Evening star., 1926-06-20

n order that the people of the
world may be able to secure last
ing peace, the first essential is
L that they shall regard the under
taking as practical one, to be
carried through by practicable meth
, DDS. 1t is the duty of every person
/ to do his utmost to promote the cause
of peace; but to try to promote it by
timpracticable methods would be who'll
ly futile and might be wholly danger
Gus.
One of the first steps necessary will
| be for the people to fix in their
minds the fact that the nations of the
world are actual individuals; that each
nation is an individual in the family
OF nations, just as distinctly as any
man or woman is an individual in a
city.
! In order to realize how tine members
of the family of nations may preserve
| peace among themselves. 1t is well to
realize the methods by which the indi
vidualS of city maintain peace
among themselves. If we think about
this few minutes, we see that the
| individuals of a city maintain peace
| by means of policemen. There never
has been n city in the world, so far
| as we know, in which peace has been
| maintained without policemen. The
policemen, of course, are merely the
| instruments of the law, charged with
| the enforcement of the law. In every
| city, in every nation, we see agencies
preserving the peace by framing and
enforcing laws.
Many examples show the necessity
for the executive authority to enforce
the law. Possibly. the most clear cut
in recent times was the example of
Boston, when the policemen went on q
strike in 1919. Secretary Weeks has
stated that, in the night which fol-
lowed, Boston went back 200 years.
Virtual anarchy ensued. The protec-
tion of the police being withdrawn,
there being no force to carry out the
law against violence, violence resulted
Fortunately. the men of Boston were
of the virile type: with the result that
they quickly formed themselves into
a volunteer police force and kept
violence down, in measure.
But among the nations there is no
police force. Unless a police force
of some kind can be created it is diff
cult to see how the nations can insure
peace. OF course, the time e-honored
methods of diplomacy and arbitration
can be continued and do immeas sur
able good. But those methods, al
though they have been practiced for
several hundred years, have never
been able to insure peace over long
periods. Still less have they been able
to insure permanent peace, any more
than the resources of medicine have
been able to insure permanent life.
x y X
The evils of war are so heart-rend-
ing that the world has been endeavor-
ing for thousands of years to prevent
it; but, nevertheless, certain nations
have disturbed the peace at frequent
intervals by advancing certain claims,
and endeaVoring to secure them by
force. If we look at the history of the
world analytically, we see that the
most important events have been
wars; and we also see that, while the
immediate causes of those wars seem
to have been largely emotional. yet
the bottom causes were not emotional
at all, but almost wholly material In
fact, if we look into the events that
led up to any war, we find, if we
search long enough, some distinct ma
terial gain that one party to the war
was trying to secure, and that the
opposing party was trying to prevent
1t from securing.
One illustration may be mentioned
out of thousands. the World War
There is an impression in the minds of
some people that this war was
brought about by desire for military
conquest on the part of Germany
Yet, If we realize that Germany had
virtually nothing to gain by war with
Russia or France. and that she had
a great deal to gain by instituting
composition for foreign commerce with
Great Britain, while Great Britain saw
her ascendency on the sea threatened
by that competition. we see in that
competition for material gain a much
more reasonable cause
X
Admiral Mahan had proved in his
book, The Influence of Sea Power on
History" $500, that militaristic meth.