Evening star., 1925-11-23
BY FRANK ii. SJNONDS.

Senator Borah's recent proposal
that a British agitation against the
submarine having its occasion in
the disaster to a British boat, shall he
extended to a campaign against war
itself, is one more striking example
CT the failure of the man who. by
nature and by sympathy as we'll as
| by desire. might be the leader of the
American effort to serve the cause of
peace if it was not for his determined
refusal to understand European con.
ditions.
The British agitation against the
submarine is, in itself. no more con-
cerned with peace than an agitation
against the use of alcohol in this
country. The submarine destroyed
British isolation and immunity, it
very nearly brought ruin to Britain in
the greatest war in her history. The
deadly peril was just surmounted. but
there remains the threat implicit in
the submarine. New developments
may bestow upon it the complete
deadliness it nearly had.
x i; Z:
All British effort since the war has
been directed at the abolition of the
submarine, not as a detail in cam
paign for peace, but in an attempt to
restore to Britain the supreme adj
vantage she used to enjoy in war,
namely immunity, security insured by
fleet which not alone protected her
shores from invasion but insured her
food supply. In reality the British
campaign against the submarine is a
war not n peace operation. 1t is to
restore the conditions under which IN
war Britain would be safe.
c, Ih,ooa 1-iV
stance, the fact of which was perfect
ly disclosed during the Washington
conference. The British are in the
position of the inhabitants of a city
walled by stone and impregnable to
attack while the enemy uses bows ana
arrows but vulnerable when artillery
arrives They abolish the use OF ar
tillery as the British would forbid the
use of the submarine.
But the whole episode illustrates
Senator Borah's misrepresentation of
what has actually been taking place IN
Europe and what Locarno represents:
Having for a brief moment played
with the more or less American ldea
of peace insured by the prohibition OF
war and the creation of the league
on the basis on which President VIII
son desired to establish it, Europe has
abandoned this experiment as hope
less.
1t has perceived that war can be
prevented only by force or by the COM
position of the difficulties which cause
war. 1t has perceived also that force
is a variable element and that there
fore peace created by force must be
impermanent and Unstable. Peace be-
tween France and Germany, for eX-
ample, might temporarily be insured
| by the preservation of large garrisons
on the Rhine, but the grievance thus
! created would in the end generate
force superior to that of restraint and
we should have an explosion.
Thus while Senator Borah and
many other Americans have been sin
cerely advocating peace by the prohi-
bition of war, Europeans have been
| working upon the principle that war
is only one of the last manifestations
of a disease, that to deal with this dis
ease you have to deal with causes,
| not the consequences. Thus Europe
! has, for example, reasoned that mere
| ly to inhibit war would not prevent
Franco-German conflict. To pre-
vent this war, which is a peril, per-
haps the most immediate in Europe,
you have got to arrive at a settle
] ment, tolerable adjustment between