The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1919-06-27
BY the Right Hon. Lord Robert Cecil,

ence In bringing the League OF Ma
tons into existence. During the war
he held office, first as Undersecretary
for Foreign Affairs and then as Min
lister of Blockade.)
believe that the League of Ma
tions will succeed.
The large class of men whose wis
dom consists in t-blanketing the
aspirations of others as foolish and
impracticable have one principal ar
gument to prove the contrary.
They say that on other occasions,
and particularly at the end of the last
general war in 1915, attempts were
made to establish by treaty reign
of universal peace.
Tie new covenant of the league,
they tell US, will be like those old
agreements paper bulwark against
weapons of steel.
But between that time and this the
greatest political change has happened
that the world has seen. Now, for
the first time in history, the great
masses of the peoples exercise the de-
Gliding voice in their national policy.
The new league was born, not in
the minds of a small governing class,
but in the hearts Of the people.
From that unique circumstance of
its origin springs the legitimate con-
fidence that the league will endure.
For it is the resolution of the people
which is the keystone of the arch.
While that holds no pressure can break
it; when that goes no buttress can up
hold it.
All the same it would be well to ex-
anime some of the dangers which the
league las to face.
However stringent the covenant to
which the nations set their hands, the
spirit of Junkerism and Chauvinism,
if they survive the war, would still be
a great danger to the peace of the
world. If they survive, whether as a
dominant policy of future govern
ments or as the dominant creed of
one or two great peoples, they will
be standing threat to the success of
the league.
Nevertheless, the league will not be
at the mercy of one or two intriguing
governments as the peace of the world
was at the mercy of the Central En-
pires in the decade that preceded the
war.
The path of the Junker will hence
forth be full of obstacles and pitfalls.
For there will be established ma
chinery by which all questions of for
eign relations are brought into the
open, and a council and conference
of States, which will act as clear
ing-house for all the difficulties which
arise between nations.
Other limitations, too, will be plac-
ed upon the activities of those who
might still be ready for selfish ends
to risk bringing upon the world a
catastrophe in which our civilization
would assuredly perish.
There is every reason now to hope
that the next few years will see a
swift and continuing reduction Of ar
maments. We shall very soon reach
the stage when ornaments will have
ceased to constitute the immensely
powerful interest in social life that
they were before the war.
No government will in the future be
able, by forcing the pace of prepara-
ton, to terrify the world into the
state of mind in which the tension is
so great than in the end an explosion
becomes inevitable.
And there is the further safeguard
of publicity-publicity in ornaments,
publicity in international arrange
ments. No greater source of danger
existed in the past than secrecy in
these two matters.
This publicity will enable the league
to win to its support all the pacific
~, ar tLnA &c 10 oil IN naf
popular parties of democratic state
against an intriguing government
that seeks to involve it in war for an
unjust or trivial cause.
do not fear, then, the disintegra-
ton of the league through the unjust
and criminal Vaccinations of any one
or two of it's more powerful members.
Nor do | fear, in the second place,
that the league will be destroyed by
a secretly planned and brutally eff
fected act of treachery such as Ger
many committed in 1914.
Germany, had everything in her ia
vor, and she failed, and her miseries
will be for a remembrance to aggres-
sors for generations to come.
And any State that wishes to break
hereafter the peace Of the league by
a sudden and secret attack will have
to take into account weapon that
Germany did not reckon with, wea-
pom of immense power that the league
will instantaneously apply against it
This weapon is the immediate and
universal boycott and blockade which
the covenant ordains against aggres-
sors, and in which the whole of the
rest of the world will take part.
The experiences of the war have
taught most governments to realize
more clearly than the public does
what an overwhelming powerful
thing it is and l have the greatest
confidence in it's restraining force.
In all this l have assumed that the
League of Nations will shortly include
every civilized State. This / believe
to be an essential condition of its sue.
cess. There are certain difficulties
it is true, in the way of Immediately
admitting our late enemies, and Ger
many in particular. But we must MOI
allow resentment to blind our eyes tx
expediency.
Admission to the league is from on,
point of view a privilege; from an
other it is an assumption of duty ant
a recognition of obligations. Tit
of l.. E.