Richmond times-dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1914-current, 1919-01-02
Well Worth 1t, If
account.

DEVISED figures of the Treasury Depart
y ment show that the cost Of the to
the United States to date exceeded S24 ,000,
oo0,OOO. That is approximately twenty-four
times the total annual expenditures of the
United States government two years before
we entered the war, and only several mil
lions less than the aggregate value of all
articles produced by American industries at
the time we entered the war. 1t is approx
matey half the national income, and the
equivalent of tax of S1,1O0 against every
family in the United States, if it had to be
paid that way. Altogether a staggering total,
but we'll worth it if its expenditure will mean
lasting peace and the removal for all time
of the menace of another such war
1t is this consideration that causes us to
face this cost, together with the immeasurably
greater cost in flesh and blood, without
shrinking. 1t is this consideration that causes
us to follow with anxiety the earnest efforts
of the President to erect with the aid of the
peace conference a new order in world
lationships which will attain the end of
permanent peace
1t was to be expected that the critics OF
the President would make much of the ap-
parent hostility of the French Premier. Gle
menceau, to the proposal for league of ma
tions. Perhaps, though, the opposition of the
French leader is more apparent than real.
He speaks of a balance of power rather than
league of nations "or concert of power
TO use the language of the President-and
yet his very next sentence would indicate that
his conception of balance of power is not
the kind Of equilibrium which characterized
the old International balance of power. For,
says he. had there been an alliance in 1914
consisting of Great Britain, France Italy and
the United States, the Kaiser would not have
dared to interrupt the peace of the world
The old type of balance Of power did not
have for its primary object the maintenance
of the peace of the world. Then it was that
group of nations having selfish interests
OF their own to conserve or to promote would
ally themselves together to circumvent the
designs of another group with equally selfish
interests. Thus each side faced each other
in spirit of ever growing hostility, and each
side became armed camp.
The fact, certified to by Pichon, the French
Foreign Minister, in the French Chamber of
Deputies on the very day Of Clemenceau's
observations concerning league of nations
! and balance of power, and previously in
dorsed by Clemenceau himself, that France
was in general accord with the other four
| teen terms of peace of President Wilson saw
! ing only the provision concerning freedom Of
| the seas, commits France in any balance of
power arrangement, against the selfish pur-
poses that formerly existed at the base of
such alliances Thus, it would seem. the
principal difference between a balance of
power to preserve peace, proposed by
! Clemenceau, and a concert of power, as pro-
posed by President Wilson, is that Clemenceau
would make his alliance exclusive with the
I! selected nations holding the policeman's club
over all the rest, whereas the President
would make his all inclusive, on condition
that each nation would give guarantees to aid
in the preservation of peace We cannot be-
lieve that the difference is an irreconcilable
one SO long as the pledged purpose of the
allies in the peace conference is to seek
the means TO a permanent peace