nothing whatever about the proposals of
+Secretary Hughes—and sat down, and his still
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span>quite abstract praises of peace were translated
+into English.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>“Japan!” shouted the members of the House
+of Representatives, a theatre gallery now in full
+cry. Japan spoke in English and its sentiments
+were translated into French for the benefit
+of the foreigners. Japan expressed admirable
+sentiments and said nothing whatever
+about the proposals of Secretary Hughes.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Thereafter it would have been discourteous
+not to call for something from Italy, China,
+Belgium, Holland and Portugal. They all spoke
+in English, even Belgium spoke in English, and
+what they said was translated into French.
+Nobody said anything whatever about the proposals
+of Secretary Hughes. The gallery applauded
+each speech heartily and the atmosphere
+of a first night was completely restored.
+We dispersed to luncheons and tea parties and
+to talk before we wrote about it. And as we
+tried to get it into focus in our minds it became
+clear that much more than a ceremonial opening
+of the conference had occurred.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Secretary Hughes has made proposals that
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span>challenge the whole situation in the Pacific.
+For if Japan accepts them—I do not see how
+they could be otherwise than acceptable to the
+British—it puts Japan to so definite and permanent
+a disadvantage that it amounts to an
+abandonment on the part of Japan of the idea
+of fighting a war on the Pacific except as the
+last desperate defensive resort under the pressure
+of an unavoidable attack, and Japan can
+abandon that idea only if she can see her way
+clearly without a war to all that she believes
+to be vitally necessary to her.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>It is possible to say that Secretary Hughes
+has narrowed down the work of the conference
+by this sudden focusing of attention upon naval
+warfare and Japan. But I do not think that is
+the case. The challenge he has made cannot be
+taken up until a number of associated issues
+are settled. Certainly his proposals have precipitated
+the work of the conference from the
+clouds and beautiful generalities to the earth
+and very concrete realities.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>“You accept these proposals,” America says
+in effect. “If not, why not?”</p>
+
+<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span>Japan must accept or reply so and so. So
+from armaments we shall get to the aims behind
+armaments; for no battleship is launched
+except against a specific antagonist and for a
+specific end. And in the matter of aims also
+the conference will presently have to consider
+what each power must scrap for the common
+good and what it may be permitted to keep for
+its own satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Since Secretary Hughes made it clear that
+the conference is to approach the inevitable
+general discussion of world peace by way of
+the sea and the Pacific, since for a time France
+and Europe generally will sit somewhat out of
+the limelight, it will be well, perhaps, if in my
+next article I discuss a few elementary considerations
+about Japan.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span>
+  <h2 id='VII' class='c005'>VII<br /> WHAT IS JAPAN?</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r c002'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Washington, Nov. 15.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c007'>Of all the national delegations assembled
+here in Washington, the most acutely scrutinized,
+the most discussed and probably the least
+understood is the Japanese. The limelight
+gravitates toward it, moved, one feels, not so
+much by an extreme respect as by an inordinate
+curiosity.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Of only one other people—I write as a spectator
+from overseas—does one feel the same
+sense of the possibility of dramatically unexpected
+things, and that is the Americans. The
+Japanese, we feel, we have not found out, and
+the Americans, we feel, have not found out
+themselves. Already the Americans have
+sprung one great surprise upon the conference.
+Britain, France, Italy and the other powers in
+attendance are comparatively calculable—so
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>far as their representation goes. But Japan is
+different; it is not built upon the same lines, it
+follows different laws.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I went on Sunday night to the press reception
+at the Japanese headquarters. The Ambassador
+is a buoyant man of the world, speaking
+excellent English and thoroughly acclimatized
+to an American press gathering. But
+many of the Japanese faces about him set my
+imagination busy, putting them back into the
+voluminous robes and the sashes holding the
+double swords with which I had first met them
+long ago in Japanese prints, and which would
+have become them so much better.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Admiral Kato spoke in Japanese and Prince
+Tokugawa in English; they welcomed the
+Hughes proposals with warm generalities and
+hopes for peace—as we all hope for peace—with
+insufficient particulars. I got no conversation
+with any Japanese; they were not talking
+to us; they did not want to talk; it was a reception
+of hearty politeness and no exchanges.
+I found myself falling back upon an earlier impression.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>Some weeks ago I had a very illuminating
+talk in my garden at home with two Japanese
+visitors, Mr. Mashiko and Mr. Negushi, who
+had come to discuss various educational ideas
+with me. And they told me things that seem
+to me to be fundamentally important in this
+question. “We build up our children,” said
+Mr. Mushiko, “upon a diametrically different
+plan from yours. We turn them the other way
+round. Obedience and devotion are our leading
+thoughts. All our sentiment, all our stories
+and poetry, the traditions of centuries, teach
+loyalty, blind, unquestioning loyalty, of wife to
+husband, of man to his lord, of every one to the
+monarch.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>“The loyalty is religious. So far as political
+and social questions go, it is fundamental. But
+your training cultivates independence, free
+thought, the unsparing criticism of superiors,
+institutions, relationships. Perhaps it is better
+in the end and more invigorating; but it seems
+to us wild and dangerous. * * * We begin to
+have a sort of public opinion, but it is still diffident
+and timid.”</p>
+
+<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span>An American and an Englishman, he said,
+cared for his country because he believed it
+belonged to him. A Japanese cared for his
+country because he believed he belonged to it.
+One could not pass from one habit of mind to
+the other, he thought, without grave risks and
+dangers. It is easier to destroy obedience than
+to create responsibility.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I was reminded of that conversation the
+other day by a remark made by a fellow journalist
+on the train to Washington:</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>“A Chinese will tell you what he thinks—like
+an American—but a Japanese always feels he
+is an agent, even if he isn’t an accredited one.”</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Now, this is very interesting and probably a
+very fundamental comparison. This difference
+in spirit will make the Japanese people a very
+different instrument from the American and
+English or French people. It will make the
+Japanese Government a different thing from
+the Governments it will be meeting in Washington.
+A people built up on obedience can be held
+and wielded as no modern democratic people
+can be held and wielded. It is different in kind.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span>Unless this point is kept in mind, there are
+certain to be great and possibly dangerous misunderstandings
+in the Washington discussions.
+There have possibly been very dangerous misunderstandings
+already of the European powers
+by the Japanese. The Japanese are likely
+to think the Atlantic Governments are more
+free to decide than they really are, and that
+what they say is more conclusive than it really
+is, and the Atlantic peoples are likely to think
+too much of the appearance of a liberal public
+opinion in Japan and to imagine that a Japanese
+Government may be thrown out and its policy
+changed much more easily than is the case.
+But indeed Japan is a Government, a military
+Government, holding its people in its hand like
+a staff or a weapon, while America and France
+and Britain are people operating the Governments,
+more or less imperfectly. In no relationship
+is confusion upon this point more
+probable and more dangerous than between
+Japan and Britain or France at the present
+time, and in no connection is there greater need
+of perfectly plain statement.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span>Seeing that Britain is still a monarchy with
+many aristocratic forms, it is fatally easy for
+a Japanese statesman to fall into the belief
+that the British Government is as completely
+in control, and its officials as able to bind or
+loose, as the Japanese Government and officials,
+and because of this belief to trust to the
+private assurance and general attitude of personages
+in high places far more than they are
+justified in doing. The British democracy is
+very like the American democracy in its inability
+to keep watching what is happening
+overseas; it is preoccupied by domestic questions
+and things that are near to it. You cannot
+expect a Wiltshire farmer or a Lancashire
+cotton spinner to keep up, day by day, with the
+concession-hunting game in Persia or South
+China. But if that game of concession hunting
+piles up to sufficiently serious consequences,
+these democracies are likely to wake up in a
+manner quite outside the Japanese range of possibilities.
+And to a large extent the same is
+true of France.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>It is the blessed privilege of an irresponsible
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>journalist to say things that no diplomatist
+could ever say, and upon the relations of Japan,
+America and England there are certain truths
+that seem to need saying very plainly at the
+present time. But though I am an irresponsible
+journalist, it is also to be noted that I am
+a very English Englishman and that I know the
+way of thinking of my people.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The British people have been sleeping happily
+upon the belief that war with America is
+impossible. And for them it is impossible. In
+this matter the British have a special and extraordinary
+instinct. They will not fight the
+United States of America. I will not go into
+the peculiar feelings that produce this disposition;
+they are feelings great numbers of Americans
+do not understand and have indeed taken
+great pains not to understand. But to the common
+British, fighting Americans would have
+much the same relation to fighting other peoples
+that cannibalism would have to eating
+meat.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I hear a certain type of American over here
+slowly and heavily debating the Hughes proposals
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>on the assumption that there may be a
+war of America against Britain and Japan.
+Such an assumption is—if I may be permitted
+the word—idiotic. As a people, the British
+have not been thinking very much about the
+Pacific question. They have been preoccupied
+by Ireland and their own economic troubles.
+But if that question presently moves toward a
+level of intensity where war is possible, let
+there be no mistake about it in Japan, the ordinary
+English will be thinking with the Americans.
+They will read much the same stuff because
+they have the same language, and think
+in the same way because they have kindred
+habits of thought.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>It will not matter then what assurances and
+sentiments the Japanese may have had for official
+personages in Great Britain. For we are
+dealing here not with a matter of agreements
+but with a kind of moral gravitation. If there
+is a conflict the British masses will want to
+come in on the American side, and if it seems
+likely to be in the least an inconclusive conflict
+they will certainly come in. If the rulers of the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span>Japanese dream that any other combination is
+possible in the Pacific they are under as dangerous
+a delusion as ever lured a great nation
+to disaster.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>But there are many signs that if ever the ruling
+people of Japan entertained this delusion
+they are being disillusionized and that they begin
+to realize that a war with America in the
+Pacific will mean a war with America, Britain,
+and possibly—to judge from the recent astonishing
+remark by that able writer “Pertinax”—France.
+France may use her influence at
+Washington on behalf of Japan in certain matters,
+but that is all Japan will get from France.
+The Japanese, I believe, now fully realize this,
+and the trend of recent Japanese utterances is
+all in the direction of discussion and the disavowal
+of any belligerent dreams.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Yet, Japan continues to arm, and though she
+now disavows war as her method, she sits very
+proudly and stiffly in her weapons at the parley.
+She may have limited and restrained her
+dreams, but there is still some minimum in her
+mind beyond which she will not retreat without
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span>a struggle. What is that minimum which will
+satisfy her without war? Will it satisfy her
+for good, will it seem so permanently satisfactory
+to her that she will be willing not only to
+set aside the thought of and preparation for an
+immediate war, but—what is of far more
+importance—enter into such a binding contract
+for her future international relationships
+as will enable her to beat the swords of
+her Samurai into ploughshares for good and
+all?</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Is Japan peculiarly an obstacle to the practical,
+if informal, federation of the world to
+which we all hope that things are moving?</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>When I try to frame a hopeful answer to that
+question, it occurs to me with added force that
+Japan is not a people trying to express itself
+through a Government as we Atlantic peoples
+are, but a Government, a small ruling class, in
+effective possession of an obedience-loving people.
+And I remember that that small ruling
+class has a long tradition of romantic and chivalrous
+swordsmanship. Is that ruling class
+going to keep its power and is it going to preserve
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>its tradition? No one would be more
+urgent than I for the complete disarmament of
+the entire world, but no one could be more convinced
+of the unwisdom of disarmament by
+America or any other power while any single
+country in the world maintains a spirit that
+must lead at last to a resumption of warfare.
+TO DISARM IN SUCH A SITUATION IS
+TO LEAVE THE TROUBLE TO ACCUMULATE
+UPON OUR GRAND-CHILDREN;
+TO PATCH UP A TEMPORARY PEACE
+BASED ON THE PERMITTED “EXPANSION”
+OF SUCH A POWER IS SIMPLY
+TO PREPARE FOR AN EXPANDED WAR
+IN THE FUTURE.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>But is that Japanese ruling class resolved at
+any cost, even at the cost of another World
+War and at the risk of destroying Japan, to hold
+onto its present power and to adhere rigidly to
+its tradition? In the last hundred years Japan,
+because of her aristocracy and because of her
+general obedience, has achieved feats of adaptation
+to new conditions that are unparalleled
+in history. As we have noted, there have recently
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>been indications of further changes in
+the spirit of Japan.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>She is said to be pressing forward with the
+education of the common people and the liberation
+of thought and discussion. In the long
+run, what is happening in the schools of Japan
+is of more importance to mankind than what is
+happening in her dockyards. But at present
+we do not know what is happening in the
+schools of Japan. One hears much of New
+Japan and Liberal Japan, and there is even an
+unofficial representative of the Japanese Opposition
+in Washington. But, so far as we can
+judge at this distance, we must be guided by
+the policy and methods of the Japanese Government.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Before we can judge these we must consider
+the nature of the field in which they seem to
+clash most with American ideas and with
+American and European interests, namely,
+China and Eastern Asia generally. In my next
+paper I will ask, “What is China?” and consider
+the nature of the needs and claims of
+Japan in regard to China and the prohibitions
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>and the renunciations the Western powers want
+to impose upon her. For it is on account of
+these restrictions and prohibitions that Japan
+has been building her battleships. Her fighting
+fleet is to secure her a free hand in China and
+Siberia; it can have no other purpose. And I
+shall take up the question whether the prohibitions
+and renunciations we want to force upon
+Japan are not prohibitions and restrictions
+that we are bound in fairness to impose
+equally upon all powers concerned with China
+and the Far East. If the other powers are
+not prepared for extreme general retractions
+and renunciation in China; if they
+want to bar out Japan from aggressive practices
+and exclusive advantages that other powers
+retain; if we cling to any sort of racial
+distinction in these matters, then I shall submit,
+we are asking impossible things from
+Japan and we are forcing her toward what
+must must be indeed a very desperate gamble
+for her, a refusal to enter into this proposed
+disarmament agreement—and that means
+war.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>
+  <h2 id='VIII' class='c005'>VIII<br /> CHINA IN THE BACKGROUND</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r c002'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Washington, Nov. 16.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c007'>The Chinese propaganda in America and
+Western Europe seems on the whole to be conducted
+more efficiently than the Japanese. And
+the Chinese student, it seems to me, gets into
+closer touch with the educated American and
+European because his is a democratic and not
+an aristocratic habit of mind. He has an intensely
+Western sense of public opinion.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The masses of China may be destitute, ignorant
+and disordered, but in their mental habits
+they are modern and not mediæval, in the same
+sense that the Japanese are mediæval and not
+modern. The Chinese seem to “get on” with
+their Western social equivalents better than any
+of the Asiatic people. And increasing multitudes
+of Chinese are learning English today;
+it is the second language in China.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>Now, if Japan is the figure in the limelight
+at Washington today, China is the giant in the
+background and scene of the present Pacific
+drama. We have had so much in the papers
+lately about these two countries, we have been
+treated to such a feast of particulars about
+them, that most of us have long since forgotten
+very thoroughly the broad facts of the case, and
+it will be refreshing to recall them here and
+now.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Let us remind ourselves that China is a country
+with a population amounting at the lowest
+estimate to between twice and three times the
+population of the United States, or of France
+and England put together. This population
+has the longest unbroken tradition of peaceful
+industry in the world. It is essentially civilized;
+it respects learning and civility profoundly.
+A common literature and ancient traditions
+keep its people one.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>In the past China has been divided again and
+again—always to reunite. But it has become
+“old-fashioned,” dangerously old-fashioned,
+perhaps by reason of its very stability; it has
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span>lagged behind most of the world in the development
+of its transport and economic possibilities.
+In mineral deposits and other natural resources
+and in the industrial capability of its
+sturdy and intelligent population it has more
+undeveloped wealth than any other single people
+in the world. It is only in the last century
+or so that China has lagged behind.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Only a few centuries ago China was as civilized
+as Europe and politically more stable. In
+a century or so she may be again the most
+civilized and intelligent power in the world,
+flourishing in fellowship and perfect understanding
+with the great states of America and
+Europe.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>She may be—if she is not torn to pieces and
+kept in a state of enfeeblement and disorder by
+the hostile action of external powers.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>But at present China is in a state of political
+impotence. Her Manchu imperialism has
+proved itself to be hopelessly inefficient and
+China is now struggling to reconstruct upon
+modern republican lines, obviously suggested
+by the American example. A few decades ago
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span>Japan astonished the world by Europeanizing
+herself upon Prussian lines. China now, under
+far less favorable conditions and with a
+vaster country and a less disciplined people, is
+struggling to Americanize herself.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>But it is no easy task to make over a people
+at one stride from a mediæval autocracy to a
+modern democracy. It is far easier to Prussianize
+than to Americanize, for in the one case
+you have only to train an official class and in
+the other you must educate a whole people.
+China is torn by dissensions; the south jars
+with the north; she has two or more Governments,
+each claiming to be THE Chinese Government,
+and whole provinces have fallen under
+the sway of military adventurers. It is a distressing
+spectacle, but it was probably an inevitable
+phase in the development of New
+China.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Before we fall a prey to anti-Chinese propaganda
+it is well to recall how long it has always
+taken to build up the necessary understandings
+and habits of association upon which a new
+political system rests.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>France, for example, was a land of revolutions
+and political instability for nearly a century
+after the Great Revolution. America
+wrangled feebly and dangerously for several
+years after the War of Independence, before
+she established her Federal Government; she
+only cemented her union after a colossal struggle;
+she was not really and securely one until a
+century had elapsed.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>During these long decades of probation foreign
+observers preached endlessly about the
+fickleness of the French and the political inefficiency
+of the Americans and foretold the certainty
+of a break-up of the United States, just
+as today they sneer at Young China and foretell
+the political disintegration of the Chinese.
+And we have to bear in mind that the forces
+of reorganization and renewal in China struggle
+against peculiar difficulties and interferences
+quite outside the happier experiences of
+France and America. In particular, they struggle
+against an intolerable and paralyzing
+amount of foreign interference.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The brilliant series of adventures and accidents
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span>by which a London trading company
+added the Empire of Great Mogul as a picturesque
+but incongruously big jewel to the
+British Crown set an extraordinarily bad precedent
+in Asiatic affairs. It obsessed European
+political thought with the impossible
+dream of carving up all Asia into similar domains.
+The Mogul’s empire was itself an empire
+of conquest in a land saturated by ideas
+of caste, and this gave all these European adventurers
+the attitude of high caste men benevolently
+consuming inferior races.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>In that spirit, Europe—with Japan coming in
+presently as a hopeful student of European
+methods—had been trying to cook, carve up
+and fight for the portions of China for nearly a
+century, treating these wonderful people as an
+inferior race. The very worst that can be said
+about Japan with regard to China is that she
+has been too vigorously European.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Consider how it would have been with the
+United States in the years of discord that led
+up to the Civil War if these difficulties had been
+complicated by three such embarrassments as
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span>these: First, that most foreigners, except now
+the Germans and Austrians, are outside the
+reach of the native courts, that their disputes
+with Chinese go before special foreign courts,
+that they are specially favored in regard to
+property and shipping; secondly, that the Chinese
+Government is restricted from raising revenue
+by any tariff above a flat rate of 5 per
+cent., and that they are also strictly restricted
+to 2½ per cent. in their interior dues upon foreign
+(but not Chinese) trade, so that they are
+in fact unable to raise enough revenue to maintain
+an efficient Government; and thirdly, that
+nearly all the Chinese railways—and as every
+American knows, transport is the very life of
+modern state—are in the grip of this foreign
+country or that.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>These are the open and manifest inconveniences
+of the situation, but behind these more
+open aspects there is a vast tangle of intervention
+between Chinamen and Chinese affairs—schemes
+for further exploitation, financial entanglements,
+vast concession plans and projects
+for “spheres of influence” for this aggressive
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span>foreign nation or that. And this foreign influence
+is not the influence of one foreign power
+pursuing a single and consistent policy but a
+number of competing powers, all pursuing different
+ends and pulling things this way and
+that. How could any country reconstruct itself
+while it was entangled in such a net of interference?
+No people on earth could do such a
+thing.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The plain fact is that if China is to reconstruct
+herself that net has to be cut away. It
+is not enough to warn Japan out of China or
+to say “open door” for China. The open door
+is good for the ventilation of that great apartment,
+but what is also needed is a clearing out
+of the encumbrance inside. These encumbrances
+are not primarily Japanese.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The five great powers sit at a green table in
+the form of a horseshoe in the conference and
+the four lesser powers are at a straight table
+like the armature of a horseshoe magnet. At
+the left hand corner, next the Japanese, are the
+three Chinese representatives. I gather they
+will be allowed to say “Shantung” at the conference
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>in moderation but not Thibet nor Tonquin
+nor the East China—or indeed any—railway.
+I doubt if either Mr. Balfour or M.
+Briand will nerve himself to say these forbidden
+words. But an irresponsible journalist
+may write them.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>If there is to be a real end to war and disarmament
+there has to be release of China to
+free Chinese control, and that means a self-denying
+ordinance from ALL the great powers.
+It will be an easy one for America and Italy
+to accept, but it will be a difficult sacrifice indeed
+for those two hoary leaders in the break-up
+of China, Great Britain and France. Neither
+country has a bad heart, but long ago in the
+East they acquired some very bad habits. This
+is a time when bad habits lead very quickly to
+disaster.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The real test of the quality of the conference
+will appear when some issue arises which involves
+an assertion or denial of the principle
+of “Unhand and keep your hands off China.”
+If the Chinese are worth while, the conference
+has to establish that principle. It cannot be
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>gracefully advanced by America because America
+has so little to relinquish. It CAN be established
+at the initiative of either Britain or
+France.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>It seems plain to me that official America is
+waiting for some move in this direction from
+either or both of these powers. If that principle
+of a free China is established at the Washington
+Conference the way will have been
+opened in the not very remote future to a
+healthy and vigorous United States of China,
+a great modern, pacific and progressive power.
+And when I write “China” I mean what any
+sensible man means when he writes “China”—I
+mean all those parts of Asia in which the Chinese
+people and the Chinese culture prevail. I
+include at least South Manchuria, which is as
+surely Chinese as Texas is American, and
+which can no more be GIVEN to any other
+power without the consent of China than my
+overcoat can be given by one passerby to another.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The plain alternative to a released and renascent
+China is the cutting up of China among
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span>the aggressive powers to the tune of that popular
+American air “The Open Door,” the demoralization
+and disintegration of the Chinese,
+international elbowing, competition, quarrels
+among the powers who have “shared” China,
+and, at last, the next great war—which it will
+be just as easy for America to keep out of as
+the great war of 1914–1918.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>
+  <h2 id='IX' class='c005'>IX<br /> THE FUTURE OF JAPAN</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r c002'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Washington, Nov. 18.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c007'>If we adopt as our guiding principle that
+China is “worth while,” if we make up our
+minds—and it seems to me that the American
+public at least is making up its mind—that
+China is to bring itself up to date and to reorganize
+itself as a great union of states under
+purely Chinese control, and that it is to be protected
+by mutual agreement among the powers
+from outside interference during the age of reorganization,
+then it is clear that all dreams of
+empire in China or any fragments of China on
+the part of any other power must cease.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>This building up of a united, peaceful China
+by the conscious, self-denying action of the
+chief powers of the world is evidently, under
+present conditions, the only sane policy before
+the powers assembled at Washington, but it is,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>unhappily, quite diametrically opposed to all
+traditions of competitive nationality. And I
+find a most extraordinary conflict going on in
+men’s minds here in Washington between the
+manifest sanities of the world situation and
+those habits of thought and action in which we
+have all been bred. Competitive nationalism
+and the long established competitive traditions
+of European diplomacy have gone far toward
+wrecking the world; and they may yet go far
+toward wrecking the Washington Conference.
+We have all got these traditions strong in us,
+every one of us. These traditions, these ideas
+of international intercourse as a sort of game
+to beat the other fellow, have as tough a vitality
+as the appetite of the wasp, which will go
+on eating greedily after its abdomen has been
+cut off. Indeed, some of the representatives of
+the powers at Washington seem still to be
+clinging to the ambition of finally devouring
+China, or large parts of China—a feast which
+they will not have the remotest prospect of
+digesting.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>If that sort of thing goes on, a continuation
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span>of war preparation, a renewal of war and the
+consummation of the social smash now in progress
+is inevitable. Yet, on the face of that
+plain, inevitable consequence, my diplomatic
+friends in Washington go on talking about such
+insane projects as that of ceding Manchuria to
+Japan right down the Great Wall; of giving
+Japan practical possession of the mines of
+China; of giving “compensation” in the matter
+of Chinese railways to France; of getting this
+“advantage” or that for Great Britain, and so
+forth and so on. I remain permanently astounded
+before the Foreign Office officials.
+They have such excellent, brilliant minds, but,
+alas! so highly specialized—so highly specialized—that
+at times one doubts whether they
+have, in the general sense of the word, any
+minds at all.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>In the face of the universal hopefulness for
+satisfactory results from the conference I find
+myself full of doubts. The naval disarmament
+proposal of Secretary Hughes was obviously
+meant only as the opening proposition, the
+quite splendid opening proposition, of the conference.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span>The second meeting, I felt, would find
+Mr. Balfour and Admiral Kato and M. Briand
+in eloquent sympathy, saying: “Certainly. All
+this and more also we can do on the understanding
+that a stable, explicit, exhaustive, permanent
+Pacific agreement can be framed by
+this conference that will remove all causes of
+war whatever.” But the second meeting was
+disappointing. One nation after another
+agreed, as Mr. Balfour, that “old parliamentary
+hand,” put it, “in principle. But”——And
+now we are all playing four-handed chess
+with reservations about dockyards, naval stations,
+cruisers, large submarines, and the like.
+We are all trying to put the effective disarmament
+onto the other fellow. Meanwhile the
+nine powers are sitting in secret session on the
+Pacific question, and it is clear from the rumors
+that nine-handed chess is in progress there.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Yet the fact, plain enough to any one who is
+not lost in the game of diplomacy, is that this
+conference is an occasion for generosity and
+renunciation. There is no way out of the Pacific
+imbroglio except to disentangle China and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_105'>105</span>form a self-denying ordinance of all the powers
+concerned to leave her alone while she reconstructs.
+I submit that even Japan, most intent
+of all the chess players, will do best to fall in
+line with such a plan.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Would a world covenant to protect China
+from aggression and to concede her the progressive
+abolition of extra-territorial privileges
+and the same unlimited rights over her own
+railways and soil and revenue that are enjoyed
+by the Americans and Japanese over theirs be
+any serious harm to Japan? Would it not release
+Japan from her imitative career as a
+pseudo-Britain or a pseudo-Germany and enable
+her to get on with her own proper business,
+which is to be, to the fullest, completest
+and richest extent, Japan?</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>For what, after all, is it that Japan wants?
+She wants safety, she declares—just as France
+wants safety. She wants safety to be Japan,
+just as France wants safety to be France and
+England wants safety to be England. And she
+makes these declarations with considerable justification.
+For 300 years she believed she had
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_106'>106</span>that safety, and we must admit she was the
+least dangerous state in the whole world. For
+300 years Japan waged no foreign wars; she
+was a peaceful, self-contained hermit. It was
+American enterprise that dragged her out of
+her seclusion and fear of Europe that drove her
+to the practices of modern imperialism. They
+are not natural Japanese practices. She fought
+China and grabbed Corea, because otherwise
+Russia would have held it like a pistol at her
+throat; she fought Russia, because otherwise
+Russia would have held Manchuria and Port
+Arthur against her; she fought in the Great
+War to oust Germany from Shantung. She is
+now pursuing an entirely “European” policy
+in China, intriguing to get a free hand in Manchuria
+and Eastern Siberia; scheming for concessions,
+privileges and the creation of obedient
+puppet governments in a dismembered China;
+planning to divert the natural resources of
+China to her own use, primarily because she
+fears that otherwise these things will be done
+by rival powers and she will be cut off from
+trade, from raw materials and all prosperity
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span>until at last, when she is sufficiently starved
+and enfeebled, she will be attacked and Indiaized.
+These are reasonable, honorable fears.
+They oblige her to keep armed and aggressive;
+hers is an “offensive defensive.” There is no
+other way of allaying her reasonable, just fears
+except by a permanent binding association of
+world powers to put an end forever to the headlong
+scramble for Asia that began a century
+and a half ago in India between the French and
+English, to recognize frankly and to put it upon
+record that that phase of history has closed,
+and to provide some effective means of restoration
+now and the prevention of fresh aggressions
+in the future.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>No doubt there is a military caste in Japan
+loving war and not even dreading modern war.
+We have to reckon with that. When we ask
+Japan to release China, we ask for something
+very much against Japanese habits of thought.
+Her dominant military note is due both to ancient
+traditions and recent experience. Japan
+had most of the fun and little of the bitterness
+of the Great War and her people may conceivably
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span>have a lighter attitude toward aggressive
+war than any European nation. But if the
+alternatives presented to her were on the one
+hand disarmament and a self-denying ordinance
+of the powers in relation to China, and
+on the other war against the other chief powers
+of the world, I doubt if the patriotism of even
+the most war-loving Japanese would not outbalance
+his war lust. And I cannot imagine
+any other permanent settlement of the Pacific
+situation except a self-denying ordinance to
+which Japan, America and the European
+powers can ever possibly agree.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Now, Japan, disarmed and pledged and self-restrained
+by treaties and associations against
+aggression on the mainland of Asia, would
+nevertheless reap enormous benefits from the
+liberation of China. Given just and reasonable
+treaties, she can do very well without armaments.
+Her geographical position would make
+her naturally and properly the first merchant
+and the first customer of a renascent China.
+She would have the first bid for all the coal and
+ore and foodstuffs she needed. American
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span>goods and European goods would have to come
+past her over thousands of miles of sea. Chinese
+goods that didn’t come to her would go elsewhere
+up a steep hill of freight charges. It is
+a preposterous imagination that China would
+refuse to sell to her nearest and best customer.
+Moreover, Japan’s artistic and literary culture,
+at once so distinctive and so sympathetic with
+that of China, would receive enormous stimulation,
+as it has done in the past, by a Chinese revival.
+Japan would be able to keep in the van
+of nations not by that headlong imitation and
+adoption of European devices into which circumstances
+have forced her hitherto, but by a
+natural and orderly development of her own
+idiosyncracies in the face of the enhanced
+power that modern resources supply. An association
+of Japan with other nations to insure
+uninterrupted development to China would insure
+that to Japan also. It would be a mutual
+assurance of peace and security.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>But there is one set of facts, and one only,
+that militates against this idea of a pacific and
+progressive Japan, a splendid leader in civilization
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>amidst a brotherhood of nations, and
+that is this, that Japan is already overpopulated,
+she has to import not only food but industrial
+raw material, and that her population
+increases now by the tremendous figure of half
+a million a year. That is the reality that gives
+substance to the aggressive imperialism of
+Japan. That is why she casts about for such
+regions for expansion as Eastern Siberia—a
+region not represented at the conference, and
+so beyond its purview, and that is why she
+covets some preferential control in Chinese
+metals and minerals and food. Were it not for
+this steady invasion of the world by hungry
+lives, the principle of Japan for the Japanese,
+China for the Chinese, England for the English,
+Eastern Siberia for its own people, would
+give us the simplest, most satisfactory principle
+for international peace. But Japan teems.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Has any country a right to slop its population
+over and beyond its boundaries or to claim
+trade and food because of its heedless self-congestion?
+Diplomacy is curiously mealy
+mouthed about many things; I have made a
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>British official here blush at the words of birth
+control, but it is a fact that this aggressive
+fecundity of peoples is something that can be
+changed and restrained within a country, and
+that this sort of modesty and innocence that
+leads to a morbid development of population
+and to great wars calls for intelligent discouragement
+in international relations.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Japan has modernized itself in many respects,
+but its social organization, its family
+system, is a very ancient and primitive one, involving
+an extreme domestication of women
+and a maximum of babies. While the sanitation
+and hygiene of Japan were still mediæval, a
+sufficient proportion of these babies died soon
+and prevented any overpressure of population,
+but now that Japan has modernized itself in
+most respects it needs to modernize itself in
+this respect also.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I submit that the troubles arising from excessive
+fecundity within a country justify not
+an aggressive imperialism on the part of that
+country, but a sufficient amount of birth control
+within its proper boundaries.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span>
+  <h2 id='X' class='c005'>X<br /> “SECURITY”—THE NEW AND BEAUTIFUL CATCHWORD</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r c002'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Washington, November 20.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c007'>The new and really quite beautiful catchword
+that dominates the Washington Conference
+is “security.” The word was produced
+originally, I believe, in France. France wants
+nothing in the world now but security; she has
+abandoned all dreams of conquest or glory, all
+aggressive economic intentions; she is the white
+lamb of international affairs, washed and redeemed
+by the Great War. Only—she must be
+secure.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Great Britain, Japan are in complete unison
+with France on this subject. Great Britain
+asks for nothing but a predominant fleet and
+naval arsenals in perfect going order. Mr.
+Balfour’s eloquent speech at the second session
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span>of the conference made the necessity of this for
+security incontrovertible. Japan wants East
+Siberia, the special control of raw material in
+Manchuria, a grip upon China, because she is
+driven by the same passionate craving for
+peace and rest. We have had this explained to
+us very clearly here in Washington by representative
+Japanese.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>All these powers will accept every proposal
+Secretary Hughes makes, or is prepared to
+make, eloquently and sincerely—“in principle.”
+They then proceed to state their minimum
+requirements for that feeling of security
+which is the goal of all peoples at the present
+time. When these requirements have been
+stated it becomes plain that these states are not
+to be so much disarmed as stripped for action,
+with highly efficient instead of unwieldy and
+overwhelmingly expensive equipment. They do
+not so much propose to give up war as to bring
+it back by a gentlemanly agreement within the
+restricted possibilities of their austere bankruptcy.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The French conception of security is particularly
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>attractive. France stipulates, I gather,
+for a dominant army upon the Continent of
+Europe, for a Germany retained permanently
+by agreement among the powers at the extremest
+pitch of wretchedness and feebleness, for an
+outcast Russia, or a series of alliances by which
+such countries as Poland will be militarized in
+the French interest rather than industrialized
+in their own. And France, in further pursuit
+of the idea of perfect peace (for France), is
+training great masses of barbaric Senegalese for
+war, with the view of using them to police white
+populations and sustain their millennium in
+Europe. They can have no other use now.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>If they return to Africa, these trained soldiers
+will accumulate as a new and interesting
+element in African life until some black Napoleon
+arises to demand “security” for Africa.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>At present France displays an astonishing
+confidence in the British, but no doubt, if her
+amazing peasants and her wonderful soil presently
+lead to partial recuperation, she will realize
+the need of bringing her now neglected fleet
+up to “security” standards also. And it is
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span>axiomatic among the experts that no power with
+a coast line is really secure unless it has a fleet
+at least the double of any other fleet that can
+possibly operate upon that coast.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>These statements are not the facetious inventions
+of an irresponsible writer; they are fair
+samples of the sort of thing that the various
+deputations have brought with them to Washington.
+These are the things we talk of and
+are gradually talking out of sight. And if the
+Washington Conference served no other purpose
+at all in the world, it would have been
+quite worth while in order to get together all
+these totally incomparable conceptions of security
+and by that approximation to demonstrate
+their utter absurdity. Along the lines
+of either unregulated or regulated armament
+there can be no security for any race or people.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The only security for a modern state now is <i>a
+binding and mutually satisfactory</i> alliance with
+the power or powers that might otherwise
+attack. The only real security for France
+against a German revenge is a generous and
+complete understanding between the French
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>and German Republics so that they will have a
+mutual interest in each other’s prosperity.
+Germany is naturally a rather bigger country
+than France, and nothing on earth can alter
+that. Other powers or all the powers may come
+into such a treaty as guarantors, but the essential
+thing for peace between France and Germany
+is peace made good and clear between
+them, a cessation of mutual injuries and hostile
+preparations.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The only effectual security for the communications
+of the British Empire is the recognition
+by all mankind that this great system of English-speaking
+states round and about the world
+is a good thing for all mankind and a resolute
+effort of these states to keep to that level.
+There is no other real security.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>This is not “lofty idealism”; it is common
+sense; and the idea of “security” by armament
+and by the enfeeblement of possible rivals is
+not a “practical recognition of present limitations,”
+but a feeble surrender to entirely vicious
+tendencies of the human mind.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I believe that for a little while yet Washington
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span>will continue its researches into the meaning
+of armed “security,” and that then it will
+turn its attention to the alternative idea, with
+which the nimble French mind has also been
+playing, and that is security by treaty. The
+French have been disposed in the past to welcome
+an Anglo-American-French treaty to
+guarantee France against attack. The idea in
+that form is dead, but the possibility of a far
+more comprehensive agreement, a loose-fitting
+but effectual association of all the nations of
+the world to keep the peace and arrange their
+differences by conference, is bound to recur
+again as the impossibility of disarmament without
+settlement becomes increasingly apparent.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>There drifts into my memory here a curious
+feast of “security” which occurred long ago in
+some Eastern equivalent of Versailles. The
+great Abbassid family had suffered many
+things from the Ommayyad Caliphs, and at last
+it rose against them and overcame them and
+secured the leadership of Islam. The remnants
+of the Ommayyad clan were summoned to witness
+and celebrate the new peace. But some of the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span>Abbassids, inspired by quite modern ideas of
+“security,” had all the Ommayyads massacred
+before the banquet began. A beautiful carpet
+was spread over the dead and dying and the
+Abbassids feasted thereon. Here was “security”
+to satisfy the most exacting modern European
+ideals. Yet the Abbassids made little of
+their security. They never rose to the glory
+of the Ommayyads; the drive and strength
+seemed to have gone out of Arab Islam; their
+history for all this “security” is one of division,
+decline, decay. It takes all men to make a
+world.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Let us get through with this futile haggling
+for national advantages and securities and let
+us get on to the organization of that brotherhood
+which can alone save the world.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span>
+  <h2 id='XI' class='c005'>XI<br /> FRANCE IN THE LIMELIGHT</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r c002'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Washington, November 21.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c007'>The first session of the Washington Conference
+featured, as the cinematograph people say,
+President Harding and Mr. Secretary Hughes;
+the second day was Mr. Balfour’s day; this
+third, from which I have just come, was the
+session of M. Briand.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The four personalities contrast very strikingly.
+President Harding was a stately figure
+making a very noble oration in the best American
+fashion; Mr. Hughes was hard, exact, clear-cut,
+very earnest and explicit; Mr. Balfour
+slender and stooping, silvery-haired and urbane,
+made his carefully worded impromptu
+speech with a care that left no ragged end to a
+sentence and no gap for applause. All three
+are taller and neater men than M. Briand,
+whose mane of hair flows back from his face in
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span>leonine style, whose mobile face and fluent gestures
+reinforce the stirring notes of his wonderful
+voice. His eloquence was so great that
+many Congressmen in the gallery above, quite
+innocent of French, were moved to applause by
+the sheer grace and music of the performance.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Eloquence could not save the day or the occasion.
+M. Briand spoke to a gathering that
+was saturated with scepticism for the cause he
+had to plead. I watched the quiet, scrutinizing
+countenances of the six men he turned about to
+face as he spoke—Root, Lodge and Hughes, as
+immobile as judges; Balfour trying to look like
+a sympathetic ally in the face of a discourse
+that insultingly ignored Great Britain as a
+factor of the European situation; Lord Lee,
+obliquely prostrate and judicial; Geddes, with
+that faintly smiling face of his, the mask of an
+unbeliever.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The voice of the orator rose and fell, boomed
+at them, pleaded, sought to stir them—like seas
+breaking over rocks. Their still implacable
+faces, hardly or politely, retained the effect of
+listening to a special pleader—a special pleader
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>doing his best, his foamy best, with an intolerably
+bad case.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>M. Briand put before the conference no definite
+proposals at all. After Mr. Hughes, with
+that magnificent discourse of his, punctuated by
+“we propose to scrap,” M. Briand was an anticlimax.
+France proposed to scrap nothing.
+France does not know how to scrap. She learns
+nothing and forgets nothing. It is her supreme
+misfortune. He explained the position of
+France in a melodious discourse of apologetics
+and excuses. The French contribution to the
+Disarmament Conference is that France has
+not the slightest intention of disarming. She is
+reducing her term of service with the colors
+from three years to two. In a Europe of untrained
+men this is not disarmament, but
+economy.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The great feature of M. Briand’s discourse
+was his pretense of the absolute unimportance
+of England in European affairs. France, for
+whom, as Mr. Balfour in a few words of infinite
+gentleness reminded M. Briand, France, for
+whom the British Empire lost a million dead—very
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span>nearly as many men as France herself
+lost; France, to whose rescue from German attack
+came Britain, Russia and presently Italy
+and America; France, M. Briand declared, was
+alone in the world, friendless and terribly
+threatened by Germany and Russia. And on the
+nonsensical assumption of French isolation, M.
+Briand unfolded a case that was either—I hesitate
+to consider which—and how shall I put
+that old alternative?—deficient in its estimate
+of reality, or else—just special pleading.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The plain fact of the case is that France is
+maintaining a vast army in the face of a disarmed
+world and she is preparing energetically
+for fresh warlike operations in Europe and for
+war under sea against Great Britain. To excuse
+this line of action M. Briand unfolded a
+fabulous account of the German preparation
+for a renewal of hostilities; every soldier in
+the small force of troops allowed to Germany
+is an officer or non-commissioned officer, so that
+practically the German Army can expand at
+any moment to millions, and Germany is not
+morally disarmed because Ludendorff—M.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span>Briand quoted him at some length—is still
+writing and talking militant nonsense.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Even M. Briand has to admit that the present
+German Government is honest and well meaning,
+but it is a weak Government. It is not the
+real thing. The real Germany is the Germany
+necessary for M. Briand’s argument. And behind
+Germany is Russia. He conjured up a
+great phantom of Soviet Russia which would
+have conquered all Europe but for the French
+Armies and Poland. That iniquitous attack of
+Poland upon Russia last May was, he assured
+his six quiet-eyed auditors and the rest of us, a
+violent invasion of Western civilization by
+Russia.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>“There were those in Germany,” he said in a
+voice to make our flesh creep, “who beckoned
+them on.” The French had saved us from that.
+The French Army, with its gallant Senegalese,
+was the peacemaker and guardian of all Europe.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>One listened incredulous. One waited still
+incredulous to hear it over again from the interpreter.
+Yes, we were confirmed; he really
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_124'>124</span>had said that. Poor, exhausted Russia, who
+saved Paris, desiring nothing but to be left
+alone; bled white, starving, invaded by a score
+of subsidized adventurers; invaded from Esthonia,
+from Poland, from Japan, in Murmansk,
+in the Crimea, in the Ukraine, on the
+Volga, incessantly invaded, it is this Russia
+which has put France on the offensive-defensive!</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>One is reminded of the navvy who kicked his
+wife to death to protect himself from her violence.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>(It is interesting to recall here that one of
+the Kaiser’s favorite excuses for German armament,
+when it was Germany and not France
+which aspired to dominate Europe, was his
+acute dread of the Yellow Peril.)</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>When he talked to the journalists in preparation
+for this display, M. Briand excused
+France for wanting submarines in quantity because,
+he said, she was liable to attack upon
+three coasts, but maturer reflection omitted this
+aspect of the French case from M. Briand’s attention.
+It was too thick even for an American
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span>audience. And even Mr. Balfour, with all his
+charming tenderness for a fellow-statesman,
+could not well have avoided the plain question,
+“From whom does France anticipate a sea
+attack?”</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>France is in about as much danger of an attack
+upon her three coasts as the United States
+of America is upon her Canadian frontier.
+Her ships are as safe upon the sea as a wayfarer
+on Fifth Avenue. If she builds submarines
+now, she builds them to attack British
+commerce and for no other reason whatever.
+All the Ludendorffs and Soviets in the world do
+not justify a single submarine. Every submarine
+she launches is almost as direct a breach of
+the peace with Britain as though she were to
+start target practice at Dover Harbor across
+the straits, and every one in England will understand
+the aim of her action as clearly. As
+M. Briand, in his discourse to the journalists,
+argued that the empire of France was as far-flung
+as that of Britain, her need to protect her
+communication was as great. This was in the
+face of Mr. Balfour’s reminder that Britain
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>can feed its people only for seven weeks if its
+overseas supplies are cut off. France can feed
+from her own soil all the year round. The argument
+was not good enough for a boys’ debating
+society, and M. Briand, who is prepared to
+scrap nothing else, was at least well advised to
+scrap that.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I will confess that I am altogether perplexed
+by the behavior of France at the present time.
+I do not understand what she believes she is
+doing in Europe and I do not understand her
+position in this conference. Why could she not
+have co-operated in this conference instead of
+making it a scene of special pleading? I have
+already said that the French here seem to be
+more foreign than any other people and least in
+touch with the general feeling of the assembly.
+They seem to have come here as national advocates,
+as special pleaders, without any of that
+passionate desire to lay the foundations of a
+world settlement that certainly animates nearly
+every other delegation. They do not seem to
+understand how people here regard either the
+conference or France.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span>There is indeed a great and enduring enthusiasm
+for France in America. Marshal
+Foch has gone about in America as the greatest
+of heroes and the most popular figure. He has
+been overwhelmed by hospitality and smothered
+by every honor America could heap upon
+him. The French flag is far more in evidence
+than the British in both New York and Washington.
+This may easily give French visitors
+the idea that they are exceptional favorites
+here and that France can count upon American
+backing in any quarrels she chooses to pick
+with the British or the Germans or Russians.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>There could be no greater error. The enthusiasm
+for Foch is largely personal; he was
+the General of all the Allies. The enthusiasm
+for France is largely traditional and it does not
+extend to the French nationals or the present
+day. America loves, as all liberal and intelligent
+men throughout the world must love,
+France the great liberator of men’s minds;
+France of the great Revolution; the France of
+art and light, France, the beautiful and the
+gallant. It is hard to write bitterly of a country
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span>that can give the world an Anatole France,
+sane and smiling, or so brave and balanced a
+gentleman as the late Robert d’Humiers. But
+where is that France today? None of that
+France has come to the Washington Conference,
+but only an impenitent apologist for three
+years of sins against the peace of the world, an
+apologist for national aggression posturing as
+fear, and reckless greed disguised as discretion.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Here in New York and Washington I find
+just the same steady change of opinion about
+France that is going on in London. I want to
+write it down as plainly as I can. I want to get
+it over to my friends in France, because I have
+loved France greatly, and I do not think the
+French people realize what is going on among
+the English-speaking peoples. People here
+want to see Europe recuperating, and they are
+beginning to realize that the chief obstacle to a
+recuperating Europe is the obstinate French
+resolve to dominate the Continent, to revive
+and carry out the antiquated and impossible
+policy of Louis XIV., maintaining an ancient
+and intolerable quarrel, setting Pole against
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span>German and brewing mischief everywhere in
+order to divide and rule, instead of entering
+frankly into a European brotherhood.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Feeling about Germany and Austria is
+changing here, even more rapidly than in England,
+to pity and indignation; feeling about
+Russia is drifting the same way. One detects
+these undercurrents in the minds of the most
+unlikely people. People are recalling the
+France of Napoleon III., that restless and mischievous
+France, which came so near to a conflict
+with America in Mexico and which kept
+Europe in a fever for a quarter of a century.
+It is an enormous loss to the Washington Conference,
+it is a misfortune to all the world, that
+the great qualities of the French people, their
+clear-headedness, their powerful and yet practical
+imaginations seem at present to be entirely
+subordinated to the merely rhetorical and
+emotional side of the French character.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>
+  <h2 id='XII' class='c005'>XII<br /> THUS FAR</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r c002'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Washington, Nov. 22.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c007'>How are we getting on in Washington?</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The general mood is hopefulness tempered
+by congestion, mental and physical, and by
+sheer fatigue. There is no rest in Washington,
+no cessation. Last winter I was a happy invalid
+at Amalfi, I sat in the Italian sunshine,
+the hours were vast globes of golden time, my
+mind and my soul were my own. Now I live to
+the tune of a telephone bell and the little feverish
+American hours slip through my hot, dry
+hands before I can turn my thoughts around.
+I wish I could attend to everything.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The conference has evolved two committees,
+one on disarmament and one on Pacific affairs,
+which meet behind closed doors, so that one has
+three or four divergent reports of what has
+happened to choose from; delegates at all hours
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>and in devious ways call together the press men
+to make more or less epoch-making statements;
+there are particular conferences with representative
+business men of this country and educationists
+of that, and so forth; one is called upon
+by a multitude of well informed people insistent
+upon this fact or that point of view, eloquent
+sidelights from South China, Albania,
+Czecho-Slovakia clamor for attention. And
+there is a terrible multitude of mere pesterers
+who want to do something—they know not
+what. The weather here is unusually warm
+and inclined to be cloudy, a brewhouse atmosphere,
+due entirely, one humorist declares,
+to the tremendous fermentation that is
+going on.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The fermenting vat overflows with the press
+of all the world. All the world, we feel, is present
+in spirit at Washington.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Three questions stand out as of importance
+and significance. The naval disarmament discussion,
+as one could have foretold, becomes a
+haggle for advantages. Each power seeks to
+disarm the other fellow. Great Britain detests
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span>the big raider submarine and wants none of it;
+it is America’s only effective long range
+weapon. A clamor comes to us from across the
+ocean from the French Senate for unlimited
+submarines. These will be to attack Great
+Britain; there can be no other possible use for
+them. Perhaps the French Senate does not
+really want war with Britain, but this is the
+way to get it.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Japan is asking for a seven to ten instead of
+a six to ten basis for herself. And so on. So
+long as unsettled differences remain, disarmament
+discussions are bound to degenerate in
+this fashion. Settlements and sincere disarmament
+are inseparably interwoven. The French,
+however, have led in an important pronouncement,
+promising evacuations and renunciations
+in the Chinese area on the part of France, provided
+Britain and Japan follow suit. Lord
+Riddle, on behalf of Britain, has followed suit;
+Britain is ready to relinquish everything, with
+the justifiable exception of Hongkong, a purely
+British creation. And M. Briand has explained
+why France must have an awful army to overawe
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span>Europe, but that still leaves certain possibilities
+of military restraint open for consideration.
+We are still discussing whether we may
+not hope to see conscription banished from the
+earth.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>When such things swim up through the boiling
+activities of the Washington vat, not merely
+as passing suggestions and happy ideas but embodied
+in more or less concrete proposals, we
+cannot fail, however jaded we may feel, from
+also feeling hopeful. The conference has got
+only to its third session and we already seem
+further from war in the Pacific and nearer security
+there than at any time in the last two
+years.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>And these intimations of success in this
+world discussion, of which Washington is the
+controlling nucleus, turn our minds naturally
+enough to the continuation and final outcome of
+this great initiative of President Harding’s.
+The more fruitful the conference seems likely
+to be in agreements and understandings the
+more evident is the necessity for something
+permanent arising out of it, to hold and maintain,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>in spirit and in fact, this accumulation of
+agreements and understandings.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The Washington Conference before it breaks
+up and disperses must in some way lay an egg
+to reproduce itself. In some fashion it must
+presently return. Because we have had to
+bear in mind that in the final and conclusive
+sense of the word the conference can decide
+nothing. It has produced a fine and generous
+atmosphere about it; it will probably arrive at
+an effectual temporary solution of a large
+group of problems, but the power of final decision
+rests with Governments and Legislatures
+far away.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The American proposals are only suggestive
+and they have no value as a treaty, unless they
+are accepted by the powers and until the American
+Senate has confirmed them by a two-thirds
+majority. M. Briand may have wished to be
+generous and broadminded here, but in Paris
+is this French Senate, inspired by a mad patriotism
+that would even now begin to arm France
+for an “inevitable” war with Britain. The
+French Senate has made a warlike gesture
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>directly at England, has set its feet in a path
+that can end only in a supreme disaster for
+both France and England, and it did so, one
+guesses, in order to remind M. Briand that if
+he dared to be reasonable, if he dared to be pacific,
+if he acted for Great France and mankind,
+instead of at the dictates of Nationalist France,
+he did so at his peril. He would have been
+accused of betraying his country. “<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Conspuez
+Briand!</span>” they would have cried in their pretty
+way. So M. Briand has played the patriot’s
+role.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>In Tokio and in London it is an open secret
+that the same conflict goes on; the cables are
+busy with the struggle between reason and
+fierce patriotism. * * * Every concession
+made by every country at Washington will go
+back to the home land to be challenged as
+“weakness,” as “want of patriotism,” as
+“treason.”</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>In America and Britain the ugly side of this
+business has still to come, the outbreak of the
+patriotic fanatics, of the disappointed politicians
+who wanted to come here, of the wrecker
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span>journalists, the dealers in suspicion, the evil
+minds of a thousand types. And the lassitude
+that follows great expectations has also to be
+reckoned with. What Washington decides will
+not be the ultimate outcome; what the world
+will get at last in treaties ratified and things
+accomplished will be the mangled and tangled
+remains of the Washington decisions.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>For that reason it is imperative that the
+Washington Conference should meet again.
+Its work is not done until its decisions are realized.
+After it has sent over its reports to the
+Goverments and Parliaments it will adjourn,
+but it must not cease. With perhaps rather
+fuller powers, with perhaps a wider or a different
+representation of the world, it must come
+again to a renewed invitation, to restore once
+more that atmosphere of international good
+will that has been created here, and to go over
+the attempts to realize, or the failures to realize,
+the settlement it has already worked out.
+And there will be many questions ripening then
+for solution that it cannot deal with now.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Much remains to be done by the Washington
+Conference, most of its work, indeed, is still to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>be done, but enough has been demonstrated already
+here to convince any reasonable man that
+a new thing, a new instrument, a new organ,
+has come into human affairs and that it is a
+thing that the world needs and cannot do without
+again. This thing has to recur, has to
+grow. It has to become a recurrent world conference.
+And this being clear, it is time that
+public discussion, public opinion, direct itself to
+the problem of the renewal of the conference in
+order that before it disperses we may be assured
+that it will meet again.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>As a temporary, transitory thing, it will presently
+fade out of men’s memories and imaginations;
+but as a thing going on and living, which
+has gone, but which, like the King in circuit,
+will come again to try the new issues that have
+arisen and to try again the experiments that
+have fallen short of expectation, it may become
+the symbol and rallying point of all that vast
+amount of sane, humanitarian feeling and all
+that devotion to mankind as a whole, and to
+peace and justice, that has hitherto been formless
+and ineffectual in the world, for the need
+of such a banner.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span>
+  <h2 id='XIII' class='c005'>XIII<br /> THE LARGER QUESTION BEHIND THE CONFERENCE</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r c002'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Washington, November 23.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c007'>The Washington Conference, after its tremendous
+opening, seems now to be running into
+slack water. It has had its three great days, in
+which Secretary Hughes and Mr. Balfour and
+M. Briand have respectively played the leading
+parts. The broad lines of a possible naval reduction
+and of a possible Chinese and Pacific
+settlement are shaping themselves in men’s
+minds.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>M. Briand has spoken and now departs.
+France will not disarm until she has a binding
+treaty which her former allies are not yet prepared
+to give her. She ignores the assurances
+of her proved allies and the experiences of the
+Great War. She goes in fear of desolate
+Russia and bankrupt Germany and she is “assailable
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span>on three coasts.” So she retains her
+great armies, and especially her “colonial”
+army. M. Briand’s departure has something
+of the effect of France shaking the dust from
+her feet and departing from the conference.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>But France cannot step out of her share in
+the leadership of peace in this fashion. France
+has not finished with the conference yet. She
+will speak now at Washington with a voice perhaps
+less romantically impressive but more
+practically helpful. She has explained the terrors
+of her position and the assembled delegates
+have said “There! There!” to her as
+politely and soothingly as possible. But nobody
+really believes in the terrors of her position.
+Mr. Hughes is a man of great tenacity of
+purpose, and his chief reply to M. Briand’s
+speech is to keep military disarmament upon
+the agenda. A third committee of five powers
+has been added to the two already in existence
+to deal with land disarmament. It is doubtful
+if it can get very far unless it can bring in German
+and Russian representatives to reply to
+the alarmist charges of M. Briand.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>With the formation of this third committee
+the Washington Conference would seem to have
+got as much before it as it is likely to handle.
+The Hughes impetus has done its work and
+done its work well. The conference has followed
+his rigorous lead almost too rigorously.
+It has cut off a manageable part of the vast
+problem of world peace and seems well on the
+way to manage it. That is exemplary—if limited.
+To manage a sample is to go some way
+toward demonstrating that the whole is manageable.
+A war on the Pacific has been averted,
+I think, at least for some years. But the more
+general problem of world peace as one whole,
+the problem of ending war for good, still remains
+untouched, and it is well to bear in mind
+that that is so.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>It is impossible not to contrast this phase in
+the life of the Washington Conference with the
+great propositions of the opening days, when
+President Harding was speaking at Arlington
+and in the Continental Building of making an
+end to offensive—and with that of defensive—war
+forever in the world. It is impossible to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_141'>141</span>ignore this shrinkage of aim and to refrain
+from measuring the vast omissions. That prelude,
+one perceives, was the prelude to something
+greater than this present conference, and
+more than this conference must ensue from it.
+The haggling and adjustment that is now going
+on in the committee of five powers on naval limitation
+and in the committee of nine powers on
+the Pacific settlement I will not attempt to follow.
+It is a matter for the experts and diplomatists;
+the public is concerned not with the
+methods of the wrangle but with the general
+purport and practical outcome.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>We of the general public are incapable of
+judging upon the merits of battle cruisers and
+the possible limits to the size of submarines.
+Our concern is to see such things grow rarer
+and rarer until they disappear. I will not apologize,
+therefore, for going outside the conference
+chamber for the matter of my next few papers.
+I will go back from Mr. Secretary Hughes and
+his proposals and their consequences to President
+Harding and to the great expectations
+with which the conference assembled.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_142'>142</span>These expectations looked not merely to an
+arrest of international competition on the Pacific,
+and to giving threatened China a breathing
+time to bring itself up to modern conditions;
+they looked frankly toward the establishment
+of a world peace. But so far as Europe goes,
+where as M. Briand’s speech reminded us, the
+nations are locked together in a state of extreme
+danger, the conference has as yet done
+nothing. It is quite possible to believe that it
+will do very little. It is doubtful if the peace
+of Europe can ever be dealt with effectually in
+Washington. The troubles of the European
+Continent are an old, intricate story, and I believe
+the attitude ascribed here to the American
+Centre and West, the attitude of “let Europe
+solve her own international problems and
+not bother us with them,” is a thoroughly
+sound and wise one. America has neither the
+time and attention to spare nor the particular
+understandings needed to grasp the tangled
+difficulties of Europe. Such initiatives as those
+of President Wilson about Danzig and Fiume
+settle nothing and leave rankling sores. It is
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span>up to Europe to clear up and simplify itself before
+it comes into the world arena with
+America.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>It is just within the range of possibility,
+therefore, that some sort of European conference
+may arise out of the Washington gathering.
+Such a conference is becoming necessary.
+The divergence in spirit and aim of France and
+Britain that Washington has brought out is not
+a divergence to be smoothed over. Better it
+should flare now than smoulder later. I have
+done my own small best to exacerbate it, because
+I believe that a brisk quarrel and some
+plain speaking may clear the air for a better
+understanding. Europe needs ventilation.
+When France, Britain, Italy and Germany meet
+together to discuss their common interests, cut
+through their impossible entanglements and get
+rid of their mutual suspicions and precautions
+with the frankness of this Washington gathering,
+with as open and free a discussion and as
+ample a public participation, European affairs
+will be on the mend.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>But there is another issue which America
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span>cannot keep out of as she can keep out of the
+Franco-German-British situation, and upon this
+second issue the world looks to her for some
+sort of leadership. So far the Washington
+Conference has excluded any consideration of
+the economic and financial disorder of the
+world. But that consideration cannot be indefinitely
+delayed; it is becoming pressingly necessary.
+All the while we are debating here
+about Japanese autocracy and ambitions, and
+what we really mean by the “open door,” and
+whether we shall have 40,000 or 90,000 tons of
+submarines, and so on, the economic dissolution
+of the world goes on.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The immediate effect of partial disarmament,
+indeed, both in Britain and Japan, may be even
+to increase the economic difficulties of these
+countries by throwing considerable masses of
+skilled labor out of work. I propose in my next
+paper to discuss this process of economic and
+social dissolution which is now going on
+throughout the world, beneath the surface of
+our formal international relations. It is the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_145'>145</span>larger reality of the present world situation
+which the brighter, more dramatic incidents of
+the earlier sessions at Washington have for a
+time thrust out of our attention.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_146'>146</span>
+  <h2 id='XIV' class='c005'>XIV<br /> THE REAL THREAT TO CIVILIZATION</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r c002'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Washington, Nov. 25.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c007'>In the opening paper of this series I said
+that Western civilization was undergoing a
+very rapid process of disorganization, a process
+that was already nearly complete in Russia
+and that was spreading out to the whole world.
+It is a huge secular process demanding unprecedented
+collective action among the nations
+if it is to be arrested and I welcome the Washington
+Conference as the most hopeful beginning
+of such concerted action.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Now that the Washington Conference has defined
+its scope and limitations and got down to
+a definite scheme of work it will be well to return
+to this ampler question of the decline in
+the world’s affairs.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Now there are great numbers of people, more
+particularly in America, who still refuse to recognize
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_147'>147</span>this intermittent and variable process,
+which resumes and goes on again and rests
+steady for a time and then hurries, which is
+taking all that we know as civilization in Europe
+toward a final destruction. The mere
+statement that this is going on they call “pessimism,”
+and with a sort of genial hostility they
+oppose any attempt to consider the possibility
+of any action to turn back the evil process.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I suppose they would call the note of a fire
+alarm or the toot of a motor horn “pessimism”—until
+the thing hit them good and hard. It
+would have the same effect of a disagreeable
+warning and interruption to the even tenor of
+their ways. They argue that this alleged decadence
+is not going on, or, what is from a
+soundly practical point of view the same thing,
+that it is never going to reach them or anything
+that they really care for.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The starvation of Russia down to an empty
+shell, the break up of China, the retrogression
+of Southeastern Europe to barbarism, the sinking
+of Constantinople to the level of a drunken
+brothel, the steadily approaching collapse of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_148'>148</span>Germany, is nothing to these “optimists.”
+America is all right, anyhow, and am I my
+brother’s keeper? It is just a phase of misfortune
+“over there” and the people must get out
+of it as they can.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Wait for the swing of the pendulum, the turn
+of the tide. Things will come right again—over
+the heaps of dead. There have been such
+slumps before in those countries away over
+there, notoriously less favored by God, as they
+are, than America.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>It may be well therefore to go over this matter
+a little more fully and to give my grounds
+for supposing that there is a rot, a coming undone,
+going on in our system, that will not
+necessarily recover—that the movement isn’t
+the swing of a pendulum, nor this ebb an ebb
+that will turn again. And further, that this
+rotting process is bound to affect not merely
+Europe and Asia, but ultimately America.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Now let us recapitulate in the most general
+terms what has happened and is happening at
+the present time to impoverish and disorganize
+the world. First, there has been a very
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_149'>149</span>great destruction of life through the war, especially
+in Europe. Mostly this has been the killing
+of young men who would otherwise have
+been the flower of the working mass of these
+countries at the present time. This in itself is
+a great loss of energy, but it is a recoverable
+loss. A new generation is already growing up
+to replace these millions of dead and to efface
+the economic loss of this tragic and sorrowful
+destruction.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Nor is the extraordinary waste of property,
+of energy and raw material spent in mere destruction,
+an irreplaceable loss. Given toil,
+given courage, devastated areas can be restored,
+fresh energies found to replenish the
+countless millions and millions of foot pounds
+of work wasted upon explosives. Many beautiful
+things, buildings, works of art and the like
+have gone, never to be gotten again, but their
+place may conceivably be taken by new efforts
+of creative, artistic energy, given toil, given
+confidence and hope.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Far more serious, from the point of view of
+the future, than the destruction of either things
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_150'>150</span>or lives, are certain subtler destructions, because
+they strike at that toil, that courage and
+hope and confidence which are essential to any
+sort of recuperation.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>And foremost is the fact of debt, everywhere,
+but particularly in the European countries. All
+the billions worth of material that was smashed
+up and blown to pieces on the front had to be
+bought from its owners and to secure it every
+belligerent Government had to incur debts.
+Lives cost little, but material much. The European
+combatants are overwhelmed with debts,
+every European worker and toiler, every European
+business man, is a debtor; every European
+enterprise goes on under a crushing burden
+of taxation because of these debts. An attempt
+has been made to shift this unendurable
+burden from the victors to the vanquished, but
+the vanquished already had as much as they
+could carry.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Now when first mankind began to experiment
+with money and credit the lot of the debtor was
+an intolerable one. He might become the slave
+of his creditor, he might be subjected to imprisonment
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span>and frightful punishments. But it was
+early discovered that it was not to the general
+advantage, it was not even to the advantage of
+the creditor, to drive the debtor to despair.
+Processes of bankruptcy were devised to clear
+him up, get what was possible from him and
+then release him to a fresh start and hope.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>But we have not yet extended the same leniency
+to national bankruptcy because national
+insolvencies have been rare. And so we have
+whole nations in Europe so loaded with debts
+and punitive charges that every worker, every
+business man, will be under his share in this
+burden from the cradle to the grave. He will
+be a debt serf to the domestic or foreign creditor
+and all his enterprises will be weighed and
+discouraged by this obligation. Debt is one immense
+and universal discouragement now
+throughout all Europe.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>But even that might not prevent the recovery
+of Europe. There is yet another and profounder
+evil in operation to prevent people
+“getting to work” to reconstruct their shattered
+economic life. That is the increasing failure
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_152'>152</span>of money to do its work. Europe cannot
+get to work, cannot get things going again, because
+over a large part of the world the medium
+of exchange has become untrustworthy and unusable.
+That is the immediate thing that is destroying
+civilization in the Old World.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>We have to remember that our whole economic
+order is based on money. We do not
+know any way of working a big business, a
+manufactory, a large farm, a mine, except by
+money payments. Payment in kind, barter and
+the like are ancient and clumsy expedients; you
+cannot imagine a great city like New York getting
+along with its industrial and business life
+on any such clumsy basis. Every modern city,
+London, Paris, Berlin, is built on a money basis
+and will collapse into utter ruin, as Petersburg
+has already collapsed, if money fails. But over
+large and increasing areas of Europe money is
+now of such fluctuating value, its purchasing
+power is so uncertain, that men will neither
+work for it, nor attempt to save it, nor make
+any monetary bargains ahead.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Such a thing has never occurred to anything
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_153'>153</span>like the same extent in all history, and it is killing
+business enterprise altogether and throwing
+whole masses of working people out of employment.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Europe without trustworthy money is as
+paralyzed as a brain without wholesome blood.
+She cannot act, she cannot move. Employment
+becomes impossible and production dies away.
+The towns move steadily toward the starvation
+that has overtaken Petersburg and the peasants
+and cultivators cease to grow anything except
+to satisfy their own needs. To go to market
+with produce, except to barter, is a mockery.
+The schools are not working, the hospitals, the
+public services; the teachers and doctors and
+officials cannot live upon their pay, they starve
+or go away.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>This state of affairs has been brought about
+by the reckless manufacture of paper money by
+nearly every European Government; we can
+measure their recklessness roughly by comparing
+their pre-war and post-war exchanges. It
+is only now that we are beginning to realize
+the enormity of the disaster which this demoralization
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_154'>154</span>of money is bringing upon the
+world.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>We have weakened the link of cash payments,
+which has hitherto held civilization together, to
+the breaking point. As the link breaks, the machine
+stops. The modern city will become a
+formless mob of unemployed men and the countryside
+will become a wilderness of food-hoarding
+peasants—and since the urban masses will
+have no food and no means of commanding it,
+we may expect the most violent perturbations
+before they are persuaded to accept their fate
+in a philosophical spirit.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Revolutionary social outbreaks are not the
+results of plots; they are symptoms of social
+disease. They are not causes but effects. This
+is what I mean when I write of a breakdown of
+civilization. I mean the death of town life,
+which cannot go on without money and the
+cessation of organized communications. I mean
+a breakdown of the organizations for keeping
+the peace. I mean an end to organized education.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I mean the smashing of this social order in
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_155'>155</span>which we live, through the smashing of money,
+which has already occurred to a large extent
+in Russia, which is going on in many parts of
+Eastern Europe, which seems likely to occur
+within a few months in Germany, which may
+spread into Italy and France, and so to Britain,
+and even to the American continent, and which
+can only be arrested by the most vigorous collection
+action to restore validity to money.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Of which vigorous collective action there is
+in Washington at the present moment no sign.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_156'>156</span>
+  <h2 id='XV' class='c005'>XV<br /> THE POSSIBLE BREAKDOWN OF CIVILIZATION</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r c002'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Washington, November 26.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c007'>In a previous paper I have set out the plain
+facts of the condition of Central and Eastern
+Europe. It is a break-up of the modern civilization
+system, due to the smashing up of
+money, without which organized town life, factory
+production, education and systematic communications
+are unworkable. If it goes on unchecked
+to its natural conclusion, Central and
+Eastern Europe will follow Russia to a condition
+in which the towns will be dying or dead,
+empty and ruinous, the railroads passing out of
+use, and in which few people will be left alive
+except uneducated and degenerating peasants
+and farmers, growing their own food and keeping
+a rough order among themselves in their
+own fashion. We are faced, indeed with a return
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_157'>157</span>to barbarism over all these areas. They
+are going back to the conditions of rural Asia
+Minor or the Balkans.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>How far is this degeneration going to
+spread?</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Let us recognize at once that it need spread
+no further. It is not an inevitable process. It
+could be arrested, it could be turned back and a
+rapid restoration of our shattered civilization
+could be set going right away if the leading
+powers of the world, sinking their political ambitions
+for a time, could meet frankly to work
+out a bankruptcy arrangement that would release
+the impoverished nations from debt and
+give them again a valid money, a stable money
+with a trustworthy exchange value, that could
+be accepted with confidence and saved without
+deterioration. Upon that things could be set
+going again quite hopefully. Education has not
+so degenerated as yet, habits of work and trading
+and intercourse are still strong enough to
+make such a recovery possible.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Except perhaps in Russia. Russia, for all
+we know, may have sunken very deep.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_158'>158</span>But if there is no vigorous world effort made
+soon the trading class, the foreman class, the
+technically educated class, the professional
+class, the teachers, and so forth, will have been
+broken up and dispersed. These classes are
+comparatively easy to destroy, extremely hard
+to reconstruct. Modern civilization will really
+have been destroyed, if not for good, for a long
+period, over great areas if these classes go.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>And the process is at present still spreading
+rapidly. If it gets Germany—and it seems to
+be getting Germany—then Italy may follow.
+Italy is linked very closely to Germany economically
+and financially. The death of Germany
+will chill the economic blood of Italy.
+Italy is passionately anxious to disarm on land
+and sea. But Italy cannot disarm while France
+maintains a great army and makes great naval
+preparations. France’s refusal to disarm prevents
+Italy from disarming. The lira sways
+and sinks; its value fluctuates not perhaps so
+widely as do marks and kronen but much too
+widely for healthy industrial life and social security.
+And Italy is troubled by its restless
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_159'>159</span>nationalists, a whooping flag-waving crew of
+posturing adventurers without foresight or any
+genuine love of country. If nothing is done, I
+think I would give Germany about six months
+and North Italy two years before a revolutionary
+collapse occurs.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>And France?</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>This new rhetorical France which remains
+heavily armed while no man threatens, which
+builds new ships to fight non-existent German
+armies and guards itself against the threats of
+long dead German Generals—one of M.
+Briand’s hair-raising quotations is to be found
+in the Encyclopaedia Britannica and must be
+nearly twenty years stale—the renascent
+France which jostles against Italy and England
+and believes that it can humbug America for
+good and all while it does these things, will it
+pull through amid the general disaster of Europe?
+Will it achieve its manifest ambition
+and remain dominant in Europe, the dominance
+of the last survivor, the cock upon the dunghill
+of a general decay? I doubt it.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Watch the franc upon the exchange as the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_160'>160</span>true meaning of the French search for “security”
+dawns upon the world. Watch the subscription
+to the next French loan to pay for
+more submarines and more Senegalese. It may
+prove to be too difficult a feat, after all, for
+France to wreck the rest of Europe, to destroy
+her commerce by destroying her customers, and
+yet to save herself. When France begins to
+break, she may break very quickly. Under the
+surface of this exuberant French patriotism
+runs a deep tide of Communism, raw and red
+and insanely logical.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>We talk of the saner, graver France, the substantial
+France, that is masked by the rhetoric
+of M. Briand and the flag-waving French nationalists,
+of a France generous enough to help
+a fallen foe and great enough to think of the
+welfare of mankind. I wish we could hear
+more of that saner France. And soon. I can
+see nothing but a warlike orator, empty and
+mischievous, leading France and all Europe to
+destruction. I do not see that it is possible for a
+France of armaments and adventures to dance
+along the edge of the abyss without falling in.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_161'>161</span>When we pass out of the Continental to the
+Atlantic system and consider the case of Britain
+we find a country with a stabler exchange
+and a tradition of social give and take stronger
+and deeper than that of any other country in
+Europe. But she is not a self-maintaining
+country. Her millions live very largely on
+overseas trade. She is helplessly dependent
+upon the prosperity of other countries, and
+particularly of Europe; the ebb of prosperity
+abroad means ebb for her at home. No other
+country feels so acutely the economic prostration
+of Germany; no other country suffers so
+greatly from the restless activities of France.
+She is struggling along now with unprecedented
+masses of unemployed workers, and the
+state of affairs abroad offers no hope of any
+diminution of this burden. The housing of her
+great population has degenerated greatly since
+the war began; she cannot continue to feed,
+clothe nor educate her people as she used to do
+unless the decay of Continental Europe is arrested.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I do not know what political form of expression
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_162'>162</span>a great distress in Britain might take. The
+tendency toward revolutionary violence is not
+very evident in the British temperament, but
+people who are slow to move are often slow to
+stop. The slow violence of the English might
+not find expression in revolution and might not
+expend itself internally. They might get resentful
+about France—and perhaps Germany
+might be feeling resentful about France too.
+But I will confess that I cannot yet imagine
+what an acutely distressed Britain might or
+might not do. Yet it is plain to me that the
+shadow that lies so dark over Petrograd
+stretches as far as London.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Such, compactly, is the condition of Europe
+today. I submit to the reader that it is a fair
+statement of facts in common knowledge. This
+is not the Europe of the diplomatists and publicists;
+it is the Europe of reality and the common
+man. It is a process of decline and fall
+going on under our eyes, swifter and more extensive
+than the decline and fall of the Roman
+Empire in the fourth and fifth centuries. Its
+immediate cause is the destruction of the monetary
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_163'>163</span>system under the burden of war expenditure
+and war debts. And the only possible
+hope that it may be arrested lies in a prompt
+and vigorous world conference to put an end to
+war expenditures, including even these French
+war expenditures that M. Briand’s admirers
+find so justifiable; to extinguish debts and reinstate
+stable and trustworthy money in the
+world.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>There is no evidence yet that the Washington
+Conference will take up this task or will
+even contemplate this task. I find myself in
+the trough of the waves today and less confident
+of the outcome, even the limited outcome,
+of things here. I am increasingly doubtful
+whether the conference will get as far in the
+direction of a stabilized Pacific as I hoped a
+few days ago.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_164'>164</span>
+  <h2 id='XVI' class='c005'>XVI<br /> WHAT OF AMERICA?</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r c002'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Washington, November 28.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c007'>In my next article I will report progress of
+the Washington Conference; in this I will go on
+with my account in general terms of what is
+happening in the world.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I have written of a progressive rapid dissolution
+of our civilized organization as the dominant
+fact of the present time. It is very hard
+indeed to keep it in one’s mind here in this city
+of plenty and lavish light that anything of the
+sort is going on. It is amazing how they splash
+light about here; the Capitol shines all night
+like a full moon, an endless stream of light
+pours down the Washington Obelisk, light
+blinks and glitters and spins about and spills
+all over the city.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I find it hard to realize the reality of the collapse
+here myself, and yet I have seen the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_165'>165</span>streets of one great European city in full daylight
+as dead and empty as a skull. I have
+sought my destination in the chief thoroughfare
+of another European capital at night by
+means of a pocket electric torch. I at least
+ought to keep these memories of desolation
+clear before me.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I do not see how Americans who have never
+seen anything of the wrecked state of Eastern
+Europe and the shabbiness and privation of the
+Centre can be expected to feel and see the vision
+I find it so hard to keep vivid in my
+thoughts. Here is a country where money is
+still good; the $10 notes in my pocket assure
+me I can go down to the Treasury here and get
+gold for them whenever I think fit. (I believe
+them so thoroughly that I do not even think fit.)
+My intimations of the progressive dissolution
+over there must read like a gloomy fiction. And
+it is the hardest, most important fact in the
+world.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Everywhere here there is festival. I go to
+splendid balls, to glittering receptions; I am
+whirled off to a most hilarious barbecue, an ox
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_166'>166</span>in chains, roasts and drips over a wood fire—think
+of that in Russia! Thanksgiving Day
+was an inordinate feast. The portions of food
+they give you in hotels, clubs and restaurants
+are enormous, by present European standards;
+one seems always to be eating little bits and
+throwing the rest away.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Neither New York nor Washington shows a
+trace yet, that I can see, of the European shadow.
+There is much unemployment, but not
+enough yet to alarm people. Nothing of it has
+struck upon my perceptions either here or in
+New York. In the midst of this gay prosperity
+comes a letter from my wife describing how the
+police had to censor the bitter inscriptions upon
+the wreaths that were laid upon the London
+cenotaph on Armistice Day and how the veterans
+of the Great War who marched in the
+unemployed processions in London wore pawn
+tickets in the place of their medals.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I am forced by these contrasts to the question:
+“Suppose America patches up a fairly
+stable peace with Japan; lets Japan accumulate
+in Manchuria, Siberia, and finally China; cuts
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_167'>167</span>her naval expenditure to nothing, and allows
+the rest of the world, including the old English-speaking
+home, to slide and go over into the
+abyss—apart from the moral loss, will she suffer
+very greatly?”</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>That is a very interesting speculation.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I think she may adjust herself to a self-contained
+system and, in a sense, pull through. It
+may involve some very severe stresses. At
+present she grows more food than she can eat
+or waste; she exports foodstuffs. The American
+farmer sells so much of his produce for export,
+not a very great percentage, but enough
+to form an important item in his affairs. Given
+a Europe and Asia too impoverished and
+broken up to import food stuffs, that trade
+goes. The American farmer will have to sell to
+a shrunken demand; he will have either to
+shrink himself or undersell his fellow farmer.
+This will mean bad times for the American farmer
+as Europe sinks; farmers will be unable
+to buy as freely as usual; many agriculturists
+will be going out of business.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Firms like Ford will be embarrassed  by overproduction.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_168'>168</span>American manufacturers are also,
+to a very marked but not overwhelming extent
+exporters and much of their internal trade is to
+the farmers—whose purchasing power will be
+diminishing. Bad times for the industrial regions
+also will follow the European disaster,
+perhaps even very bad times. New York and
+the Eastern cities, so far as the overseas traffic
+goes, may suffer exceptionally. For them there
+may be less power of recovery, for with the fall
+of Europe into barbarism, the centre of American
+interests will shift to the interior. But
+after a series of crises, a lot of business failures
+and so on, I do not see why the United
+States—if there is no war with Japan—very
+little reduced from the large splendor of its
+present habits, should not still be getting along
+in a fashion. America is not tied up to the European
+system, to live and die with it, as France
+or Britain is tied.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>And there is a limit also to the areas of the
+Old World affected by the collapse of the cash
+and credit system in Europe. Outside the European
+seacoast towns, Asia Minor is not likely
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_169'>169</span>to go much lower than it is at present, though
+most of Europe sink to the level of the Balkans
+and Asia Minor. The dissolution of Asia
+Minor resulted from the great wars of the Eastern
+Empire and Persia; all that land was
+ruined country before the days of Islam. It
+has never recovered and Europe may never recover.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Given an enfeebled Britain, there will probably
+be a collapse into conflict and discord
+throughout most of India; and China, unhelped,
+may continue in a state of confusion which is
+steadily destroying her ancient educated class
+and her ancient traditions without replacing
+them by any modernized educational organization.
+But here again upon the Western Pacific
+there may be regions which need not go the
+whole way down to citylessness, illiteracy and
+the peasant life.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Japan is still solvent and energetic, the war
+has probably strained her very little more than
+it has strained America, and her participation
+in the world credit system is still so recent that,
+like America, she may be able to draw herself
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_170'>170</span>together and maintain herself and expand her
+rule and culture, unimpeded, over the whole of
+Eastern Asia. She will be the more able to do
+this if a phase of disarmament gives her time to
+rest and consolidate before her expansion is resumed.
+A war between Japan and America
+would be a long and costly affair and it would
+no doubt topple both powers into the same
+process of dissolution in which Europe now
+welters, but I am assuming that America takes
+no risk of such a war for the sake of China or
+suchlike remote cause and that Japan is not
+eager for California. An America indifferent
+to the fall of Europe would probably not trouble
+itself seriously if presently Australia came
+under Japanese domination. It would not
+trouble—until the Monroe Doctrine was invaded.
+And it would get along very comfortably
+and happily.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>So far as material considerations go, therefore,
+there is not much force in an appeal to
+the ordinary plain man in America to interest
+himself, much less to exert himself, in the
+tangled troubles of Europe and Asia now. He
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_171'>171</span>can remain as proudly “isolated” as his fathers;
+he can refuse help, he can “avoid entangling
+alliances,” and rely on his own strength;
+he can weather the smash, insist on pressing
+any sparks of recovery out of the European
+debtor, and so far as he and his children, and
+possibly even his children’s children, are concerned,
+America can expect to go on living an
+extremely tolerable life. There will still be
+plenty of Fords, plenty of food, movies and
+other amusing inventions; seed time, harvest
+and thanksgiving; no armament and very light
+taxation and as high a percentage of moral,
+well-regulated lives as any community has ever
+shown upon this planet. Until that long-distant
+time when the great Asiatic Empire of
+Japan turns its attention seriously to expansion
+in the New World.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>So far as present material considerations go....</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>But I belong to one of the races that have
+populated America. I know the imagination of
+my own people and something of most of the
+peoples who have sent their best to this land, I
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_172'>172</span>have watched the people here, and listened to
+them and read about them; there has been no
+degeneration here but progress and invigoration,
+and I will not believe that the American
+spirit, distilled from all the best of Europe,
+will tolerate this surrender of the future,
+this quite hoggish abandonment of the leadership
+of mankind that continuing isolation
+implies.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The American people has grown great unawares;
+it still does not realize its immense
+predominance now in wealth, in strength, in
+hope, happiness and unbroken courage among
+the children of men. The cream of all the white
+races did not come to this continent to reap and
+sow and eat and waste, smoke in its shirtsleeves
+in a rocking-chair, and let the great
+world from which its fathers came go hang. It
+did not come here for sluggish ease. It came
+here for liberty and to make the new beginning
+of a greater civilization upon our globe. The
+years of America’s growth and training are
+coming to an end, the phase of world action has
+begun. All America is too small a world for the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_173'>173</span>American people; the world of their interest
+now is the whole round world.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I have no doubt of the heart and enterprise
+of America—if America understands.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>But does America understand the scale and
+urgency of the present situation? Is she prepared
+to act now? This decadence of Europe is
+urgent—urgent. So far, this Washington Conference
+has not touched more than the outer
+threads of the writhing international tangle
+that has to be dealt with if European civilization
+is to be saved.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>So far, these economic and financial troubles
+which are already at a crisis of disaster in Europe
+have been treated as though they did not
+exist. But they are the very heart of the trouble
+across the Atlantic, and with America, the
+rich creditor of all Europe and the holder of
+most of the gold in the world, lie enormous possibilities
+of salvation. The political situation
+becomes more and more subordinated to the
+economic.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>If America is willing, America is able to reinstate
+Europe and turn back the decline, <i>and she
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_174'>174</span>is in so strong a position that she can make the
+effectual permanent disarmament of Europe a
+primary condition of her assistance</i>. If she
+have the clearness of mind to set aside the eloquent
+apologetics of that one power that is still
+militant, adventurous and malignant among the
+ruins, she can oblige the remnant of Europe to
+get together and settle outstanding differences
+by the sheer strength of her financial controls.
+She can demand a “League to Enforce Peace,”
+and she can enforce it.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Will she do that now, or will she let this occasion
+pass from her—never to return?</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_175'>175</span>
+  <h2 id='XVII' class='c005'>XVII<br /> EBB TIDE AT WASHINGTON</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r c002'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Washington, Nov. 28.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c007'>The League of Nations was the first American
+initiative toward an organized world peace.
+Its beginning, the world-wide enthusiasm
+evoked by its early promise, its struggle to exist,
+its abandonment by America, its blunders
+and omissions and the useful, incomplete body
+that now represents it at Geneva, are the material
+of an immense conflicting literature. For
+a time at least the League is in the background.
+It has not kept hold of the popular imagination
+of the world.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I will not touch here upon the mistakes and
+disputes, the possible arrogance, the possible
+jealousies, the inadvisable compromises, the
+unnecessary concessions that made the League
+a lesser thing than it promised to be. I will not
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_176'>176</span>discuss why so entirely American a project,
+into which many nations came mainly to please
+America, failed to retain the official support of
+the American Government. Of such things the
+historian or the novelist may write but not the
+journalist. The fact remains that the project
+was a project noble and hopeful in its beginnings,
+a very great thing indeed in human history,
+a dawn in the darkness of international
+conflict and competition, an adventure which
+threw a halo of greatness about the Nation
+that produced it and about that splendid and
+yet so humanly limited man who has been
+chiefly identified with its promise and its partial
+failure.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>It was, I insist, very largely an American
+idea, and only America, because of her freedom
+from the complex and bitter-spirited traditions
+of the European Foreign Offices, could
+have brought such a proposal into the arena of
+practical politics. The American Nation is exceptionally
+free from ancient traditions of empire,
+ascendancy, expansion, glory and the like.
+It is haunted by a dream, an obstinate recurrent
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_177'>177</span>dream, of a whole world organized for
+peace. It comes back to that with a notable
+persistence.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The League of Nations stands now, as it were,
+on the shelf, an experiment not wholly satisfactory,
+not wholly a failure, destined for
+searching reconsideration at no distant date.
+Meanwhile, the American mind, with much
+freshness and boldness, has produced this second
+experiment, in a widely different direction,
+the First Washington Conference for the Limitation
+of Armaments. The League of Nations
+was too definite and cramped in its constitution,
+too wide in its powers. It was a premature superstate.
+One standard objection, and a very
+reasonable one, was that America might be outvoted
+by quite minor powers and be obliged to
+undertake responsibilities for which it had no
+taste. The second experiment, therefore, has
+been tried, very properly, with the loosest of
+constitutions, and the most severely defined
+and limited of aims. We are beginning to see
+that it too is an experiment, likely to be successful
+within its limits but again not wholly
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_178'>178</span>satisfactory. Instead of a world constitution
+we have had a world conversation.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>That conversation has passed from the open
+sessions of the conference to the two committees
+of five upon the limitation of land and sea
+armaments and the Pacific Committee of nine.
+In all these committees there are wide fluctuations
+of thought and temper. There are daily
+communications to the press from this committee
+or that, from this delegation or that, from
+a score of propagandas. It is really not worth
+the while of the ordinary citizen to follow these
+squabbles and flights and recriminations and
+excitements. Certain broad principles have
+been established. The ordinary citizen will be
+advised to hold firmly to these and see that he
+gets them carried through.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>And now there has been a decided ebb in the
+high spirit of the conference. These disputes
+about details have produced a considerable
+amount of fatigue, attention is fatigued and the
+exploit of M. Briand has for a time shattered
+and confused the general mentality. The
+American public was in a state of pure and simple
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_179'>179</span>enthusiasm for peace and disarmament and
+quite unprepared for the exploit of M. Briand.
+Like all serious shocks, it did not at first produce
+its full result.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The mood was so amiable here, so eager for
+cheering and emotional human brotherhood,
+that when France, in the person of M. Briand,
+snapped her fingers at the mere idea of disarmament
+and quoted a twenty-year-old passage
+from a dead German Field Marshal to justify
+a vast army and an aggressive naval programme
+in the face of an exhausted Europe,
+there was a touching disposition on the part of
+a considerable section of the American press
+to greet this display as in some way conducive
+to our millennial efforts. Only a few of us
+called a spade a spade right away and declined
+to pretend that the irony and restrained indignation
+of Mr. Balfour and Signor Schanzer
+were “indorsements” of M. Briand’s stupendous
+claim that France with her submarines
+and Senegalese might do as she pleased in Europe.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The facts that the caustic and restrained utterances
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_180'>180</span>of these gentlemen could be so construed,
+and that the London Daily Mail should
+attempt to break and mutilate my comments
+on the French attitude, demonstrate beyond
+doubt the need there was for the utmost outspokenness
+in this matter. But the situation is
+now better realized. The air is already clearer
+for the outburst. France, we realize, has to
+stop bullying Germany and threatening Italy;
+Europe can only be saved by the honest and
+unreserved co-operation of Italy, France and
+Britain for mutual aid and reassurance.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The repercussion of the Franco-British clash
+was immediately evident upon the other issues
+of the conference. The practical refusal of
+France to join in the generous renunciations of
+America and Britain, the feeling of insecurity
+created in Western Europe weakened Britain
+in her ability to work with America on the Pacific
+for a secure China and for restraint upon
+the possible imperialism of Japan. Britain
+cannot do that with a hostile neighbor behind
+her and an uncertain America at her side, and
+the prospects of a free China and for an effective
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_181'>181</span>limitation of the Japanese naval strength
+were greatly imperilled. Japanese demands
+stiffened. “Ten to six,” said America. “Ten
+to seven,” answered Japan.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The effect upon what I might call the Washington
+state of mind throughout the world was
+depressing. The easy onrush of the opening
+days was checked. Here was hard work ahead,
+complications, the traditions and mental habits
+of two great European peoples were in conflict
+and had somewhat to be adjusted if we were to
+get on. The Anglo-French Entente, we discovered,
+was in a very unsatisfactory state; it
+had suddenly to be sent to the wash and the
+washing had to be done in public, and this happened
+at a phase of lassitude. In the ebb of the
+great enthusiasm all sorts of buried rocks and
+shoals became apparent again. Party politics
+reappeared—and remained showing.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I am an innocent child in American politics;
+I know that I make my artless remarks upon
+these things at considerable peril. But I gather
+from the self-betrayals of one or two influential
+people that things are somewhat in this
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_182'>182</span>frame. The Democrats feel that so far they
+have been almost supernaturally “good” about
+the conference. They haven’t said a word by
+way of criticism; they have hailed and helped
+and smiled and cheered. Still——If things
+should so turn out that a kind of insufficiency
+should appear, and if people’s minds should
+revert thereupon toward the Democratic
+League of Nations idea, so much under a cloud
+at present, it would be rather more than human
+not to feel a faint gleam of pleasure and perhaps
+even to give the gentlest of pushes to the
+process of disillusionment.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>And on the other hand, there betrays itself
+now and then a slight nervous eagerness on the
+part of loyal rather than good Republicans to
+call anything that happens a success and to become
+indignant when, as in the case of the Briand
+oration, a spade is called a spade. And
+that childish, undignified and dwindling tendency
+of certain American types to regard all
+foreign powers in general, and Britain in particular,
+as forever engaged in diabolical machinations
+against the peace and purity of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span>American life is also increasingly evident.
+There is an open, if incoherent, press campaign
+against disarmament, against the British,
+against foreigners generally, against—any
+troublesome thing you like.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>These are ebb tide phenomena. These are the
+limitations of our poor humanity under fatigue.
+None the less, matters have to be thrashed out
+and will be thrashed out. As I said in the beginning,
+it is hard to keep hold.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>And so it was high time that the President,
+who embodies so much of the simplicity and
+strength of that real America, in which I am a
+profound and obstinate believer, should come
+back into the limelight from which he receded
+after delivering his great speech and leaving
+the chair on the opening day of the conference.
+In the indirect way customary with Presidents
+here he has been making some very important
+pronouncements.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>My friend Mr. Michelson some days ago published
+a sketch of very important proposals
+that had already received wide support in the
+informal discussions that pervade Washington—for
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_184'>184</span>partial rescinding of the Allied debts,
+subject to disarmament conditions, to be considered
+by a second conference to be presently
+assembled. Following on this news the President
+has been talking for publication of a third
+experiment in the form of a second Washington
+Conference to take up these issues. And he has
+also been talking of a third conference to confirm
+and go on with the disarmament arrangements,
+a conference at which Germany and the
+Spanish-speaking powers, if not Russia, are
+apparently to have a voice. Such a periodic
+repetition of the conference would presently
+organize itself for a continuing life and so develop
+gradually and naturally into that Association
+of Nations we are all seeking.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>These are refreshing promises in these days
+of ebb; they show that the impulse that began
+so splendidly two weeks ago is not dead, that
+the tide rises toward world discussion and world
+organized peace will flow again presently, wider
+and stronger than its previous flow. And meanwhile
+these frank discussions of attitude and
+detail must go on; they cannot be ignored, but
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_185'>185</span>at the same time they must not be magnified
+into incurable quarrels and insurmountable difficulties.
+They are unavoidable and necessary
+things, but not the big things, the main things.
+While the tide is out our main projects,
+stranded in this estuary that leads perhaps to
+the ocean of peace, must needs keel over and
+look askew; we must scrape our keels, calk
+leaks and wait for the great waters to return.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_186'>186</span>
+  <h2 id='XVIII' class='c005'>XVIII<br /> AMERICA AND ENTANGLING ALLIANCES</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r c002'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Washington, Nov. 30.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c007'>The power of the American impulse toward
+a world peace is undeniable. It has produced
+in succession the great dream of a League of
+Nations and now this second great dream of a
+gradually developing Association of Nations
+arising out of a series of such conferences as
+this one. No other nation could have raised
+such hopes and no other political system has
+the freedom of action needed to give these projects
+the substance and dignity which the initiative
+of the head of the state involves.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>But if these projects are to carry through
+into the world of accomplished realities, if in a
+lifetime or so this glorious dream of a world
+peace—going on, as a world at peace must now
+inevitably do, from achievement to achievement—if
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_187'>187</span>that dream is to be realized, certain peculiarities
+of the American people and the
+American situation have at no very distant
+date to be faced.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>All such gatherings and conferences as this
+are haunted by a peculiar foggy ghost called
+“Tact,” which is constantly seeking to cover
+up and conceal and obliterate some vitally important
+but rather troublesome reality in the
+matter. “Tact” is apparently a modern survival
+of the ancient “Tabu.” For example, a
+pleasant Indian gentleman sits among the British
+delegates at the conference; “Tact” demands
+that no one shall ever ask him or of him,
+“What do you conceive will be the place of India
+in that great World Association half a century
+ahead? Will it still be a British appendix?”
+And “Tact” becomes hysterical at the slightest
+whisper of the word “Senegalese,” or any inquiry
+about the possible uses of the French submarine.
+And a third question, hitherto veiled
+by “Tact” under the very thickest wrappings
+of fog, to which, greatly daring, I propose to
+address myself now, is: “How far is America
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_188'>188</span>really prepared to fix and adhere to any wide
+schemes for the permanent adjustment of the
+world’s affairs that may be arrived at by this
+conference or its successors?”</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The other day a friend of mine in New York
+made a profoundly wise remark to me. “I have
+found,” she said, “that one can have nothing
+and do nothing without paying for it. If you
+do well or if you do ill, just the same you have
+to pay for it. If a mother wants to do her best
+by her children, she must pay for it, in giving
+up personal ambitions, dreams of writing or
+art, throughout the best years of life. If a man
+wants to do his best in business or politics, he
+must sacrifice dreams of travel and adventure.”
+And whatever America does with herself in the
+next few years, she too must be prepared to
+pay.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>If she desires isolation, moral exaltation, irresponsibility
+and self-sufficiency, “America
+for the Americans and never mind the consequences,”
+she must be prepared to witness the
+decline and fall of the white civilization in Europe
+and the consolidation of a profoundly
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_189'>189</span>alien system across the Pacific. If, on the other
+hand, she now takes up this task for which she
+seems so inclined, as the leader and helper of
+white civilization, the task of organizing the
+permanent peace of the world upon the lines
+of the system of civilization to which she belongs,
+then for that nobler role also there is a
+price to be paid. She has to assume not only
+the dignity but the responsibilities of leadership.
+She has not merely to express noble sentiments,
+but to lay hold upon the difficulties and
+intricacies of the problem before her. She has
+not merely to criticise but to consider and sympathize
+and help, and she has to make decisions
+and abide by them.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>When America really makes decisions, she
+abides by them—vigorously. The Monroe Doctrine
+was such a decision. It has saved South
+America for South Americans; it has saved Europe
+from a ruinous scramble for the Spanish
+inheritance. It was the first great feat of
+Americanism in world politics. The exponents
+of “Tact” will, I know, be outraged by the reminder
+that for a long time tacit approval of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_190'>190</span>Britain and the existence of the British fleet
+provided a support and shield to the Monroe
+Doctrine, and also by the further reminder that
+the one serious attack upon it was made by Napoleon
+III. during the American Civil War—at
+which time, I admit, the attitude of Great Britain
+to the disunited States was also far from
+impeccable. But helped or assailed, the Monroe
+Doctrine held good.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The Washington Conference has developed
+a position with regard to the Pacific that calls
+for an American decision of equal vigor. It is
+as plain as daylight that Japanese liberal tendencies
+can be supported and the aggressive
+ambitions of Japanese imperialism can be restrained,
+that China can be saved for the
+Chinese and Eastern Siberia from foreign conquest,
+provided America places herself unequivocally
+side by side with Great Britain and
+France in framing and <i>sustaining</i> a definite system
+of guarantees and prohibitions in Eastern
+Asia. The Anglo-Japanese agreement could be
+ended in favor of such a new peace-pact and an
+enormous step forward toward world peace
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_191'>191</span>be made. It would mark an epoch in world
+statecraft.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>But this means an agreement of the nature
+of a treaty; a mere Presidential declaration,
+which means some later President might set
+aside or some newly elected Senate reverse, is
+not enough. If the reader will study the position
+of Australia and of the British commitments
+in Eastern Asia, he will see why it is not
+enough. Britain is not strong enough to risk
+being left alone as the chivalrous protector of
+a weak, if renascent, China. She has her own
+people in Australia to consider. And besides,
+Britain alone—as the protector of China—after
+all that has happened in the past.... It
+is moral as well as material help in sustaining
+the new understanding that the British will require.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The plain fact of the Pacific situation is that
+there are only three courses before the world—either
+unchallenged Japanese domination in
+Eastern Asia from now on, or a war to prevent
+it soon, or an alliance of America, Britain and
+Japan, with whatever government China may
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_192'>192</span>develop, and with the other powers concerned,
+though perhaps less urgently concerned—an alliance
+of all these, for mutual restraint and mutual
+protection. And it is an equally plain fact,
+though “Tact” cries “Hush!” at the words,
+that the tradition of America for a hundred
+years, a tradition which was sustained in her
+refusal to come into the League of Nations, has
+been against any such alliance.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>George Washington’s advice to his countrymen
+to avoid “permanent alliances” for the
+balance of power and suchlike ends, and Jefferson’s
+reiterated council to his countrymen to
+avoid “entangling alliances” have been interpreted
+too long as injunctions to avoid any alliances
+whatever, entangling or disentangling.
+The habit of avoiding association in balance-of-power
+schemes and the like has broadened out
+into a general habit of non-association. But
+alliances which are not aimed at a common
+enemy but only at a common end were not, I
+submit, within the intention of George Washington.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_193'>193</span>At any rate, I do not see how the disarmament
+proposals of Mr. Secretary Hughes can
+possibly he accepted without a Pacific settlement,
+nor how that settlement can be sustained
+except by some sort of alliance, meeting periodically
+in conference to apply or adapt the
+settlement to such particular issues as may
+arise. If America is not prepared to go as far
+as that, then I do not understand the enthusiasm
+of America for the Washington Conference.
+I do not understand the mentality that
+can contemplate world disarmament without at
+least that much provision for the prevention of
+future conflicts.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>And similarly, I do not see how any effectual
+disarmament is possible in Europe or how any
+dealing with the economic and financial situation
+there can be possible unless America is
+prepared to bind itself in an alliance of mutual
+protection and accommodation with at
+least France, Germany, Britain and Italy to
+sustain a similar series of conferences and adjustments.
+At the back of the French refusal
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_194'>194</span>to disarm there is a suppressed demand for a
+protective alliance. That is an entirely reasonable
+demand. The form of this alliance that
+the French have demanded hitherto is an entangling
+alliance, an alliance of America and
+Britain and France against, at least, Germany
+and Russia. The necessary alliance to which
+France and Britain will presently assent, and
+which America will come to recognize as the
+only way to its peacemaking aims, will be
+against no one; it is an alliance of an entirely
+beneficial character, an alliance not to entangle
+but to release.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The disposition of the European delegations
+and of the British and foreign writers at Washington
+to treat the idea of America making
+treaties of alliance as outside the range of possibility,
+as indeed an idea <i>tabu</i>, seems to me a
+profoundly mistaken one. It is “Tact” in its
+extremest form. I have heard talk of the “immense
+inertia” of political dogmas held for a
+hundred years. For “immense inertia” I
+would rather write “expiring impulse.” The
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_195'>195</span>policy of non-interference in affairs outside
+America was an excellent thing, no doubt, for
+a young Republic in the self-protective state;
+it is a policy entirely unworthy of a Republic
+which has now become the predominant state
+in the world.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_196'>196</span>
+  <h2 id='XIX' class='c005'>XIX<br /> AN ASSOCIATION OF NATIONS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c006'>The futility of the idea of a limitation of
+armaments or any limitation of warfare as a
+possible remedy for the present distresses of
+mankind, without some sort of permanent settlement
+of the conflicts of interest and ambition
+which lie at the root of warfare, has grown
+clearer and clearer with each day’s work of the
+Washington Conference. And the conviction
+that no permanent settlement is conceivable
+without a binding alliance to sustain it also
+grows stronger each day. For security and
+peace in the Pacific an alliance of at least America,
+Britain and Japan is imperative, and Britain
+cannot play her part therein unless Europe
+is safe also, through a binding alliance of at
+least France, Germany, Britain and America.
+To arrest the economic decadence of the world
+a still wider bond is needed.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_197'>197</span>So the inflexible logic of the situation brings
+us back to the problem of a world alliance and
+a world guarantee, the problem of which the
+League of Nations was the first attempted solution.
+The conference is being forced toward
+that ampler problem again, in spite of the severe
+restrictions of its agenda. After President
+Wilson’s “League” comes President
+Harding’s “Association.” Senator Borah, in
+alarm, emerges from the silence he has hitherto
+kept during the conference to declare that this
+“Association” is only another name for the
+“League.” On that we may differ from him.
+Association and League are alike in seeking to
+organize the peace of the world but in every
+other respect they are different schemes, differing
+in aims, scope and spirit.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The primary difference is that, while the
+League was a very clearly defined thing,
+planned complete from the outset, a thing as
+precise and inalterable as the United States
+Constitution, the Harding project is a tentative,
+experimental thing, capable of great adaptations
+by trial and corrected error, a flexible and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_198'>198</span>living thing that is intended to grow and change
+in response to the needs of our perplexing and
+incalculable world.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The Harding idea, as it is growing up in
+people’s minds in Washington, seems to be
+something after this fashion: That this present
+conference shall be followed by others having
+a sort of genetic relationship to it, varying
+in their scope, in their terms of reference, in
+the number of states invited to participate. A
+successor to the present one seems to be already
+imminent in the form of a conference on
+the economic and financial disorder of the
+world. Such a conference would probably include
+German and Spanish, and possibly Russian,
+representatives, and it might take on in
+addition to its economic discussion any issues
+that this present conference may leave outstanding.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>These Washington Conferences, it is hoped,
+will become a sort of international habit, will
+grow into a world institution in which experience
+will determine usages and usage harden
+into a customary rule. They will become
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_199'>199</span>by insensible degrees a World Parliament,
+with an authority that will grow or decline
+with the success or failure of the recommendations.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>One advantage of having experiments made
+will occur at once to those who have been present
+at the plenary sittings of the present conference.
+The method of trial and error will afford
+an opportunity of working out the grave
+inconveniences of the language difficulty. It is
+plain that, with only three languages going,
+French, Japanese and English, proceedings
+may easily become very tedious; there is no
+true debate, no possibility of interpolating a
+question or a comment, no real and vivid discussion.
+The real debating goes on in notes
+and counter notes, in prearranged speeches,
+communications to the press representatives,
+and so forth.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The plenary sessions exist only to announce
+or confirm. They are essentially <i>ceremonial</i>.
+In any polyglot gathering it seems inevitable
+that this should be so. The framers of the
+League of Nations constitution, with its Council
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_200'>200</span>and Assembly, seem to have been far too
+much influenced by the analogy of single language
+governing bodies in which spontaneous
+discussion is frequent and free. World conferences
+are much more likely to do their work
+by translated correspondence and by private
+sessions of preparatory committees, and to use
+the general meeting only for announcement, indorsement
+and confirmation.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>But the preparatory committees are only the
+first organs developed by the conference. Certain
+other organs are also likely to arise out of
+it as necessary to its complete function. Whatever
+agreements are arrived at here about
+either the limitation of armaments or the permanent
+regulation of the affairs of China and
+the Pacific, it is clear that they will speedily
+become seed beds of troublesome misunderstanding
+and divergent interpretation unless
+some sort of permanent body is created in each
+case, with very wide powers intrusted to it by
+the treaty making authorities of all the countries
+concerned to interpret, defend and apply
+the provisions of the agreement. Such permanent
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_201'>201</span>commissions seem to me to be dictated by
+the practical logic of the situation. Quite apart
+from the later conferences that President Harding
+has promised, a standing Naval Armament
+Commission and a Pacific Commission, with
+very considerable powers to fix things, seems to
+be a necessary outcome of the First Washington
+Conference.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>But these two commissions will not cover all
+the ground involved. This conference cannot
+leave European disarmament and the European
+situation with its present ragged and raw
+ends. Nothing has been more remarkable, nothing
+deserves closer study by the thoughtful
+Americans, than the fluctuations of the British
+delegation at this conference with regard to a
+Pacific settlement. I see that able writer upon
+Chinese affairs, Dr. John Dewey, comments
+upon these changes of front and hints at some
+profound disingenuousness on the part of the
+British. But the reasons for these fluctuations
+lie on the surface of things. They are to be
+found in the European situation.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Britain, secure in Europe, unthreatened on
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_202'>202</span>her Mediterranean routes, can play the part of
+a strong supporter of American ideals in China.
+She seems, indeed, willing and anxious to do
+so—in spite of her past. But threatened in Europe,
+she can do nothing of the sort. She cannot
+extend an arm to help shield China while a
+knife is held at her throat. So the Pacific is entangled
+with the Mediterranean and the coasts
+of France, and it becomes plain that a Peace
+Commission for Europe is a third necessary
+consequence of this conference, if this conference
+is to count as a success.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Suppose now that this present conference
+produces the first two commissions I have
+sketched and gives way to a second conference,
+with an ampler representation of the European
+powers, which will direct its attention mainly to
+the reassurance and disarmament of France
+and Germany and Britain, a second conference
+whose findings may be finally embodied in this
+third commission I have suggested; and suppose,
+further, that an International Debt and
+Currency Conference presently gets to effective
+work, surely we may claim that the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_203'>203</span>promised Association of Nations is well on its
+way towards crystallization.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Simply and naturally, step by step, the President
+of the United States will have become the
+official summoner of a rudimentary World Parliament.
+By the time that stage is reached a
+series of important questions of detailed organization
+will have arisen. Each executive commission,
+as the successive conference brings
+these commissions into being, will require in its
+several spheres agents, officials, a secretariat,
+a home for its archives, a budget. These conferences
+cannot go on meeting without the development
+of such a living and continuing body
+of world administration through the commissions
+they must needs create. Presumably that
+body of commissions will grow up mainly in and
+about Washington. If it does, it will be the
+most amazing addition to Congress conceivable;
+it will be the voluntary and gradual aggregation
+of a sort of loose World Empire round the
+monument of George Washington.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>But I do not see that all these commissions
+and Parliaments need sit in Washington or that
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_204'>204</span>it is desirable that they should. A world commission
+for land disarmament might function
+in Paris or Rome, a world commission for
+finance in New York or London. And meanwhile,
+at Geneva or in Vienna, to which place
+there is some project of removal, the League of
+Nations, that first concrete realization of the
+American spirit, will be going on in its own
+rather cramped, rather too strictly defined lines.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>It also will have thrown out world organizations
+in connection with health, with such world
+interests as the white slave traffic, and so forth.
+It will be conducting European arbitrations and
+it will be providing boundary commissions and
+the like. And somewhere there will also be a
+sort of World Supreme Court getting to work
+upon judicial international differences.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Now this, I submit, is the way that world
+unity is likely to arise out of our dreams into
+reality, and this partial, dispersed, experimenting
+way of growth is perhaps the only way in
+which it can come about. It is not so splendid
+and impressive a vision as that of some World
+Parliament, some perfected League, suddenly
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_205'>205</span>flashing into being and assuming the leadership
+of the world. It will not be set up like a pavilion
+but it will grow like a tree. But it is a
+reality and it comes. The Association of Nations
+grows before our eyes.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>And meanwhile there is an immense task before
+teachers and writers, before parents and
+talkers and all who instruct and make and
+change opinion, and that is the task of building
+up a new spirit in the hearts of men and a new
+dream in their minds, the spirit of fellowship to
+all men, the dream of a great world released
+forever from the obsession of warfare and international
+struggle; a great world of steadily
+developing unity in which all races and all kinds
+of men will be free to make their distinctive contributions
+to the gathering achievements of
+the race.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_206'>206</span>
+  <h2 id='XX' class='c005'>XX<br /> FRANCE AND ENGLAND—THE PLAIN FACTS OF THE CASE</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c006'>If we are to have any fundamental improvements
+in the present relations of nations, if we
+are to achieve that change of heart which is
+needed as the fundamental thing for the establishment
+of a world peace, then we must look
+the facts of international friction squarely in
+the face. It is no good pretending there is no
+jar when there is a jar. This business of the
+world peace effort, of which the Washington
+Conference is now the centre, is not to smooth
+over international difficulties; it is to expose,
+examine, diagnose and cure them.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Now here is this Franco-British clash, a plain
+quarrel and one very disturbing to the American
+audience. The Americans generally don’t
+like this quarrel. They are torn between a very
+strong traditional affection for the French and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_207'>207</span>a kind of liking for at least one or two congenial
+things about the British. They would like
+to hear no more of it, therefore. They just
+simply want peace. But there the quarrel is.
+Was it an avoidable quarrel? Or was it inevitable?
+Perhaps it is something very fundamental
+to the European situation. Perhaps if we
+analyze it and probe right down to the final
+causes of it we may learn something worth
+while for the aims and ends of the Washington
+Conference.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Now, let us get a firm hold upon one very important
+fact, indeed. This clash is a clash between
+the present French Government and the
+present British Government, but it is not a
+clash between all the French and all the British.
+It is not an outbreak of national antipathy or
+any horrible, irreconcilable thing of that sort.
+There are elements in France strongly opposed
+to the French Government upon the issues
+raised in this dispute. There is a section of the
+English press fantastically on the “French”
+side and bitterly opposed even to the public
+criticism of the public speeches of the French
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_208'>208</span>Premier in English. The party politics of both
+France and Britain and, what is worse, those
+bitter animosities that centre upon political
+personalities have got into this dispute.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>It may help to clear the issue if we disregard
+the attitude of the two Governments in naming
+the sides to the dispute, and if instead
+of speaking of the “French” or the “British”
+sides we speak of the “Keep-Germany-down”
+and the “Give-Germany-a-chance” sides, or better,
+if we call them the “Insisters,” who insist
+upon the uttermost farthing of repayment
+and penitence from Germany, and the “Believers,”
+who don’t. For it is upon Germany
+that the whole dispute turns.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>There is a very powerful “Insister” party in
+Great Britain; there is a growing “Believer”
+party in France. And while France has been
+steadily “Insister” since the armistice, Britain
+and the British Government have changed
+round from “Insister” to “Believer” in the
+last year or so. This change has produced extraordinary
+strains and recriminations between
+French and British political groups and individuals,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_209'>209</span>as such changes of front must always do.
+Such disputes often make far more noise than
+deep and vital national misunderstandings, and
+it is well that the intelligent observer, and particularly
+the American observer, should distinguish
+the note of the disconcerted party man
+in a rage from the note of genuine patriotic
+anger.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The beginnings of the present trouble are to
+be found in the Versailles Conference. There
+the only “Relievers” seem to have been the
+American representatives. Those were the days
+of the British Khaki election, when “Hang the
+Kaiser” and “Make the Germans Pay!” were
+the slogans that carried Mr. Lloyd George to
+power. For about four months the dispute
+went on between moderation and overwhelming
+demands. America stood alone for moderation.
+The British insisted upon the uttermost farthing,
+at least as strenuously as the French, and it
+was Gen. Smuts, of all people, who added the
+last straw to the intolerable burden of indebtedness
+that was then piled upon vanquished and
+ruined Germany. And both America and Britain
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_210'>210</span>were parties to the arrangements that give
+France the power, the Shylock right, of carving
+into Germany and disintegrating her more
+and more if Germany fail to keep up with the
+impossible payments that were then fixed upon
+her.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The position of the French Government in
+this business is therefore a perfectly legal and
+logical one. France can adhere, as M. Briand
+says she will, to the Treaty of Versailles, she
+can flout and disregard any disposition of the
+Washington Conference to qualify or revise
+that treaty, and the British Government, in a
+hopelessly embarrassed and illogical position,
+can appeal only to the hard logic of reality.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Britain is much more dependent upon her
+overseas trade than France, and so the British
+have earlier realized the enormous injury that
+the social and economic breakdown of Russia
+has done and the still more enormous injury
+that the breaking up of Central European civilization
+will do.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>“You are quite within your rights,” these
+newly converted “Relievers” say to the obdurate
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_211'>211</span>“Insisters,” “but you will wreck all
+Europe.”</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>That idea that the possible destruction of
+civilization has not yet entered so many minds
+in France as it has in Britain. Germany is
+nearer to France than to Britain, and the fear
+of a renascent and vindictive Germany is
+greater in France than in Britain. In the
+French mind, the possibility of a German invasion
+for revenge twenty years hence still
+overshadows the possibility of an economic
+breakdown in a year or two years’ time. The
+British are nearer the breakdown and further
+from the Germans. That is the reality of this
+Franco-British clash.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Upon that reality bad temper, party feeling,
+personal spites, irrational prejudices, are building
+up a great mass of nasty, quarrelsome matter.
+And the French Government and the
+French nationalist majority are pressing on to
+naval and military preparations that distinctly
+threaten Britain. It is no good pretending that
+they do not do so when they do. The French
+submarines are aimed at Britain.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_212'>212</span>Empty civilities between France and Britain
+are of no value in a case of this sort. Both
+countries are being worried by their infernal
+politicians and both are in a state of financial
+distress and raw nerves. It is not a time when
+deliberation and clear reasoning are easy. But
+when we get down to the fundamentals of the
+case we find that the antagonism comes out to
+these two propositions that are not necessarily
+irreconcilable:</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>(I) <i>That Germany, for the good of the
+whole world, must not be destroyed further,
+but, instead, assisted to keep upon her feet
+(“Relievers”), and</i></p>
+
+<p class='c008'>(II) <i>That Germany must nevermore become
+a danger to France (“Insisters”)</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>And these two propositions are completely
+reconcilable, and this particular clash can be
+entirely cured and ended by one thing and by
+one thing only, a binding alliance, watched and
+sustained by a standing commission of France,
+Germany, Britain, America, and possibly Italy
+and Spain, to guarantee France and Germany
+from further invasions and internal interference,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_213'>213</span>if France follows the dictates of her better
+nature and the advice of her wiser citizens,
+foregoes her impossible claims and lets up on
+Germany from now on.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'><i>And from no country can the initiative of
+such an alliance come more effectively than
+from the United States of America, the universal
+creditor, who can bring home to France, as
+no other power can, the beauty and desirability
+of financial mercifulness.</i></p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I submit that these are the broad lines, the
+elements, the A B C of the present situation
+and that there is nothing whatever between
+France and Britain that is not entirely secondary
+and subordinate to this issue between Insistence
+and Relief.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>And moreover the issue between France in
+general and Britain in general is an issue that
+is going on in parallel forms all over the world.
+Old Japan <i>insists</i> upon the Versailles treaty;
+young Japan would relieve China,—how much
+is not yet clear. The American scene is a
+conflict between those who insist fiercely
+upon the British debt and those who would devise
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_214'>214</span>relieving conditions. It is nowhere a
+struggle between peoples and races, it is everywhere
+a struggle between logic and reason, between
+the stipulated thing, the traditional thing
+and the humane and helpful thing, between old
+ways of thinking and new, between the letter
+and the spirit. Old Shylock was the supreme insister,
+and since Portia was the triumphant reliever,
+we may reasonably look to the woman
+voter and the women’s organizations of Britain
+and America for a particular impetus towards
+relief. And the sooner relief comes the better,
+for once Shylock’s knife has cut down sufficiently
+to the living flesh, the cause of the reliever
+and of civilization will have been lost
+forever.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_215'>215</span>
+  <h2 id='XXI' class='c005'>XXI<br /> A REMINDER ABOUT WAR</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r c002'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Washington, December 5.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c007'>An examination of the situation that has
+arisen in Europe between France, England and
+Germany brings us out to exactly the same
+conclusion as an examination of the Pacific
+situation. There is no other alternative than
+this: Either to fight it out and establish the
+definite ascendancy of some one power or to
+form an alliance based on an explicit settlement,
+an alliance, indeed, sustaining a common
+executive commission to watch and maintain
+the observance of that settlement. There is no
+way out of war but an organized peace. Washington
+illuminates that point. We must be prepared
+to see an Association of Nations in conference
+growing into an organic system of
+world controls for world affairs and the keeping
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_216'>216</span>of the world’s peace, or we must be prepared
+for—a continuation of war. So it is
+worth considering what that continuation of
+war will be like. If you will not organize peace
+through some such association, then organize
+for war, for certainly war will come again to
+you, or to your children.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>And for reasons set out in my earlier papers,
+reasons amply confirmed by the experiences of
+the Washington gathering, a mere limitation of
+armaments can be little more than a strategic
+truce. It may indeed even cut out expensive
+items and so cheapen and facilitate war.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Let me note here in passing that the case for
+some Association of Nations to discuss and control
+the common interests of mankind rests on a
+wider basis than the mere prevention of war;
+the economic and social divisions and discords
+of mankind provide, perhaps, in the long run, a
+stronger and more conclusive argument for human
+unity than the mere war evil, but in this
+paper I will narrow the issue down to war, simply,
+and ask the reader to consider the probable
+nature of war in the future if the development
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_217'>217</span>of warfare is not checked by deliberate human
+effort.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>And I will not deal with the ill-equipped cut-throat
+war that has been going on, and, thanks
+to the divisions and rivalries of France and
+Britain, is likely still to go on in Eastern Europe
+for some time to come; the wars of the
+little, self-determined nations that the Treaty
+of Versailles set loose upon each other; the
+raids of Poland into Ukrainia, and of Roumania
+into Hungary; and of Serbia into Albania;
+the old-fashioned game enlivened by
+rape and robbery that was brought to its highest
+perfection long ago in the Thirty Years’
+War. These are not so much wars as spasms
+of energy, phases of accelerated destruction, in
+the rotting body of East European civilization.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>But I mean the sort of war that will come if
+presently France attacks England, or if America
+and Japan start in for a good, long, mutually
+destructive struggle. You may say that war
+between France and England is unthinkable,
+but so far from that being the case, certain
+worthy souls in France have been thinking
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_218'>218</span>about it hard. Hard but not intelligently. They
+do not understand the moral impossibility of
+Britain fighting America, they have never heard
+of Canada, they have never examined the text of
+the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, and so they dream
+of a wonderful time when America will be fighting
+England and Japan, and when France, with
+magnificent gestures and with submarines and
+Senegalese at last gloriously justified, will
+“come to her aid.” So France will divide and
+rule and clamber to dizzy destinies. Blushing
+and embarrassed American statesmen have already
+had to listen, I guess, to some insidious
+whispers. Even among our distresses there is
+something amusing in the thought of this hot
+breath of Old World diplomacy on the fresh
+American cheek. I do not say that these are
+the thoughts and acts of France, or of any
+great section of the French people, but they are
+certainly the thoughts and proceedings of a
+noisy Nationalist minority in France which is
+at present in a position of dangerous ascendancy
+there.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Still, apart from the fact that the British will
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_219'>219</span>always refuse to fight America, there does seem
+to be no real reason why, in the absence of a
+developing peace alliance to prevent it, either
+of the other two matches I have cited should
+not be played. In the long run, you cannot
+avoid fighting if you avoid comprehensive alliances
+and standing arrangements for the settlement
+of differences with the people you may
+otherwise fight.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>So let us try and imagine a war between a
+pair of these four powers, five or ten years
+ahead. They have avoided any entangling alliances,
+or agreements, or settlements, kept their
+freedom of action and are thoroughly—<i>prepared</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Let us not fall into the trap of supposing that
+these wars will follow the lines of the Great
+War of 1914–18 and that we shall have a rapid
+line-up of great entrenched armies, with
+massed parks of artillery behind them, tank attacks
+and all the rest of it. That sort of war
+is already out of fashion, and the fact that
+these wars that we are considering will be overseas
+wars puts any possibility of such a dead
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_220'>220</span>lock of land armies out of the case. The combatants
+will have to set about getting at each
+other in quite other fashions.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Let us recall the maxim that the object of all
+fighting is to produce a state of mind in the adversary,
+a state of mind conducive to a discontinuance
+of the struggle and to submission and
+acquiescence to the will of the victor. Old-time
+wars aimed simply at the small antagonist
+army and at the antagonist Government, but in
+these democratic days the will for peace or war
+has descended among the people and diffused
+itself among them, and it is the state of mind
+of the whole enemy population that has become
+the objective in war. The old idea of an invading
+army marching on a capital, gives place,
+therefore, to a new conception of an attack
+through propaganda, through operations designed
+to produce acute economic distress, and
+through the air, upon the enemy population.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I will take the latter branch first. Few people
+have any clear ideas at present of the possibilities
+of air warfare. The closing years of the
+Great War gave the world only a very slight
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_221'>221</span>experience of what aerial offensives can be.
+Always, air operations were subsidiary to the
+vast surface engagements of the European belligerents;
+they were scouting, irritating, raiding
+operations; there were neither the funds
+nor the energy available to work them out thoroughly.
+In these possible overseas wars we are
+considering, the land armies and the big guns
+will not be the main factors and the air and sea
+forces will. The powers we have considered
+will therefore push their air equipment on a
+quite different scale; they will be bound to deliver
+their chief blows with it; we may certainly
+reckon on the biggest long-range airplanes possible,
+on the largest bombs and the deadliest
+contents for them. We may certainly reckon
+that, within three or four hours of a declaration
+of war between France and England, huge
+bombs of high explosive, or poison gas, or incendiary
+stuff, will have got through the always
+ineffectual barrage and be livening up the
+streets of Paris and London. Because it is the
+peculiarity of air warfare that there are no
+<i>fronts</i> and no effectual parries. You bomb the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_222'>222</span>other fellow almost anywhere, and similarly he
+bombs you.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Many people seem to think that America and
+Japan are too far from each other for this sort
+of thing, but I believe there is nothing insurmountable
+in these distances for an air offensive.
+It will be a question of days instead of
+hours, that is all, before the babies of Tokio or
+San Francisco get their whiffs of the last thing
+in gas. The job will be a little more elaborate;
+it will involve getting the air material to a convenient
+distance from the desired objective by
+means of a submersible cruiser; that is all the
+difference.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>All the fleets in the world could hot prevent
+a properly prepared Japan from pouncing upon
+some unprotected point of the California or
+Mexican coast, setting up a temporary air base
+there, and getting to work over a radius of a
+thousand miles. She might even keep an air
+base at sea. And it would be equally easy for
+America to do likewise to Japan. The citizen
+of Los Angeles, as he blew to pieces, or coughed
+up his lungs and choked to death, or was
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_223'>223</span>crushed under the falling, burning buildings,
+could at least console himself by the thought
+that America was so thoroughly <i>prepared</i> that
+his fellow man in Tokio was certainly getting
+it worse, and that he blew to pieces on the
+soundest American lines unentangled by any
+alliances with decadent Old World powers.
+And an air war between America and Japan
+need not be confined to the Pacific Slope. I
+do not see anything to prevent Japan, if she
+wanted to do so, with the aid of a venial neutral
+or so, getting around into the Atlantic to New
+York and testing the stability of the great
+buildings downtown with a few five-ton bombs.
+The submarine would certainly be able to prevent
+any armies landing on either side of the
+Pacific to stop the preparation and launching
+of such expeditions.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I do not know how American populations
+would stand repeated bombing. In the late war
+there was not a single intrusion of air warfare
+into American home life. The hum of the
+Gotha and the long crescendo of the barrage as
+the thing gets near were not in the list of familiar
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_224'>224</span>American war sounds. Some of the European
+populations subjected to that kind of
+thing got very badly “rattled.” And yet, as I
+have noted, the whole force of the combatants
+was not in the air operations in Europe. One
+result in nearly every country was an outbreak
+of spy mania; everybody with a foreign name
+or a foreign look in England, for example, was
+suspected of “signalling.” There was much
+mental trouble; London possesses now a considerable
+number of air raid lunatics and air
+raid defective children, and these are only the
+extreme instances of a widespread overstrain.
+As the war went on, air stress interwoven with
+the acute stresses produced in public life by the
+development of propaganda. Public life in
+France, Germany and England got more and
+more crazy about propaganda; there was a fear
+of insidious whispering mischief afoot, more
+like the fear of witchcraft than anything else;
+until at last it became dangerous and ineffective
+to make any utterance at all except the
+most ferocious threats and accusations against
+the enemy. And a kind of paralysis of suspicion
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_225'>225</span>even affected the adoption of inventions.
+All this mental and moral confusion and deterioration
+is bound to happen in any highly
+organized community that goes into a well prepared
+war again. The only difference will be
+that it will all be larger, and intenser, and bitterer,
+and worse. And I will not even attempt
+to elaborate the consequences of the economic
+attack by submarines, upon shipping, and by
+raids of airplane fleets, assisted possibly by
+spies and traitors, upon the bridges, factories,
+depots, grain stores, ports and so forth, of the
+combatant countries.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>If such things are not practicable across the
+Pacific now they will be practicable in ten
+years’ time.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>But my subject at Washington is peace, and
+not war. I think it was Nevinson’s recent account
+of the new things in poison gas that set
+my imagination wandering into these possibilities
+of the Great Alternative to entangling
+treaties and difficult settlements. I will return
+to certain neglected problems of the Peace Conference
+in my next article.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_226'>226</span>
+  <h2 id='XXII' class='c005'>XXII<br /> SOME STIFLED VOICES</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r c002'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Washington, December 6.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c007'>I do not think my outline sketch of the Washington
+Conference will be complete if I do not
+give an account of certain figures and groups
+in this simmering Washington gathering who
+have no official standing whatever and who are
+here in the unpopular role of qualifications and
+complications of the simpler conception of the
+Washington issues. They are not conspicuous
+absentees as are Germany and Russia. They
+come upon the scene but they come rather like
+that young woman with the baby who stands
+reproachfully at the church door watching the
+wedding in the melodramatic picture. They
+are full of reproaches—and intimations of
+troubles yet in store.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The other evening, for example, I found myself
+dining with a comfortably housed Corean
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_227'>227</span>delegation and listening to the tale of a nation
+overwhelmed.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Corea is as much of a nation as—Ireland.
+She had so recent an independence that she has
+treaties with the United States recognizing and
+promising to respect her independence. Yet
+she is now gripped, held down and treated as
+Posen was in the days of Prussian possession.
+She is being “assimilated” by Japan. “What
+is to be done about us?” my hosts asked.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>One fellow guest thought nothing could be
+done because the Corean vote in the United
+States is not strong enough to affect an election.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Amid the tumult of voices here one hears
+ever and again an appeal for something to be
+done for Corea. Such appeals are addressed
+chiefly to American public opinion, but it is
+also felt to be worth while to let Britain know,
+at least to the extent of letting me in on this
+occasion. I was introduced to an editor of a
+Corean paper which had recently been suppressed,
+and I listened to an account, an amazing
+account, of the freedom of the press as it is
+understood in Corea under Japanese rule.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_228'>228</span>Yet it sounded very familiar to me. Indeed,
+I had listened to much the same story of suppressions,
+rather worse suppressions, the night
+before. Then I had been the host of two
+friends of mine, Mr. Houssain and Mr. Sapre,
+who have had extensive experiences of suppression
+in India. They are both here in much the
+same spirit as the Coreans.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Whenever I talk to Mr. Houssain we always
+get to a sort of polite quarrel in which he treats
+me more and more like the Indian Government
+in its defense, and I become more and more like
+the British ascendancy. I adopt, almost inadvertently,
+as much as is adoptable of the manner
+and tone of the late Lord Cromer and say:
+“Yes, yes. But are you <i>ripe</i> for self-government?”
+These gentlemen say frankly that the
+British rule in India has displayed so much
+stupidity in such cases as the Amritsar massacre,
+and the recent suffocation of the Moplah
+prisoners, and that its complete suppression of
+any frank public discussion of Indian affairs in
+India is so intolerable, that it is becoming unendurable.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_229'>229</span>Everybody is talking of insurrection in India
+now; nobody talked of it three years ago.
+These have been three years of stupid “firmness.”
+Now that that dinner party is past and
+gone, I can confess that I think Mr. Houssain’s
+argument that under British rule India has no
+chance of getting politically educated, because
+she is prevented from airing her ideas, and that
+if her discontent is incoherent and disorderly it
+is because of the complete suppression, completer
+now than ever before, of discussion, is a
+very strong argument indeed.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>India and Britain cannot talk together about
+their common future if India remains gagged
+and without ever a chance of learning to talk.
+If a break comes in India it is likely to be a bad
+and hopeless one, because of her lack of
+worked-out political conceptions, due to her
+long mental restraint, while all the rest of the
+world from Corea to Peru has been trying over
+political self-expression.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>But it is interesting and perhaps not quite so
+pathetically hopeless as it seems at the first
+glance to find these two men in this city, side
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_230'>230</span>by side with the Coreans, trying to get “something
+done about it” at the Washington assembly.
+And a day or so ago I had a call from another
+unofficial delegate, a Syrian Moslem who
+wanted to talk over the education of his people,
+also fretting beneath the wide surfaces of the
+Treaty of Versailles, with the ambition to manage
+the affairs of Syria for themselves.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>And as another case of the stifled voice here
+are the representatives of the Cantonese Chinese
+Government, who made a scene the other
+day when the Peking representatives went into
+secret session with the Japanese. There was
+an assembly of hostile Chinese shouting
+“Traitor!” and things—apparently very disagreeable
+things—in Chinese. Here again
+there is a clamor for attention that gets short
+drift from the official conference.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>And, lest these stifled outcries should fill the
+American reader with self-righteousness, I will
+note in passing that the entrance to the second
+plenary conference was besieged by an array
+of banners reminding us that that evidently
+most gentle and worthy man, Mr. Debs, is still
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_231'>231</span>in prison for saying his honest thought about
+conscription, and also that I have received, I
+suppose, over twenty letters about an unfortunate
+young Englishman, a minor poet named
+Mr. Charles Ashleigh, who seems to have come
+into America looking like a person of advanced
+views, to have done some publicity work for the
+I. W. W., and to have been caught in a gale of
+indiscriminate suppression and given a sentence
+of ten years for nothing at all. The offense
+of Mr. Debs and the alleged offense of
+Mr. Ashleigh, I may note further, were a premature
+craving for universal peace which might
+have weakened the will for war.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>All these suppressions of opinion strike me
+as black sins against civilization, which can
+only maintain itself and grow and flourish
+through the free expression and discussion of
+ideas. The temptation to ride off from the
+main business of the conference upon some
+Quixotic championship of Corea or India or Mr.
+Ashleigh is therefore very considerable. But
+when we consider that all these particular injustices
+are incidents in that general disorder
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_232'>232</span>which permits the aggression of nation upon
+nation and which blinds justice with cruel passion
+and urgent necessities of war, these cases
+appear in a different light.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Corea and the suppressed and imprisoned Indian
+Liberals and Mr. Ashleigh are like people
+hit casually in a great combat, and the immediate
+work of the ordinary combatant is
+surely not to specialize upon these special cases
+but to go on with the general fight for world
+peace which will render the atmosphere that
+created these particular wrongs impossible.
+Japan is attempting to crush and assimilate
+Corea because Japan wants to be bigger and
+stronger, and she wants to be bigger and
+stronger because of the fear of war and humiliation.
+Britain holds down India and is reluctant
+to loose her hold on Ireland for the same
+cause; if she relax, some one else may seize and
+use. America also crushes out the anti-conscriptionist
+because otherwise he may embarrass
+the conduct of the next war.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>In the present conference the liberal forces
+of the world may be able to establish a precedent
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_233'>233</span>that will at once reflect upon the position
+of both Corea and India, and to open such a
+prospect of peace as will make the release of
+Messrs. Debs and Ashleigh inevitable. But
+that can only be if we stick to the main business
+of the conference and do not fuss things
+up at present with too much focusing upon
+Corea or India or the case of Mr. Debs.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The precedent that may be established
+through the conference is the liberation of
+China, when China is militarily impotent and
+politically disordered, not only from fresh foreign
+aggression but from existing foreign domination.
+The establishment of such a precedent
+is a thing of supreme importance to all men. If
+the conference does not get so far as that—so
+far as to establish the principle that an Asiatic
+people has a right to control its own destinies
+and to protection while it adjusts these destinies,
+in spite of the fact that it cannot as an
+efficient power defend that right—it will have
+made a very wide step indeed not only toward
+world peace but toward a general liberation of
+Asiatic peoples held in tutelage.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_234'>234</span>It is so important to mankind that that step
+should be made that I grudge any diversion of
+energy to minor injustices, however glaring, or
+any complication of the issue whatever. So far
+as the conference goes, I am convinced that
+“Stick to the freedom of China” is the watchword
+for all liberal thinkers. By the extent to
+which China is liberated and secured the conference
+will have to be judged. Even the vast
+problem of India cannot overshadow that issue.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_235'>235</span>
+  <h2 id='XXIII' class='c005'>XXIII<br /> INDIA, THE BRITISH EMPIRE AND THE ASSOCIATION OF NATIONS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r c002'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Washington, Dec. 7.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c007'>It is difficult to think of any subject more
+completely out of the agenda of the Washington
+Conference than the future of India. But
+none demands our attention more urgently, if
+we are to build up anything like a working conception
+of an Association of Nations.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Some days ago Senator Johnson declared he
+had received assurances from President Harding
+that no further steps toward a definite
+organization of an Association of Nations were
+to be taken for the present; but these assurances
+will not hinder the drift of thoughts and
+events toward such a developing system of understandings
+as must at last, in fact if not in
+name, constitute a World Association. Indeed,
+the less we try to fix such a thing at present,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_236'>236</span>and the more we think it out, the more probable
+and safe is its coming.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Let the President go on, therefore, taking no
+steps directly toward his Association but proceeding,
+as he must do very soon, with some
+sort of international conference upon the economic
+disorders of the world, and also with the
+creation of some arrangement, permanent understanding
+or whatever other name may be
+given to that commission which is inevitable
+if the peace of the Pacific is to be made secure.
+Let us who are dealers in the flimsier preparatory
+stuff of ideas and public opinion get on
+with our discussion of the wider stabilizing understanding
+that looms behind.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I have already said that from every country
+world peace and universal prosperity will
+demand a price. The price America will need
+to pay if she is to impose her conception of a
+universal peace upon the world is a great intellectual
+effort—an effort of sympathy, an abandonment
+of some venerated traditions. And in
+addition she must nerve herself to what may
+seem at first very great financial generosities.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_237'>237</span>France must pay by laying aside an ancient
+and cherished quarrel, her glorious and tragic
+militarism and the last vestige of her imperial
+ambition. The thought of predominance and
+the thought of revenge must be the German sacrifice.
+And Britain also must pay in an altered
+attitude to those wide “possessions” of hers
+inhabited by alien peoples that have hitherto
+constituted the bulk of her empire.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The destiny of all the English speaking democracies
+that have risen now from being British
+colonies to semi-independent states seems fairly
+clear. They will go on to nationhood; their
+links to Great Britain, continually less formal
+and legal and more and more strongly sympathetic,
+will be supplemented by their attraction
+toward America, due to affinity and a common
+character. All the mischief makers in the
+world cannot, I think, prevent the Dutch-English
+of South Africa, the English-French of
+Canada, the English-French of Australia, the
+English-Scotch of New Zealand, the Americans,
+this new emancipated Ireland and Britain, being
+drawn together at last by all their common
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_238'>238</span>habits of thought and speech, and even by the
+mellowed memories of their past conflicts, into
+a conscious brotherhood of independent but co-operative
+nations.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The day has come for the Irish to recognize
+that the future is of more value than the past.
+Even without any other states, this girdle of
+English speaking states about the globe could
+be of a great predominant association. Within
+this English speaking circle of peoples a whole
+series of experiments in separation, independent
+action, readjustment, co-operation and federation
+have been made in the last century and
+a half, and are still going on, of the utmost significance
+in the problem of human association.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>No other series of communities have had
+such experiences. No other communities have
+so much to give mankind in these matters. The
+German coalescences have been marred by old
+methods of force, methods which have usually
+failed in the English cases. Spain and Latin
+America are at least half a century behind the
+English speaking world in the arts and experience
+of political co-operation.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_239'>239</span>But when we turn to India we turn to something
+absolutely outside the English speaking
+world girdle.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>One of the many manifest faults of that
+most premature project the League of Nations
+was the fiction that brought in India as a self-governing
+nation, as if she were the same sort
+of thing as these self-governing Western states.
+It was indeed a most amazing assumption.
+India is not a nation, or anything like a nation.
+India is a confused variety of states, languages
+and races, and so far from being self-governing,
+her peoples are under an amount of political
+repression which is now perhaps greater
+there than anywhere else in the world.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Politically she is a profound mystery. We
+do not know what the political thoughts of these
+peoples are, nor indeed whether they have in
+the mass any political concepts at all parallel to
+those of the Western civilizations. The Indian
+representative at the Washington Conference,
+Mr. Srinivastra Sastri, is obviously a British
+nominee; he is not so much a representative as
+a specimen Indian gentleman. We do not know
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_240'>240</span>what national forces there are behind him, or
+indeed if there is any collective will behind him
+at all. But it would be hard to substitute for
+him anything very much more representative.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>What constituency is there, what Electoral
+College, to send any one? India is not in fact
+so constituted as to send a real representative
+to a conference or an Association of Nations at
+the present time. She is a thing of a different
+kind, a different sort of human accumulation.
+She belongs to a different order of creature
+from the English speaking and European states
+and from Japan. She is as little fitted to deal
+on equal terms with them as a jungle deer, let
+us say, is to join a conference of the larger
+Cetacea in the North Polar seas.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>India is far less able to play an effective and
+genuine part as a member of an Association of
+Nations even than China. She has no real democratic
+institutions and she may never develop
+them in forms familiar to European and American
+minds. We American and English are too
+apt to suppose that our own democratic
+methods, our voting and elections and debates
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_241'>241</span>and press campaigns and parliamentary methods,
+which have grown up through long ages to
+suit our peculiar idiosyncracies, are necessarily
+adaptable to all the world. In India they may
+prove altogether misfitting.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>India, were she given freedom of self-government,
+under the stimulus of modern appliances
+and modern thought, would probably induce
+an entirely different series of institutions
+from those of Europe, institutions perhaps
+equally conducive to freedom and development
+but different in kind. And China also, with
+untrammelled initiatives, may invent methods
+of freedom and co-operation at once dissimilar
+and parallel to Western institutions.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>But the mention of China brings us back to
+the possibility of applying the precedent of
+China to India. The discussions and perplexities
+of the last two or three years which have
+culminated in the Washington Conference have
+slowly worked out and made clear the possibility
+of a new method in Asia. This is the
+method of concerted abstinence and withdrawal,
+the idea of a binding agreement of all
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_242'>242</span>the nations interested in China and tempted
+to make aggressions upon China to come
+out of and to keep out of that country while
+it consolidated itself and develops upon its own
+lines.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>This new method, which has had its first
+trial at the Washington Conference, is a complete
+reversal of the method of dealing with
+politically confused or impotent countries
+and regions adopted at Versailles. It is an
+altogether more civilized and more hopeful
+method.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Versailles and the League of Nations were
+ridden by the idea of mandates. All over the
+world where disorder or weakness reigned a
+single mandatory power was to go in, making
+vague promises of good behavior, to rule and
+exploit that country. It was the thinnest,
+cheapest camouflage for annexation; it was a
+hopeless attempt to continue the worst territory-seizing
+traditions of the nineteenth century
+while seeming to abandon them. It was
+Pecksniff imperialism. So we had the snatching
+of Syria, of Mesopotamia, and so forth.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_243'>243</span>But any soundly constituted League or Association
+of Nations should render that sort of
+thing unnecessary and inexcusable.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The reason lying at the base of the British
+occupation of India, of the Japanese occupation
+of Corea, of the French in Indo-China, and so
+forth, is a perfectly sound reason so long as
+there is no Association of Nations, and it is an
+entirely worthless one when there is such an
+association—it is that some other power may
+otherwise come into the occupied and dominated
+country and use it for purposes of offense.
+The case of the British in India, that
+they have kept an imperial peace for all the
+peoples of that land, that they warded off the
+Afghan raiders who devastated India in the
+early eighteenth century and afterward the
+long arm of Russia, is a very good one indeed.
+The British have little cause to be ashamed of
+their past in India and many things to be proud
+of. But they have very good cause, indeed, for
+being ashamed of their disregard of any Indian
+future. They have sat tight and turned peace
+into paralysis. They have not educated enough
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_244'>244</span>or released enough. Always the excuse for suppression
+has been that fear of the rival.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Well, the whole purpose of an Association
+of Nations is to eliminate that fear of a rival
+and all that that fear entails in war possibilities.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The Asiatic “empires” over alien peoples,
+these “possessions” of other people’s lands
+and lives, have played their part in the world’s
+development. They have become tyrannies and
+exasperations and tawdry grounds for rivalry.
+A real Association of Nations can have no place
+for “possessions,” “mandates” or “subject
+peoples” within its scheme.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_245'>245</span>
+  <h2 id='XXIV' class='c005'>XXIV<br /> THE OTHER END OF PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE—THE SIEVE FOR GOOD INTENTIONS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r c002'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Washington, Dec. 9.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c007'>I went to hear the President address Congress
+on its reassembling on Tuesday. He
+spoke to a joint session of the Senate and
+House of Representatives held, as is customary,
+in the chamber of Representatives because
+it is the larger of the two chambers.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Hitherto my observations have centred upon
+the Continental Building and the Pan-American
+Building, up by the White House, and they
+have concerned the good intentions and great
+projects that glow and expand like great iridescent
+bubbles about the conference that is going
+on in this region.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>But the conference, whatever freedom it has
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_246'>246</span>to think and discuss, has no power to act. Until
+the Senate by a two-thirds majority has indorsed
+the recommendations of the President,
+the United States cannot be committed to any
+engagement with the outside world. This is a
+fact that needs to be written in large letters as
+a perpetual reminder in the editorial rooms and
+diplomatic offices of all those Europeans who
+write about or deal with the foreign relations
+of the United States. For the Constitution of
+the United States is as carelessly read over
+there as the Anglo-Japanese alliance has been
+read here, and it is as dangerously misconceived.
+Through that first disastrous year of
+the peace Europe imagined that the President
+was the owner rather than the leader of the
+United States.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>It was with great interest and curiosity,
+therefore, that I went down to this assembly
+at the Capitol to see the President dealing with
+his Legislature. Here was the place not of suggestions
+but of decisions. What goes through
+here is accomplished and done—subject only to
+one thing, the recognition by the Supreme
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_247'>247</span>Court, if it is challenged, that the thing is constitutional.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I went down with—what shall I say?—some
+prejudiced expectations. The Americans resemble
+the English very closely in one particular—they
+abuse their own institutions continually.
+Prohibition and the police—but these are
+outside my scope! I have heard scarcely a
+good word for Congress since I landed here,
+and the Senate, by the unanimous testimony of
+the conversationalists of the United States,
+combines the ignoble with the diabolical in a
+peculiarly revolting mixture. Even individual
+Senators have admitted as much—with a sinister
+pride.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>It is exactly how we talk about Parliament in
+London—though with more justice. But this
+sort of talk soaks into the innocent from
+abroad, and, though one takes none of it seriously,
+the whole of it produces an effect. I had
+the feeling that I was going to see a gathering
+of wreckers, a barrier, perhaps an insurmountable
+barrier, in the way to the realization of
+any dream of America taking her place as the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_248'>248</span>leading power in the world, as the first embodiment
+of the New Thing in international affairs.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>It puts all this sort of feeling right to see
+these two bodies in their proper home and to
+talk to these creatures of legend, the Representatives
+and the Senators. One perceives they
+are not a malignant sub-species of mankind;
+one discovers a concourse of men very interested
+about and unexpectedly open-minded
+upon foreign policy. They are critical but not
+hostile to the new projects and ideas. One
+realizes that Congress is not a blank barrier
+but a sieve, and probably a very necessary
+sieve, for the new international impulse in
+America.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The ceremonial of the gathering was simple
+and with the dignity of simplicity. The big
+galleries for visitors, which always impress the
+British observer by their size, were full of visitors
+after their kind, ladies predominating,
+and particularly full was the press gallery,
+which overhangs the Speaker and the Presidential
+chair. Some faint vestige of a sound
+religious upbringing had reminded me that the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_249'>249</span>first are sometimes last and the last first; I had
+fallen into the tail of the procession of my fellow
+newspaper men from their special room
+to the House of Representatives, and so I
+found myself with the overflow of the journalists,
+not with everything under my chin but
+very conveniently seated on the floor of the
+House behind the Representatives, and feeling
+much more like a Congressman than I could
+otherwise have done.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Away to the right were the members of the
+Cabinet—the British visitor always has to
+remind himself that they cannot be either
+Representatives or Senators. Presently the
+ninety-odd Senators came in by the central
+door, two by two, and were distributed upon
+the seats in front of their hosts; the Representatives.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>There was applause, and I saw Sir Auckland
+Geddes, with that large, bare smile of his, and
+the rest of the British delegation entering from
+behind the Chair, for the delegations had also
+been invited to come down from the unrealities
+of the conference and had been assigned the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_250'>250</span>front row of seats. Other delegations followed
+and seated themselves. At last came a hush
+and the clapping of hands, and the President
+entered and went to his place, looking extremely
+like a headmaster coming in to address
+the school assembly at the beginning of the
+term. He is more like George Washington in
+appearance, I perceive, than any intervening
+President.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>He read his address in that effective voice of
+his which seems to get everywhere without an
+effort. I listened attentively to every sentence
+of it, although I knew that upstairs there would
+be a printed copy of it for me as soon as the
+delivery was over. Yet, although I was listening
+closely, I also found I was thinking a great
+deal about this most potent gathering, for potent
+it is, which has been raised up now to a position
+of quite cardinal importance in human
+affairs.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>President Harding is on what are nowadays
+for a President exceptionally good terms with
+Congress. He means to keep so. In his address
+he reiterated his point that even the full
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_251'>251</span>constitutional powers of the President are too
+great and that he has no intention to use them,
+much less to strain them. Nevertheless, or
+even in consequence of that, he is very manifestly
+the leader of his Legislature. The atmosphere
+was non-contentious. He was not
+like a party leader speaking to his supporters
+and the opposition. He was much more like
+America soliloquizing. His address was a statement
+of intentions.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I think the President feels that officially he is
+not so much the elect of America as the voice of
+America, and instead of wanting to make that
+voice say characteristic and epoch-making
+things, he tries to get as close as he can to the
+national thought and will. What President
+Harding says today America will do tomorrow.
+One human and amusing thing he did—he was
+careful to drag in that much-disputed word of
+his, “normalcy,” which he has resolved, apparently,
+shall oust out “normality” from current
+English.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>And from the point of view of those who
+are concerned about the dark troubles of the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_252'>252</span>world outside America it was, I think, a very
+hopeful address. It reinforced the impression
+I had already received of President Harding as
+of a man feeling his way carefully but steadily
+towards great ends. America’s growing recognition
+of her “inescapable relationship to world
+finance and trade” came early and his little lecture
+on the need to give and take in foreign
+trade was a lecture that is being repeated in
+every main street in America.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>He spoke of Russia and returned to that
+topic. “We do not forget the tradition of Russian
+friendship” was a good sentence that some
+countries in Europe may well mark. The growing
+belief in America of the possibility of going
+into Russia through the agency of the American
+Relief Administration and of getting to
+dealing with the revived co-operative organizations
+of Russia is very notable. And though
+there was no mention of the Association of Nations
+as such, there were allusions to the
+“world hope centered upon this capital city”
+and to the universal desire for permanent
+peace.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_253'>253</span>And while I listened I was also thinking of
+all these men immediately before me, between
+four and five hundred men, including the ninety-six
+Senators, with whom rested the power of
+decision upon the role America will play in the
+world. I have met and talked now with a number
+of them, and particularly with quite a fair
+sample of the Senatorial body. And I think
+now that it is going to be a much better body
+for international purposes than my reading
+about it before I came to Washington has led
+me to suppose.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>We hear too much in Europe of the rule of
+“jobs” and “interests” in Washington. No
+doubt that sort of thing goes on here, as in
+every Legislature, but it has to be borne in
+mind that it has very little bearing upon the international
+situation. It is not a matter affecting
+the world generally. I doubt if there is
+nearly as much business and financial intrigue
+in the lobbies of Washington as in the lobbies
+of Westminster; but, anyhow, what there is
+here is essentially a domestic question. Both
+Representatives and Senators approach international
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_254'>254</span>questions as comparatively free—if
+rather inexperienced—men.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Probably the only strong permanent force
+hitherto in international affairs here has been
+the anti-British vote, based on the Irish hate
+of Britain. If the Irish settlement weakens or
+abolishes that, Congress will deal with the
+world’s affairs without any perceptible bias at
+all. The average Senator is a prosperous, intelligent,
+American-thinking man, elected to the
+Senate upon political grounds that have no
+bearing whatever upon international affairs.
+He is an amateur in matters international.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>A bitter political issue at home may make
+him do any old thing with international affairs,
+and that was the situation during the last years
+of President Wilson. Poor, war-battered Europe
+became a pawn in a constitutional struggle.
+But the Harding regime is to be one of
+co-operation with the Senate, and the dignity
+of the Senate is restored. This very various
+assembly of vigorous-minded Americans, for
+that and other reasons, is getting to grips now
+with international questions with all the freshness
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_255'>255</span>and vigor of good amateurs, with a detached
+disinterestedness, a growing sense of responsibility
+and the old peace-enforcing traditions
+of America strong in it.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>If only it does not delay things too long; I
+doubt if those who desire to see the peace of
+the world organized and secure are likely to
+have any quarrel with the Senate of the United
+States. The worst evil I fear from the American
+Senate, now that I have seen something of
+it individually and collectively, is the impartial
+leisureliness of the detached in its dealings
+with international affairs.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The President finished his discourse and the
+stir of dispersal began. I had assisted at
+America reviewing her position in the world. I
+thought the occasion simple and fine and dignified.
+I found myself leaving the Capitol in a
+mood of quite unanticipated respect.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_256'>256</span>
+  <h2 id='XXV' class='c005'>XXV<br /> AFRICA AND THE ASSOCIATION OF NATIONS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r c002'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Washington, Dec. 9.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c007'>In a previous paper I wrote of certain
+“stifled voices” at Washington. There is yet
+another stifled voice here that I have heard, and
+to speak of it opens up another great group of
+questions that stand in the way to any effectual
+organization of world peace through an Association
+of Nations. Until we get some provisional
+decision about this set of issues the
+Association of Nations remains a project in
+the air.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>This stifled voice of which I am now writing
+is the voice of the colored people. As a novelist—a
+novelist in my spare time—and as a man
+very curious by nature, about human reactions,
+the peculiar situations created by “color” in
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_257'>257</span>America have always appealed to me. I do not
+understand why American fiction does not treat
+of them more frequently. It is the educated,
+highly intelligent colored people who get my interest
+and sympathy. I cannot get up any race
+feeling about them.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I am particularly proud to have known
+Booker T. Washington and to know Mr. Dubois,
+and this time, in spite of a great pressure of
+engagements, I was able to spend two hours
+last Sunday listening to the proceedings of the
+Washington Correspondence Club, an organization
+which battles by letter and interview and
+appeal against the harsh exclusions from theatres,
+schools, meetings, restaurants, libraries
+and the like, that prevail here.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I will not discuss here the rights and wrongs
+of a bar that cuts off most of the intellectual
+necessities and conveniences of life from many
+people who would pass as refined and cultivated
+whites in any European country. I mention
+this gathering merely to note a very interesting
+topic upon which I was called to account
+thereat.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_258'>258</span>Once or twice in these papers—I do not know
+if the reader has noted it—I have mentioned
+the French training of Senegalese troops and
+the objection felt by other European peoples to
+their extensive employment in Europe. I was
+asked at the Correspondence Club whether the
+objections I had made to this were not “fostering
+race prejudice,” and some interesting exchanges
+followed.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I was inclined to argue that the importation
+of African negroes into Europe for military
+purposes was as objectionable as their importation
+to America for economic services, but some
+of my hosts, some of the younger men, did not
+see it in that light. They are warmed toward
+the French by the notable absence of racial exclusiveness
+in France, and they see the ideals
+of that epoch-making book, “<span lang="ca" xml:lang="ca">La France
+Negre</span>,” from an entirely different angle. Why
+not a black France as big or bigger than white
+France and a new people who have learned military
+discipline, military service and united
+action from Europe?</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>“Why not an African Napoleon presently?”
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_259'>259</span>said the young man, a little wanting, I thought,
+in that abject meekness which is the American
+ideal of colored behavior.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>He was imagining, I suppose, something happening
+in Africa rather after the fashion of the
+emancipation of Hayti and of great African
+armies pushing their former rulers back to the
+sea. But Col. Taylor has recently suggested
+another possibility, namely, that of France finding
+herself in the grip of a black Pretorian
+Guard. It is a just, conceivable fancy—a Pretorian
+Guard, French-speaking and ultra-patriotic,
+keeping French Socialists and pacifists and
+Bolsheviks in their proper place.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I do not believe very much in either of these
+possibilities nor even in the third possibility of
+European powers fighting each other with black
+armies in Africa, but I do perceive that dreams
+of a world peace will remain very insubstantial
+dreams, indeed, until we can work out a scheme
+or at least general principles of action for the
+treatment of Africa between the Sahara and
+the Zambesi River, a scheme that will give some
+sort of a quietus to the jealousies and hostilities
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_260'>260</span>evoked by the economic and political exploitations
+of annexed and mandatory territories
+upon nationalist and competitive lines in this
+region of the earth.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>For it seems to be the fact that tropical and
+sub-tropical Africa has another function in the
+world than to be the home of the great family
+of negro peoples. Africa is economically necessary
+to European civilization as the chief
+source of vegetable oils and fats and various
+other products of no great value to the native
+population. European civilization can scarcely
+get along without these natural resources of
+Africa.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Now here we are up against a problem entirely
+different from the problem that arises in
+the case of India, Indo-China and China, which
+is the problem of a politically powerless but
+essentially civilized population which can be
+trusted to modernize itself and come into line
+with the existing efficient powers if only it is
+protected from oppressive and disintegrating
+forces while it adjusts itself.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Africa is quite incapable of anything of the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_261'>261</span>sort. Negro Africa is mainly still in a state of
+tribal barbarism; in the latter half of the nineteenth
+century its peoples were in a condition
+of deepening disorder and misery due to the
+spread of European diseases and to the raiding
+of the Arab and native adventurers who had
+obtained possession of modern firearms. The
+small village communities of tropical Africa
+were quite unable to stand up against the brigand
+enterprises of mere bands of ruffians
+armed with rifles.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The scramble for Africa on the part of the
+European great powers toward the close of the
+nineteenth century—a scramble largely dictated
+by economic appetites—did a little to mitigate
+the miseries and destruction in progress by
+establishing a sort of order through large areas
+of Africa, a sort of order that in some regions
+was scarcely less cruel than the disorders it replaced.
+But if continuing access to the resources
+of Africa is to be maintained, and if a
+return to the Arab raider and general chaos
+and massacres is to be avoided, it is clear that
+in some form the control of the central parts of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_262'>262</span>Africa by the modern civilized world must continue.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>But we must be clear upon one point. If that
+control is to be maintained, as at present it is
+maintained by various European powers acting
+independently of one another and competing
+against one another, in the not very remote future
+Central Africa is bound to become a cause
+of war. Central Africa was one of the great
+prizes before the German imagination in 1914,
+and it is now held in a state of unstable equilibrium
+by the chief European victors in the
+Great War.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>As they recuperate the African danger will
+increase. Africa, next after Eastern Europe
+and the Near East, is likely to become in the
+course of a dozen years or so the chief danger
+region of the world.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>It behooves all those who are dreaming of an
+organized world peace through an Association
+of Nations to keep this African rock ahead in
+mind and to think out the possible method of
+linking this great region with the rest of the
+world in a universal peace scheme.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_263'>263</span>I submit that it is not premature for those
+who are concerned with the future of our race
+to consider the necessity of three chief things:</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>(1) The complete abandonment and prohibition
+now of the enlistment and military use of
+the African native population.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>(2) The application of the principle of the
+“open door” and equal trading opportunities
+for all comers in the regions between the Sahara
+and the Zambesi.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>(3) A more organized care of the native
+African population by a tightening up of the
+existing restrictions upon the arms and drink
+trades and the development of some sort of
+elementary education throughout Africa that
+will give these very various and largely still
+untried peoples a chance of showing what latent
+abilities they have for self-government and participation
+in the general human common weal.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>For my own part, it seems to me that any
+real “League of Nations,” any effective “Association
+of Nations,” must necessarily supersede
+the existing “empires” and imperial systems
+and take over their alien “possessions”
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_264'>264</span>and that one commission embodying the collective
+will of all the efficient civilized nations of
+the world is the only practicable form of security
+for all those parts of Africa incapable or
+not yet capable of self-government.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_265'>265</span>
+  <h2 id='XXVI' class='c005'>XXVI<br /> THE FOURTH PLENARY SESSION</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r c002'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Washington, Dec. 12.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c007'>The reader will have seen verbatim reports
+of the speeches at the fourth plenary session of
+the Washington Conference and he will know
+already what decisions were handed out to us
+from the more or less secret session that prepared
+them for us.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>There has been a good deal of discussion here
+about the secret sessions and a certain indignation
+at their secrecy that I do not share. It is a
+matter of decency rather than concealment that
+men speaking various languages, representing
+complicated interests and feeling their way toward
+understandings, should not be exposed to
+embarrassing observation and comment until
+they have properly hammered out what they
+have to say. It is far better to digest conclusions
+under cover and to present the agreed-upon conclusion.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_266'>266</span>This is no offense against democracy,
+no conspiracy against publicity. The mischief
+of secrecy lies in secret treaties and secret
+understandings and not in protected interchanges.
+There is no sound objection to secret
+bargaining in committee provided that finally
+the public is informed of the agreement arrived
+at and <i>of all the considerations in the
+bargain</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The conclusions announced are important
+enough in themselves; but to all who care for
+the peace of the world they are far more important
+in the vista of possibilities they open
+up. Certain notable precedents are established.
+The four Root resolutions do put very clearly
+those ideals of withdrawal and abstinence
+which must become the universal rule of conduct
+between efficient and politically confused
+or enfeebled states if the peace of the world is
+to be preserved. That is the new way in international
+politics. <i>It is the beginning of the end
+of all Asiatic imperialisms.</i></p>
+
+<p class='c007'>And, following upon its assent to those resolutions,
+the conference voted upon certain special
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_267'>267</span>applications of them. The abolitions of the
+extra territorial grievance, the right of China
+as a neutral power to escape the fate of Belgium
+and the right of China to be informed on
+the article of any treaty affecting her were
+established as far as a resolution of the conference
+could establish them.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>And then came Senator Lodge. For the
+fourth plenary session “featured” Senator
+Lodge just as previous ones had “featured”
+Secretary Hughes, Mr. Balfour and M. Briand.
+Fifteen years ago I came to Washington and
+Senator Lodge showed me a collection of prehistoric
+objects from Central America and
+talked very delightfully about them. Fifteen
+years have changed Washington very greatly
+but they have not changed Senator Lodge.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>He seems perhaps just a little slenderer and
+neater than before, but that may be a change in
+my own standards, and it was entirely in character
+with my former impressions of him that
+in putting the four-power treaty before the conference
+he should indulge himself and his
+hearers in a vision of the realities of the Pacific,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_268'>268</span>the multitudinous interests of its innumerable
+islands, its infinite variety of races,
+customs, climates and atmospheres.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>It was a most curious and attractive phase of
+the always-interesting conference to have this
+gray-headed, cultivated gentleman breaking
+through all the abstract jargon of diplomacy
+and militarism, all the talk of powers, radii of
+action, fortifications, spheres of influence, and
+so forth, in his attempt to make us realize the
+physical loveliness and intellectual charm of
+this enormous area of the world’s surface that
+the four-power treaty may perhaps save now
+and forevermore from the fear and horrors of
+war.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The proposed four-power treaty which thus
+starts upon its uncertain but hopeful journey
+toward ratification by the Senates, Legislatures
+and Governments of the world is essentially
+a departure from the normal tradition of
+the treaties of the nineteenth century. It is the
+first attempt to realize—what shall I call it?—the
+American way or the new way in international
+affairs. Its distinctive feature is the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_269'>269</span>participation of two possible antagonists,
+America and Japan. Instead of a war they
+make a treaty and call in Britain and France to
+assist. It is a treaty for peace and not against
+an antagonist.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I think that the difference between “treaties
+for” and “treaties against” is one that needs
+to be stressed. The Anglo-Japanese treaty was
+a “treaty against,” a treaty against first Russia,
+then Germany and then against some
+vaguely conceived assailant. It is a great thing
+to have Japan and England cordially immolating
+that treaty now that this four-power treaty
+of the new spirit may be born.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>After Senator Lodge came M. Viviani with a
+very fine, if guarded, speech. M. Viviani is a
+great speaker but he is not merely eloquent,
+and I find people here saying little about his
+wonderful voice or his overtones and undertones
+or his romantic charm but much about the
+subtle things he said. In a gathering that is
+tense with attention one is apt, perhaps, to
+transfer one’s own thoughts and expectations to
+the gathering as a whole, but it seems to me
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_270'>270</span>that when M. Viviani rose to welcome this great
+beginning on the Pacific, we were all thinking:
+“And how much further and to what other regions
+of the world are you prepared to extend
+this spirit and method of this Pacific bond?
+There is another rather threadbare ‘treaty
+against’ or at least an ‘understanding against,’
+known as the Anglo-French entente. Is the time
+due yet for the merger of that also in another
+and greater bond of peace?”</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I do not know how far the question that was in
+his mind was in the mind of the meeting, but I
+think that M. Viviani made it very plain that it
+was in the background of his own mind. His
+speech was designed to bring the simplicity, the
+easiness of the Pacific problem into sharp contrast
+with the tortured complexity of the Atlantic—the
+Afro-European problem. He spoke
+of the freedom of the Pacific from long established
+hate traditions. He reminded us of the
+twenty centuries of war and trampled frontiers
+and outrages and counter-outrages that had left
+Europe and North Africa scarred and festering.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>He conjured up no bogies; he had nothing to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_271'>271</span>say about those 7,000,000 phantom Germans
+ready to extract their hidden rifles from 7,000,000
+mattresses and haylofts and rush upon
+France; but he reminded the conference,
+gravely and wisely, of the relative complexity
+of the European problem, of the new untried
+nationalities that had been liberated, of the vast
+heritage of tradition and suspicion that had to
+be overcome. He addressed not only the conference
+but the impatient liberal aspirations of
+the world. “I ask you for forbearance,” he
+said, and repeated that—“I ask for forbearance.”</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Now that was a great speech, and M. Viviani
+is manifestly the sort of Frenchman with whom
+the new spirit can deal. “Forbearance” might
+well serve now as the watchword of Europe.
+And I wish that Mr. Balfour could have shown
+a fuller recognition of what M. Viviani had
+said. Mr. Balfour had been so fine on several
+occasions at this conference that I felt it is a
+little ungracious to him to confess, as I must do,
+that twice in this day of the fourth plenary session,
+once in the conference and also in the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_272'>272</span>evening when he replied for the Allies at the
+Gridiron Club, he seemed to be missing an opportunity—the
+opportunity of holding out a
+hand of friendship to liberal France.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>For the reactionary France, for the France
+of submarines and Senegalese and inflated army
+and navy estimates, neither Britain nor America
+nor any other part of the world has any use,
+and the more often we say that and the more
+distinctly we say it the better for every one;
+but toward a France that can teach and practice
+forbearance and come into great associations
+for the common welfare of mankind we
+ought to hold out both hands. Most of the bitterness
+that has been directed towards France
+of late is not the bitterness of any natural
+hatred; it is the bitterness of acute disappointment
+that France, the generous leader of freedom
+upon both the American and European
+Continents, no longer leads, seems to care no
+longer for either freedom or generosity. And
+twice I have seen opportunities lost for an
+appropriate gesture of reconciliation.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Sooner or later France and England have to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_273'>273</span>say to each other: “We have been sore and sick
+and exasperated and suspicious and narrow.
+Let us take a lesson from this American plan
+and set about discussing an Atlantic treaty, an
+Afro-European treaty, worthy to put beside
+this Pacific treaty.”</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>And since this has to be said, it was a pity
+that Mr. Balfour could not take up M. Viviani’s
+half lead and begin to say it at the fourth plenary
+session of the Washington Conference.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_274'>274</span>
+  <h2 id='XXVII' class='c005'>XXVII<br /> ABOUT THE WAR DEBTS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r c002'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Washington, Dec. 13.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c007'>In the official proceedings of the Washington
+Conference the war debts are never mentioned.
+It is an improper subject.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>In the talks and discussions and the journalistic
+writings round and about the Washington
+Conference the war debts are perpetually debated.
+The nature of the discussion is so curious
+and interesting, it throws so strong a light
+upon the difficulties that impede our path to any
+settlement of the world’s affairs upon the sound
+democratic basis of a world-wide will, that some
+brief analysis of it is necessary if this outline
+of the peace situation is to be complete.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>In private talk almost universally, in the
+weekly and monthly publications that are here
+called “highbrow,” I find a very general agreement
+that the bulk of these war debts and war
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_275'>275</span>preparation debts as between Russia and
+France, and between the European allies and
+Britain, and between Britain and America, and
+the bulk of the indemnity and reparation debt
+of Germany to the Allies, cannot be paid and
+ought not to be paid, and that the sooner that
+this legend of indebtedness is swept out of
+men’s imaginations the sooner we shall get on
+to the work of world reconstruction.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Only one of these debts is even remotely payable
+and that is the British debt to America.
+But with regard to that debt the situation rises
+to a high level of absurdity. The British authorities—it
+is an open secret—have been offering
+to begin the liquidation of their debt now.
+They cannot pay in gold, because most of the
+gold in the world is already sleeping uselessly
+in American vaults; but they offer what gold
+they have and, in addition, they are willing to
+get their factories to work and supply manufactured
+goods to the American creditor—clothes,
+boots, automobiles, ships, agricultural
+and other machinery, crockery, and so on, and
+so on.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_276'>276</span>Nothing could be fairer. Britain is full of
+unemployed—they must be fed anyhow—and if
+America insists upon her industries being
+buried under a pyramid of gold and manufactured
+articles, the British bankers and manufacturers
+believe they can, with an effort, manage
+the job and pull through. The exchange
+may take some strange flights and dives in the
+process, the British system may collapse even as
+the German system seems to be collapsing, but
+it is a strained situation anyhow. The British
+think the effort worth trying and the risk worth
+taking. And so behind the scenes it is Washington
+rather than London that wants at
+present to hold up the payment of the British
+debt.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Only one other of the outstanding debts looks
+at all payable at the present time, and that is so
+much of the reparation debts of Germany to
+France as can be paid in kind, in building material
+and manufactured goods not produced in
+France. The idea of any other European debt
+payments in full is just nonsense. The gold is
+not there and the stuff is not there, and there is
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_277'>277</span>no ability to produce anything like sufficient
+stuff under present conditions.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Now the interesting thing about the situation
+here is that the understanding people in America
+do not seem to be explaining this very simple
+situation as frankly as they might do to the
+mass of American people or at least that this
+explanation has not got through to the American
+people. There is a widespread conviction,
+which is sedulously sustained by the less intelligent
+or less scrupulous organs of the American
+press, that the wicked old European countries,
+and particularly Britain, that arch deceiver, are
+trying very meanly and cunningly to evade the
+payment of a righteous obligation.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Every effort to present the financial and economic
+disorder of the world as a world task in
+which the prosperous and fortunate American
+people may reasonably play a leading, intelligent
+and helpful part is misrepresented in this
+fashion. There is a vast vague clamor for repayment—aimed
+at Britain. Dealers in the old
+Irish hate business and the German hate business,
+now a little out of their original stock of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_278'>278</span>grievances, join with shrill but syndicated Hindus
+in warning the simple citizen against counsels
+of financial sanity as though they were insidious
+propaganda. Until at last an Englishman
+is sorely tempted to an exasperated,
+“Well, <i>take</i> your debt!”—which does no justice
+to the patience and intelligence of either England
+or America.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Let us be clear upon one point. So far as the
+British debt goes, the Americans can have it if
+they prefer to take that line. The British here
+in Washington and the British writers here are
+here because the Americans invited them to
+come to discuss the world situation and the possibilities
+of world peace. They are not here to
+beg. The time is not likely to arrive when one
+English speaking community will beg from another.
+It certainly has not arrived now.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>However, I am an obstinate believer in the
+common sense and good will of the American
+people, and I do not believe that a press campaign,
+designed to make a great people behave
+after the fashion of some hysterical back-street
+Oriental usurer who has struck a bad debt, is
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_279'>279</span>likely to do anything but recoil severely on the
+heads of those who have set it going. And I
+am not a believer in that sort of “tact” which
+would avoid reminding the American public of
+the circumstances under which these war debts
+were incurred.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The Russian debt to France was spent largely
+upon war and war preparations while Russia
+was the ally and helper of France; the war
+debts of the European Allies to Britain and
+America and the British debt to America were
+spent upon war material. All these debts are
+for efforts spent upon a common cause. Each
+country spent according to its resources, as
+good allies should. Russia gave life and blood—and
+blood. She gave 4,000,000 men; she
+smashed up her own social fabric. France and
+Britain gave the lives of men beyond the million
+mark. Also they gave much material, an
+enormous industrial effort. So also did Italy,
+according to her power.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The British developed a vast production of
+munitions as the war went on, using great supplies
+of material from America, for which they
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_280'>280</span>paid high prices and on which great profits
+were made in America. At last America joined
+the war, with her enormous reserves and
+strength, and gave not only great stores of material
+but the lives of between 50,000 and 75,000
+men. And so, altogether, America and the Allied
+Powers, giving their lives and substance as
+they could, saved civilization from imperialism.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The British do not grudge the contribution
+they have made and all that they have still to
+contribute for their share in that colossal victory,
+but some of us English here are growing a
+little irritated at being dunned as defaulters
+when we are not going to default, and at having
+our attempts to work in co-operation with the
+Americans for the rehabilitation of a strained
+and collapsing civilization explained as the interested
+approaches of a cadging poor relation.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I wish that Americans would think of the
+Europeans more frequently as people like themselves.
+The boys who came to Europe saw the
+European armies in ranks like their own, good
+stuff and kindred stuff. They were their comrades
+in arms; they fought and died beside
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_281'>281</span>them. They saw countries and a common life
+very like the American country life; they discovered
+that the French and British and
+Italians were also “just folk.”</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>But these American papers of the hostile
+sort write of France or Britain as if they were
+wicked old spiders. They write of Britain as
+a monster with a crown and an eyeglass and
+such like concomitants loathsome to all sound
+democratic instincts. They write of the “designs”
+of France and Italy and Britain as if
+these horrid monsters were all playing a fearsome
+game with each other for the soul and
+body of America. It is easy enough then to
+clamor for repayments of war debts. It is easy
+then to excite people by a clamor for a war
+bonus for the veterans of the Great War to be
+saddled upon the European debtor.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>But let me remind the American soldier that
+the real European debtor, the fellow on whom it
+will fall, the fellow who will have to toil and
+pay and want, if you can realize that dream
+of pitiless exaction, is no legendary monster
+France or Britain; it is that other fellow over
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_282'>282</span>there you fought beside, it is the wounded man
+in blue or khaki you passed by as you went
+into action, it is the man who smiled his courage
+at you as you blundered against him in the
+din and confusion of battle.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>If you listen to these stay-at-home patriots
+and these exotic advisers of yours, it is he who
+will pay, he and his wife and his child; they
+will all pay in toil and privation and worry
+and stunted lives. It is they who will pay—but
+you will not receive. You too will pay in
+disorganized business, in restricted production,
+in underemployment. You will get nothing else
+out of it except whatever satisfaction you may
+feel in having made those other fellows over
+there in Europe pay—and pay bitterly.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_283'>283</span>
+  <h2 id='XXVIII' class='c005'>XXVIII<br /> THE FOUNDATION STONE AND THE BUILDING</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r c002'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Washington, Dec. 14.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c007'>Beginning with the fourth plenary session of
+the Washington Conference, the registration of
+“results” in the Pacific, in disarmament, in
+China, has begun. They are good results, assembled
+on a basis of broad principles, that may
+sustain at last an organized permanent peace
+for the whole world. If there is one thing to be
+noted more than another about the work that
+has led up to this settlement it is the adaptability,
+the intelligent and sympathetic understanding
+shown by Japan in these transactions.
+The Japanese seem to be the most flexible
+minded of peoples. They win my respect more
+and more.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>In the days of imperialistic competition they
+stiffened to a conscientious selfishness and a
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_284'>284</span>splendid fighting energy. Now that a new
+spirit of discussion, compromise and the desire
+for brotherhood spreads about the world, they
+catch the new note and they sound it with obvious
+sincerity and good will. No people has
+been under such keen and suspicious observation
+here as the Japanese. The idea of them
+as of a people insanely patriotic, patriotically
+subtle and treacherous, mysterious and mentally
+inaccessible has been largely dispelled. I
+myself have tried that view over in my mind
+and dismissed it, and multitudes of the commonplace
+men have gone through the same experience
+here. Our Western world, I am convinced,
+can work with the Japanese and understand
+and trust them.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>It will be for other and abler pens to record
+the detailed working out of the results of this
+great conference, this new experiment in human
+reasonableness, as far as it affects Shantung
+and Yap and Hongkong and Port Arthur
+and so forth. My time in Washington is drawing
+to an end, and I will confine myself now
+rather to that broader and vaguer question in
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_285'>285</span>which I am more interested—the question of
+what lies behind and beyond this most successful
+and hopeful beginning in open international
+co-operation.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Great and important as the conference is, the
+growth of a real and understandable project for
+the steady, systematic development of an effective
+international world peace, which has been
+going on in men’s minds here and in the world
+generally in the last two months is a much
+greater thing. It is a quite amazing mental
+growth; something very quiet and simple and
+yet astonishing, like a clear crystallization out of
+a turbid solution. Before the conference gathered,
+civilized people throughout the world were,
+I think, quite confused about how the peace of
+the world could ever be organized and rather
+hopeless about its being done.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Now I think there is a widespread and
+spreading unanimity that there is a way, a
+practicable way and a hopeful way, by successive
+conferences, by widening peace agreements,
+by the establishment of permanent joint
+commissions, by systematic education and the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_286'>286</span>sedulous cultivation of confidence, along which
+humanity may struggle and will struggle out of
+its present miseries and dangers toward the
+dawn of a new life.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The next conferences that are indicated will
+gather in a mood of hopefulness and experience
+that will be the most precious legacy of the
+present conference. One that must follow very
+soon must deal with the economic rehabilitation
+of Europe. Here, it seems to me, America,
+Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia at
+least must meet. And soon. In the Christmas
+mood, in the phase of relief that radiates from
+Washington and Ireland now, we must not let
+our elation blind us to the fact that, for all the
+light that breaks in upon us, we are not yet out
+of the woods. Millions are starving today,
+great masses of men degenerate physically and
+morally in unemployment, European industrialism
+crawls and staggers still.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>We have laid the foundations of a new era,
+but the building has scarcely begun. And in
+addition to the world economic conference there
+is also need of another conference to face the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_287'>287</span>still more difficult task of military disarmament
+and the re-examination of the factors of conflict
+in the Afro-European area. Personally, I
+want to see America in that conference also, because
+I do recognize that the freshness of mind,
+the deliberate diplomatic inexperience of America,
+is a factor of priceless value in these discussions.
+I would like to see that conference also
+held in an American atmosphere and before an
+American audience—if only for the sake of Europe.
+And if America can be interested in
+Kwangtung, I don’t see why America should
+not also be interested in Silesia, or Cilicia, or
+Senegal, or the Congo, which are all very much
+nearer.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The appetite for conferences, the belief in
+conferences, will grow with what it feeds upon.
+One sees these gatherings, with their accessory
+commissions, permanent secretariats and increasing
+world services, becoming a customary
+and necessary peace control of the earth.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>And the peace control, growing in this natural
+fashion, will consist always and solely of
+the efficient and willing nations of the world.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_288'>288</span>There will be no forced conclusions and no premature
+admission of incompetent and feeble
+peoples. The pedantry that would give every
+sovereign power, however little or rotten, a
+vote, a nice, saleable vote, in the management
+of the world’s affairs will play no part in this
+evolution.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The Association of Nations will be a growing
+brotherhood of strong and healthy and understanding
+peoples, bound only by a bond of self-denial
+and mutual restraint toward the weaker
+folk of the earth. The co-operation of the English
+speaking peoples, and particularly the
+American will for peace, must needs play a
+very conspicuous part in the crystallization of
+this Association, and so it is inevitable that a
+certain sort of international “expert” will be
+screaming that the world is threatened by an
+Anglo-American imperialism. It may be worth
+while to say a word or so to dispel this idea.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Let us bear in mind that the Washington
+Conference, whose results may be the cornerstone
+of the organized peace of the world, is a
+conference of withdrawal and abstinence, self-restraint
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_289'>289</span>and mutual restraint, with regard to
+China and the Pacific; its key idea is the cessation
+of aggressions upon weaker or less advantageously
+circumstanced people. If America
+and her kindred nations are most active in
+pressing for such results, it is not that they are
+moved by any thoughts of world predominance
+but by liberal ideas that are the monopoly of no
+race and people. It is their fortunate lot to
+have been most accessible to such ideas and to
+be able now to play the leading, most powerful
+part in establishing them in the world. But
+these ideas have a broader basis and claim a
+wider allegiance than merely that of the English
+speaking peoples.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Liberalism, the idea of great nations of free
+citizens held together by bonds of mutual confidence,
+roots very wide and deep in humanity.
+It derives from the great traditions of the
+Greek and Roman Republics and from the traditions
+of freedom of the Scandinavian and
+Teutonic peoples. The America of today did
+not grow from American seed. Let America
+bear that in mind. The American idea is the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_290'>290</span>embodiment particularly of the liberal thought
+of England and France in the seventeenth and
+eighteenth centuries. France cannot destroy
+the greatness of her past or the greatness of
+her future by a phase of momentary folly with
+her submarines and Senegalese, her Polish ally
+and all the rest of it.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>All peoples have such lapses. A few years
+ago Britain was disgusting with her jingoistic
+imperialism. Let us forget our lapses and get
+back to our more enduring selves. Latin America,
+quite as much as English speaking America,
+belongs to that great tradition of Franco-British
+liberalism. Liberal Germany in 1848 and again
+today struggles to take its fitting place among
+the emancipated peoples, as Italy did half a
+century ago. These are the peoples who can
+best understand now and help now. They are
+all in our system of ideas; they can be brought
+together into one purpose.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>It is natural and necessary that the peoples
+most saturated in that great tradition of European
+liberalism should be the first full members
+of the coming Association and should be
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_291'>291</span>prepared to lead the rest of the world toward
+the new order. All peoples are not equally prepared.
+It is not a question of ascendancy; it is
+a question of those who are able doing the task
+that they alone are prepared to perform.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>When I think of an Association of Nations I
+think, therefore, of a sort of club or brotherhood,
+not of every state in the world but of the
+peoples who speak English, French, German,
+Spanish, Italian and Japanese, as the big brotherhood
+of the world, with such states as Holland
+and Norway and Bohemia, and so forth,
+great in quality if not great in power and entirely
+sympathetic by training and tradition, associated
+with them in a great bond for two
+ends; for peace among themselves and for restraint
+and patience toward the rest of mankind.
+I think of such a brotherhood as the brain
+and backbone of the organized peace of the
+world, and I cannot see how it is possible to
+take in the other peoples of the world as helpers
+until they respond to the same ideals.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I think first of a recovered Russia and then
+of a unified and educated China and a freed and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_292'>292</span>reconstructed India and of many other states
+which can claim to be of a civilized quality, such
+as Egypt, gradually winning their way from a
+non-participating to a participating level. The
+relationship of China to Japan in a developing
+Association of Nations will be something rather
+analogous to the relationship of a Territory to
+a State in the Constitution of the United States
+of America.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Unless there is a strong, well organized collective
+mentality in a nation or state, I do not
+see how there can be anything but a sham representation
+of it upon an Association of
+Nations, nor how it can be anything but a responsibility
+and weakness to such an Association.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>And outside the system of participating
+states, and non-participating states, there are
+great regions of the earth—tropical Africa is
+the most typical case—which must necessarily
+have a sort of order imposed upon them from
+without and for which a joint control by interested
+associated nations is probably the best
+method of government at the present time.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_293'>293</span>That, I think, is the vision of the political
+future of mankind that is opening out before
+us; a great system of associated states, locked
+and interlocked together by fourfold and sixfold
+and tenfold treaties, open treaties, of peace
+and co-operation, ruling jointly the still barbaric
+regions of the earth and pledged to respect
+and to keep and at last to welcome to their
+own ranks the now politically enfeebled regions
+of old civilization. Such an Association must
+necessarily supersede the “empires” of the
+nineteenth century and put an end forever to
+the imperialistic idea. Of such an Association
+the fourfold treaty may be the foundation
+stone. And within the security of such an edifice
+of peace mankind will be able to go on to
+achievements such as we at present can
+scarcely imagine.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_294'>294</span>
+  <h2 id='XXIX' class='c005'>XXIX<br /> WHAT A STABLY ORGANIZED WORLD PEACE MEANS FOR MANKIND</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c006'>I have now come to the last paper I shall
+write about the Washington Conference. I
+have tried to give the reader some idea of the
+nature of that gathering and a broad view of
+the issues involved. I have tried to prevent
+the sharp discussions of the foreground, the
+dramatic moments and eloquent passages, from
+blinding us to the dark and darkening background
+of Old World affairs. I have tried to
+show that even the horrors of war are not the
+whole or the main disaster which results from
+human disunion and disorder in the presence
+of increasing mechanical power. I have
+stressed the theme of economic and social dissolution.
+Necessarily, I have had to write
+much of dangers impending and miseries which
+gather and increase, and of hates, suspicions
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_295'>295</span>and failures to comprehend. And on the other
+hand, when one has turned to the possibilities
+and methods of escape from the present conflicts
+and apprehensions, necessarily one has
+been very largely in the thin and unattractive
+atmosphere of unrealized projects. I have
+written of the defects of the League of Nations
+scheme, its premature explicitness, its
+thinly theoretical and imitative forms, its frequent
+mere camouflage, as in the mandatory
+system, of existing wrongs, and I have brought
+into contrast with it this newer and I think
+more natural and hopeful project of successive
+Conferences, throwing off Committees, embodying
+their results in treaties and Standing
+Commissions, and growing at last not so much
+into a World Parliament, which I perceive more
+and more clearly is an improbable dream, as
+into a living, growing, organic network of
+World Government.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>But now in conclusion I will ask the reader
+to turn his mind from this necessary discussion
+of political devices and administrative
+contrivances, these bleak inventions that may
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_296'>296</span>form the ladder of escape from the divisions
+and bitterness of the present time, and to join
+in an attempt to realize what the world may
+become if men do struggle through these tiresome
+and perplexing problems to a working
+solution, if our race really does get from these
+wearisome yet hopeful wranglings and dealings
+to an organized world peace, to a disarmed
+world, to a steady reduction of racial and national
+antipathies and distrusts, to a growing
+confidence in the permanence of peace and the
+prevalence of good will throughout our planet,
+to a comprehensive system of world controls of
+the common interests of mankind. Suppose
+that after these present darknesses of famine
+and almost universal insecurity, these confused
+and often conflicting efforts we are making;
+suppose that in ten, or twenty, or thirty years
+we shall begin to realize that the thing is, after
+all, getting done, that we are indeed pushing
+through, moving towards the light, that human
+affairs are on the up-grade again and on new
+and greater and safer lines; let us suppose that
+and then let us ask what sort of world it will
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_297'>297</span>be for our kind that we shall be moving
+towards?</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Let us go back to one fundamental fact in the
+present break-up in human affairs. That
+break-up is not a result of debility; <i>it is a result
+of ill-regulated power</i>. It is important to
+bear that in mind. Disproportionate development
+of energy and overstrain are the immediate
+causes of our present troubles; the scale of
+modern economic enterprise has outgrown the
+little boundaries of the European States;
+science and invention have made war so monstrously
+destructive and disintegrative that
+victory is swallowed up in disaster; we are in
+a world of little nations wielding world-wide
+powers to the general destruction. And it follows
+that if, after all, we do struggle out of
+our old-fashioned and now altogether disastrous
+rivalries and hatreds before they destroy
+us, we shall still have all this science and power,
+which are things that seem now to increase by a
+sort of inner necessity, on our hands. So that
+getting through to an organized world peace
+does not mean simply avoiding death and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_298'>298</span>destruction and getting back to “as you were.”
+It means getting hold of power by the right
+end instead of the wrong end and going right
+ahead. We are not struggling simply to escape,
+we are struggling for the opportunity to
+achieve.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Personally, I do not think I would have bothered
+to come to Washington or to interest myself
+in this peace business, and to work and
+blunder and feel incompetent and be worried
+and distressed here, if it meant working for
+just peace, flat, empty, simple peace. I do not
+see why the killing of a few score millions of
+human beings a few years before they would
+naturally and ingloriously die, or the smashing
+up of a lot of ordinary, rather ugly, rather uncomfortable
+towns, or, if it comes to that sort
+of thing, the complete depopulation of the
+earth, or the prospect of being killed myself
+presently by a bomb or a shot or a pestilence,
+should move me to any great exertions. Why
+bother to exchange suffering for flatness? The
+worst, least endurable of miseries is boredom.
+One must die somewhere; few deaths are as
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_299'>299</span>painful as a first-class toothache or as depressing
+as a severe fit of indigestion; you can suffer
+more on a comfortable death bed than on a
+battlefield; and meanwhile, there is a very good
+chance of sunshine and snatched happiness
+here or there. But what does stir me is my
+invincible belief that the life I lead and the human
+life about me are not anything like the
+good thing that could be and might be. I am
+not so much frightened and distressed by these
+wars and national clashes and all the rest of
+this silly flag-wagging, bragging, shoving business
+as bored and irritated by these things. I
+have had some vision of what science and education
+can do for life and I am haunted by the
+fine uses that might be made of men and of
+our splendid possibilities. I do not think of
+war as a tragic necessity but as a blood-stained
+mess. When I think of my Europe now, I do
+not feel like a weakling whose world has been
+invaded by stupendous and cruel powers; I
+feel like a man whose promising garden has
+been invaded by hogs. There is the pacificism
+of love, the pacificism of pity, the pacificism of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_300'>300</span>commercialism, but also there is the pacificism
+of utter contempt. This is not a doomed world
+we live in or anything so tragically dignified;
+it is a world idiotically spoilt.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Do any of us fully realize the promise of that
+garden, the promise that can still be rescued
+from the trampling dullness of old animosities
+and rivalries which is wrecking it? Given
+unity of purpose throughout the world, given
+a surcease of mutual thwarting and destruction,
+do we realize what science has made possible
+now and here for mankind?</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I shall not indulge in any imaginative anticipations
+of things still undiscovered in the scientific
+realm, I will only suppose that things
+already known and tested are systematically
+used all over the world, that the good knowledge
+we have already stored in our laboratories
+and libraries is really applied with some thoroughness
+and with some community of purpose
+to the needs and enlargement of life.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>And first let us deal with the commoner material
+aspects of life in which there have been
+great changes and improvements in recent times
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_301'>301</span>and in which, therefore, it is easiest to imagine
+still further betterment, given only an
+assuagement of strife and blind struggle and
+a spreading out of generosity and the feeling
+of community from international to social
+affairs.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Take transport, that very fundamental social
+concern. It is ripe for great advances. There
+is all the labor needed in the world, all the skill
+and knowledge needed, and all the material
+needed, for these advances. There is everything
+needed but peace and the recognition of a
+common purpose. At present, there are railways
+only over a part of the inhabited world;
+there are vast areas of Asia and Africa and
+South America with no railway nor road communication
+at all and with enormous natural
+resources scarcely tapped, in consequence.
+Roads are as yet not nearly so widespread as
+railways, abundant good roads are founded indeed
+only in Western Europe and the better
+developed regions of the United States; there
+are a few good main roads in such countries as
+India, South Africa, and so forth. And in
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_302'>302</span>many parts of Europe now, and especially in
+Russia roads and railways are going out of use.
+Large parts of the world are still only to be
+reached by a specially equipped expedition;
+they are as inaccessible to ordinary travelling
+people as the other side of the moon. And if
+you will probe into the reasons why road and
+rail transport fails to develop and is even over
+wide areas undergoing degradation, you will
+come in nearly every case upon a political bar,
+a national or an imperial rivalry. These are
+the things that close half our world to us and
+may presently close most of the world to us.
+And consider even the railroads and roads we
+have; even those of America or Britain, how
+poor and uncomfortable they are in comparison
+with what we know they might be.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>And then take housing. I have been motoring
+about a little in Maryland and Virginia and
+I am astounded at the many miserable wood
+houses I see, hovels rather than houses, the
+abodes very often of white men. I am
+astounded at the wretched fences about the ill-kept
+patches of cultivation and by the extreme
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_303'>303</span>illiteracy of many of the poorer folk, white as
+well as colored, with whom I have had a chance
+of talking. I have to remind myself that I am
+in what is now the greatest, richest, most powerful
+country in the world. But with this country
+now as with every country, army, navy,
+contentious service, war debt charges and the
+rest of the legacy of past wars consume the national
+revenue. America is not spending a
+tithe of what she ought to be spending upon
+schools, upon the maintenance of a housing
+standard and upon roads and transport. She
+improves in all these things, but at no great
+pace, because of the disunion of the world and
+the threat of war. England and France, which
+were once far ahead of her in these respects of
+housing, transport and popular education, are
+now on the whole declining, through the excessive
+fiscal burthens they are under to pay for
+the late war and prepare for fresh ones. But
+I ask you to think what would happen to a
+world from which that burthen of preparedness
+was lifted. The first result of that relief would
+be a diversion of the huge maintenance allowance
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_304'>304</span>of the war-God to just these starved and
+neglected things.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Stanch that waste throughout the earth, and
+the saved wealth and energy will begin at once
+to flow in the direction of better houses, towards
+a steady increase in the order and graciousness
+of our unkempt and slovenly countrysides,
+to making better roads throughout the
+globe, until the globe is accessible, and to a
+huge enrichment and invigoration of education.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>How fair and lovely such countries as France
+and Germany and Italy might be today if the
+dark threat of war that keeps them so gaunt
+and poverty-struck could be lifted from them.
+Think of the abundant and various loveliness
+of France and the wit and charm of its varied
+peoples, now turned sour by the toil and
+trouble, the fears and bitter suspicions the
+threat of further war holds over them. Think
+of France, fearless and at last showing the
+world what France can do and be. And Italy
+at last Italy, and Japan, Japan. Think of the
+green hills of Virginia, covered with stately
+homes and cheerful houses. Think of a world in
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_305'>305</span>which travel is once more free and in which
+every country in absolute security has been able
+to resume its own peace-time development of
+its architecture, its music and all its arts in its
+own atmosphere upon the foundations of its
+own past. Because world unity does not mean
+uniformity; it means security to be different.
+It is war that forces all men into the same
+khaki and iron-clad moulds.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>But all this recovery of the visible idiosyncracies
+of nations, all this confident activity and
+progressive enrichment which will inevitably
+ensue upon the diversion of human attention
+from war and death and conflict and mutual
+thwarting to peace and development, will be but
+the outer indication of much profounder
+changes. Relieved of our war burthens, it will
+be possible to take hold of education as educationists
+have been longing to do for many
+years.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>They tell us now that every one could be educated
+up to sixteen or seventeen and that
+most people may be kept learning and growing
+mentally all their lives, that no country in the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_306'>306</span>world has enough schools, or properly
+equipped schools, nor enough properly educated
+teachers in the schools we have. The supply
+of university resources is still more meager.
+There is hardly anyone alive who has not a sense
+of things that he could know but cannot attain
+and of powers he can never develop. The number
+of fully educated and properly nurtured
+people in the world, people who can be said to
+have come reasonably near to realizing their
+full birth possibilities, is almost infinitesimal.
+The rest of mankind are either physically or
+mentally stunted, or both. This insolvent, slovenly
+old world has begotten them, and starved
+them. Our lives, in strength, in realized capacity,
+in achievement and happiness are perhaps
+20% or 30% of what they ought to be. But
+if only we could sweep aside these everlasting
+contentions, these hates and disputes that
+waste our earth, and get to work upon this educational
+proposition as a big business man gets
+to work upon a mineral deposit or the development
+of an invention, instead of a 20% result
+we might clamber to an 80% or a 90% result
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_307'>307</span>in educated efficiency. I ask you to go through
+the crowded streets of a town and note the
+many under-grown and ill-grown, the under-sized,
+the ill-behaved; to note the appeals to
+childish, prejudiced and misshapen minds in
+the shop windows, in the advertisements, in the
+newspaper headlines at the street corners, and
+then to try and think of what might be there
+even now in the place of that street and that
+crowd.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>The wealth and energy were there to make
+schools and give physical and mental training
+to all these people, and they have gone to burst
+shells and smash up the work of men, the organizing
+power has been wasted upon barren
+disputes; the science was there and it has been
+cramped and misused; even the will was there,
+but it was not organized to effective application.
+And scarcely a man in the crowd who
+begets a child, or a woman who bears one, but
+will dream of its growing to something better
+than the thwarted hope it will become.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>Have you ever examined an aeroplane or a
+submarine, and realized the thousand beautiful
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_308'>308</span>adjustments and devices that have produced
+its wonderful perfection? Have you ever
+looked at a street corner loafer and thought of
+the ten thousand opportunities that have been
+cast away of saving him from what he has become?</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>When we follow this line of thought, it becomes
+clear that our first vision of a world-wide
+net of fine roads, great steady trains on
+renewed and broader tracks, long distance
+aeroplane flights of the securest sort, splendid
+and beautiful towns, a parklike countryside,
+studded with delightful homes, was merely the
+scene and frame for a population of well-grown,
+well-trained, fully adult human beings. All the
+world will be accessible to them, mountains to
+climb, deserts to be alone in, tropics to explore
+in wonder, beautiful places for rest. And they
+will be healthy, and happy in the way that only
+health makes possible. For surely it is no news
+to any one that a score of horrible tints and diseases
+that weaken and cripple us, a number of
+infections, a multitude of ill-nourished and under-nourished
+states of body, can be completely
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_309'>309</span>controlled and banished from life, they and all
+the misery they entail—given only a common
+effort, given only human co-operation instead
+of discussion. The largest visible material
+harvest of peace is the least harvest of peace.
+The great harvest will be health and human
+vigor.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>And happiness! Think of the mornings that
+will some day come, when men will wake to
+read in the papers of something better than the
+great 5–5–3 wrangle, of the starvation and disorder
+of half the world, of the stupid sexual
+crimes and greedy dishonesties committed by
+the adults with the undeveloped intelligence of
+vicious children, of suggestions of horrible
+plots and designs against our threadbare security,
+of the dreary necessity for “preparedness.”
+Think of a morning when the newspaper
+has mainly <i>good</i> news, of things discovered,
+of fine things done; think of the common
+day of a common citizen in a world where debt
+is no longer a universal burthen, where there is
+constant progress and no retrogression, where
+it is the normal thing to walk out of a beautiful
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_310'>310</span>house into a clean and splendid street, to pass
+and meet happy and interesting adults instead
+of aged children obsessed by neglected spites
+and jealousies and mean anxieties, to go to
+some honorable occupation that helps the world
+forward to a still greater and finer life. You
+may say that a world may be prosperous and
+men and women healthy and free and yet there
+will still be spites and jealousies and all the
+bitterness of disputation, but that is no more
+true than that there will still be toothache. A
+mind educated and cared for, quite as well as a
+body, can be healed and kept clean and sweet
+and free from these maddening humiliations
+and suppressions that now fester in so many
+souls. There is no real necessity about either
+physical or mental miserableness in human life.
+Given, that is, a sufficient release of human
+energy to bring a proper care within the reach
+of all. And consider the quality of interest in
+such a world. Think of the mental quality of
+a world in which each day the thought and research
+of a great host of intelligences turns
+more and more the opaque and confused riddles
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_311'>311</span>of yesteryear into transparent lucidity. Think
+of the forces of personal and national idiosyncracy,
+of patriotic and racial assertion, seeking
+and finding their expression not in vile mutual
+thwarting and a brutish destructiveness, but in
+the distinctive architecture of cities, in the cultivated
+and intensified beauty of the countryside,
+in a hundred forms of art, in costume and
+custom. Think of the freedom, the abundance,
+the harmonious differences of such a world!</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>This is not idle prophecy, this is no dream.
+Such a world is ours today—if we could but turn
+the minds of men to realize that it is here for
+the having. These things can be done, this finer
+world is within reach. I can write that as confidently
+today as I wrote in 1900 that men could
+fly. But whether we are to stop this foolery of
+international struggle, this moral and mental
+childishness of patriotic aggressions, this continual
+bloodshed and squalor, and start out for
+a world of adult sanity in ten years, or in
+twenty years, or a hundred years, or never, is
+more than I can say. In Washington, I have
+met and seen hopes that seemed invincible, and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_312'>312</span>stupidities and habits and prejudices that
+seemed insurmountable; I have lived for six
+weeks in a tangled conflict of great phrases,
+mean ends, inspiration, illogicality, forgetfulness,
+flashes of greatness and flashes of grossness.
+I am no moral accountant to cast a balance
+and estimate a date. My moods have
+fluctuated between hope and despair.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>But I know that I believe so firmly in this
+great World at Peace that lies so close to our
+own, ready to come into being as our wills turn
+towards it, that I must needs go about this
+present world of disorder and darkness like an
+exile doing such feeble things as I can towards
+the world of my desire, now hopefully, now bitterly,
+as the moods may happen, until I die.</p>
+<div class='pbb'>
+ <hr class='pb c003' />
+</div>
+
+<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_313'>313</span>¶ Mr. WELLS has also written the following
+novels:<a id='end'></a></p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-l c009'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>LOVE AND MR. LEWISHAM</div>
+      <div class='line'>KIPPS</div>
+      <div class='line'>MR. POLLY</div>
+      <div class='line'>THE WHEELS OF CHANCE</div>
+      <div class='line'>THE NEW MACHIAVELLI</div>
+      <div class='line'>ANN VERONICA</div>
+      <div class='line'>TONO BUNGAY</div>
+      <div class='line'>MARRIAGE</div>
+      <div class='line'>BEALBY</div>
+      <div class='line'>THE PASSIONATE FRIENDS</div>
+      <div class='line'>THE WIFE OF SIR ISAAC HARMON</div>
+      <div class='line'>THE RESEARCH MAGNIFICENT</div>
+      <div class='line'>MR. BRITLING SEES IT THROUGH</div>
+      <div class='line'>THE SOUL OF A BISHOP</div>
+      <div class='line'>JOAN AND PETER</div>
+      <div class='line'>THE UNDYING FIRE</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c007'>¶ The following fantastic and imaginative
+romances:</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-l c009'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>THE WAR OF THE WORLDS</div>
+      <div class='line'>THE TIME MACHINE</div>
+      <div class='line'>THE WONDERFUL VISIT</div>
+      <div class='line'>THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU</div>
+      <div class='line'>THE SEA LADY</div>
+      <div class='line'>THE SLEEPER AWAKES</div>
+      <div class='line'>THE FOOD OF THE GODS</div>
+      <div class='line'>THE WAR IN THE AIR</div>
+      <div class='line'>THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON</div>
+      <div class='line'>IN THE DAYS OF THE COMET</div>
+      <div class='line'>THE WORLD SET FREE</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>And numerous Short Stories now collected in One Volume under the title of</div>
+      <div class='line'>THE COUNTRY OF THE BLIND</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c010'>¶ A Series of books on Social, Religious,
+and Political questions:</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-l c009'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>ANTICIPATIONS (1900)</div>
+      <div class='line'>MANKIND IN THE MAKING</div>
+      <div class='line'>FIRST AND LAST THINGS</div>
+      <div class='line'>NEW WORLDS FOR OLD</div>
+      <div class='line'>A MODERN UTOPIA</div>
+      <div class='line'>THE FUTURE IN AMERICA</div>
+      <div class='line'>AN ENGLISHMAN LOOKS AT THE WORLD</div>
+      <div class='line'>WHAT IS COMING?</div>
+      <div class='line'>WAR AND THE FUTURE</div>
+      <div class='line'>IN THE FOURTH YEAR</div>
+      <div class='line'>GOD THE INVISIBLE KING</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c007'>¶ And two little books about children’s
+play, called:</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-l c009'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>FLOOR GAMES and LITTLE WARS</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='pbb'>
+ <hr class='pb c003' />
+</div>
+<div class='tnotes'>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c005'>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES</h2>
+</div>
+ <ol class='ol_1 c002'>
+    <li>Added table of <a href='#CONTENTS'>Contents</a>.
+
+    </li>
+    <li>Moved ads from before the title <a href='#title'>page</a> to the <a href='#end'>end</a>.
+
+    </li>
+    <li>Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.
+
+    </li>
+    <li>Retained anachronistic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
+    </li>
+  </ol>
+
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Washington and the Riddle of Peace, by 
+H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WASHINGTON AND THE RIDDLE OF PEACE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 58877-h.htm or 58877-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/5/8/8/7/58877/
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+</pre>
+
+  </body>
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