Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-12-02
SELF-INTEREST IS THE ARM
OF AN ENDURING PEACE
1t Is That Rather Than Altruistic Illusions
Which Inspires Hope Of the Momentous
Conferences in Paris

most momentous of all conclaves is
stronger than the conflicting claims of
any of the participants. Safeguarding an
ideal are strands of the most passionate
self-interest.
For this reason the concept Of world
peace, though no less noble than when it
was a cloud-spun dream, hovers on q
possible threshold of realization. For
this reason, too, the failure of The Hague
tribunal casts no legitimate shadow of
dubiety on the coming conferences in
Paris. Universal strife of protracted
duration was inconceivable to many
minds when the Dutch peace palace was
built. The proceedings conducted there
were hence without coercive character.
The peace advocate of those days
seemed an amiabe chaser of rainbows
to a world that, save for isolated con-
tiicts, had been disturbed by no compre-
hensive clash of arms since the Napo-
leonic era. Ideals took one course,
practical politics another.
That they are to remarkable degree
fused today gives a signal substantially
to the food of hope To admit this fact
is not to disregard the formidable assort-
ment of Gordian knots which the Paris
commissioners are assembling to unloose.
New national claims, and others as
familiar. as they are fear-breeding, are
registered or reiterated daily. Emphasis
is laid on Britain's sea-power plans, on
French desire for natural eastern
boundary, on Italian designs on Albania
and certain of the Greek islands, on
Polish eXpansionist schemes, on the over
tapping aims of Czecho-Slovaks and
Jugo-Slavs, on the Russian tangles, on
Belgium's eager glances at the Dutch
Scheldt.
1t is asserted in many quarters that
a wave of imperialistic thought and a
demand for spoils is sweeping through
the victorious nations. America, exempt
from territorial covetousness, is fire.
quently regarded as dyke against a
deluge of schemes of aggrandizement.
The picture, though true, is incom-
plete. There are tremendous forces in
Europe supporting our position. More
over, although human nature is not
fattered by the spectacle, it is the num-
dane instinct of selfishness which gives
them fortitude. Victors and vanquished,
considered both as national entities and
as aggregations Of personalities, are
war-surfeited.
Conceived apart from the present
period of colossal ruin, universal, en-
during peace is indeed an ideal. View it
amid actual conditions and necessity is
its very essence. In every wrangle, and
many are inevitable, over the peace table
the passion for preservation from repe-
tition Of world wreck will either eventu-
ally assert itself or else self-nterest has
lost its empire over mankind.
Justice strictly on principle, the estab-
lishment of boundary lines drawn with
the spirit of the highest ethics, would be
scene from the millennium. 1t is folly to
expect such an exhibit. But it is not
extravagant to forecast adjustment of
| apparently formidable problems and the
| development of equitable peace safe
! guards as a result of motives which the
philosopher may rate as ignoble, but
which are ingrained, around peace tables
or upon the battlefield, in human nature
The English Minister of Public Edu-
cation has lately promised that military
! drill shall never be introduced into the
schools. 1t is reasonable to assume that
neither an inextinguishable zeal for per-
fection nor a lofty conversion to the
creed of Norman Angel was directly
responsible for that pledge. With the
Hun peril annihilated, it is transparently
evident that an internationally policed
world, in place of one competitivey
arming for an appalling waste of lives
and materials, is the only one which can
be afforded after season of titanic
destruction.
Even with her sea power England
failed to avoid the war. None but
profteering jingoes can deny that any
experiment, any league of nations, even
an imperfect one, has more practical
allurement than the old procedure.
On that tragic day in 1914, when the
war began, all France was in tears. The
weeping was not that of trepidation,
as regards ultimate victory, for the
republic was dauntless. 1t was knowl-
edge of the tragic costliness of war
which dimmed millions of eyes. Rumors
are current now that the same country
flushed with triumph, is averse to the
league of nations.
There is Gallo romanticism in such an
attitude, but with their love of heroic
gesture tthe French are among the most
hard-headed of peoples. Will they out,
weigh an attempt to prevent recurrence
of the awful losses they have under,
gone with a dangerous expansion tc