Indiana daily times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1914-1922, 1920-01-02
,,URE DARK IF
sAGUE FALLS,
Nays BALFOUR
Reservations Would Kill Vic
tory Fruits, Opinion of
Diplomat.
OFFER NOTHING BETTER

Nv RT. HON. ARTHUR j. BALFOUR,
Lord President Privy Council, ex-Prims
Minister, ex-FOreign Minister, ex-Peace
Delegate.
LONDON, Jan. 2-The league OF ma
tons has had many critics, but 1 am
not aware that. among the multitude of
criticisms that have been offered any
suggestion makes its appearance for find
ing q substitute for that organization
which we desire to see intrusted, I adj
nit, with the great task of preserving
4 the peace Of the world. Those who criti-
else the league OF nations have no substi-
tute for the league of nations. They are
prepared, it seems, for the civilized world
ta go on in the future, as it has gone on
5eH the past, oscillating between those
l scenes of violence and sangutnary dis
tilrbarce and the intervals In which great
and ambitious nations pile Ut their arma-
ments for new effort To me such an
ideal appears to be absolutely intolerable,
and / am not prepared, seriously, to dis
cuss with any man what the future OF
the international relations should be I'M
less he is prepared either to accept in
some form or another the league of ma
tions. orAto tell me what substitute he
proposes for it.
LOOK FORWARD.
HE URGES.
There are those who think that the
horrors of the last five years viii cure
mankind for an indefinite series of gen
erations from any repetition of those
denominations. Well, 1 think 1t is true
that not in my lifetime, at all events, with
mankind willingly plunge again into the
abyss from which they have been with
such difficulty extricated. But, after
all we have to think not merely for the
next few years. We have to cast our
eyes forward and think of the fate or
their children, and, again, of their chill
dren Memories are short. The weight
Of misfortune once thrown aside is apt
soon to be forgotten. and you may de-
pend upon it that if we let the critical
moment pass, il we permit the instant at
which ali mankind is conscious Of what
ST is that war means, we shall have waists
ed one of the greatest opportunities that
heaven ever gave mankind.
BAT we are told that the project,
however we'll meaning, or however bene-
fltial, however consistent with all that is
great in morality, has this one fatal
disadvantage. They tell you it is I'M
8 practicable. Human nature" say these
Acrltics. ''never changes. The world has
AiBays suffered from wars. What has
Aean will be; the future must resemble
fast, and war, which we have never
slleceeded in escaping hitherto, VIII dog
our footsteps to the end of time.
BSOCIETY FIXED
TlTN OLD HABITS.
Grant that the raw material on which
statesmen and legislators work remains
Substantially unaItered, are we, there
fore. to say that society is Inherently
q Rxad in all its old habits be they good
az be they bad? That seems to me to be
. counsel not only of despair but OF
Afoolishness. I have noticed that the very
peopJe who tell you that the league or
y nations is folly; that war, after all, Is
q necessity, and perhaps in the long run
\ beneficial necessity, and that in many
ases it is ingrained in human nature
these are the very people who tell you
hat we are not as good as our fore1a-
hers we're.
But is human nature only to go down
hin3 Then, If we are so much worse
han our progenitors in these particulars
t shows, at all events, that we can
.hange Must we only change for the
! vorse? 1 take an entirely different view,
4 not only of what, the history Of the tu-
Snre nay be. 1t lis perfectly true that
vomf~ can not change as by miracle the
sshrts of men, but what you can do, and
lTIhat you ought to do is to make such
Aanges in the habits of men that that
which seemed natural and inevitable to
their forefathers seems monstrous ana
ayoidable to their children, and that you
really ought to be able to do. That you
have done-that civilization has done In
many particulars. We say with truth
n that after ali, at the root Of society, there
must be che element of force; there must
he q criminal law for criminals, and that
~. vi ri DrOtecTe0
the police.
SLAUGHTER ALIEN
TO MODERN VIEW.
All that is quite true, but just con-
slider the amount of work which mas
! to- be- done by those guardians of So
ciety now, compared with the disorder,
The crime, the recklessness, Indifference
% life which habitually and commonly
prevailed among our not very remote
ancestors. If you can do that in social
life why can you do nothing comparable
10 1t in international life? What you
have to do. and what you can do, if you
seize the propitious moment and use 1t
10 the best advantage. is to create such
a habit of dealing with international diff
aculties by international machinery that
the very thought of settling international
disputes by the abomlnab1e practice OF
mutual slaughter will seem as truly alien
to the views of civilized men as some of
the habitual disorders under which So
ciety suffered not so very long ago.
But I do rot deny that the task is g
difficult one. Indeed, belong to a school
Of thought which thinks that progress
is difficult to attain, and is not only
difficult to attain, but is not easy to
maintain. There are some who are op
timistically framed, and their outlook on
the world is so optimistic that they seem
10 think that progress is something that
comes Of itself and by itself without
human effort, and each stage that Is
conquered by this almost automatic pro-
cedure is one that will of itself forever
remain. take a different view. think
society may go back as well as forward.
think It requires, and has always re-
quired, the constant effort and the best
elements in every society, not merely to
improve it, but to maintain it at its
8 level. It is on that condition alone that
civilization, in my judgment, is possible,
But the very thought-the very candid