Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-12-18
FEAR OF WAR AROUSES
"'PEACE PANIC" IN BRITAIN
Enelishman Feels He Is Real Victim of
Last Conflict-Masses Want No
Naval Race With l.. S.

ent popular state Of mind is not no
iitiCal, but national. In no country
can one find 50 impressive a. demond
for leadership. One hears so dis.
/ tinguished a soldier as Field Marshal
Sir William Robertson denouncing
war in terms which would sound ex.
cessive from an approved pacifst,
while journals which have long been
/ famous for their jingoism are preach
/ ing peace in a fashion which would
once have exposed Little England"
newspapers to public denunciation.
When Lloyd George, who remains
the best political weather vane in Eng
/ land. told his fellow countrymen that
! Europe was heading straight for
new war, he told them what they
already believed His speech was not
so much significant as warning as
an expression of the British public
/ opinion at the hour.
British Are Alarmed.
/ Frankly, it seems time that the
/ British are far more alarmed than
/ the Germans, the French or many
other people who live much nearer to
/ the scene of possible hostilities. In
deed, such investigation as | have
/ been able to make in recent months on
! the continent Convinces me that Brit.
/ ish apprehension is not impossibly eX-
/ aggregated, in so far as immediate
/ dangers are concerned. The French
prophets who suggest new Catas'
trophe in 1885 seem far better visioned
| than the British who suggest 1928.
1t does seem to me that the British
| public are dead right on the main
fact that the European situation is be-
coming more dangerous and difficult
| than at any time since the war. They
are right in their belief that the old
| system of alliances and oppositions Is
| reproducing itself with new align
ments.
| Fourteen years after the outbreak
of the World War, we have come
| again to a situation where some Incl
| dent in an obscure corner of the Bal
kans might set Europe on fire. While
| it is probable that for the present any
disturbance would be localized and
checked these causes of war are be-
! coming established. The Polo-Lithua-
MAN dispute the ugoslav-Italian, the
| Russo-Rumanian are acquiring all the
| dignity and menace which once at
| tached to Franco-German relations,
! Austro-Russian and Turco- Balkan.
| This fact the man in the British
street has appreciated better than any
one else, because he has arrived at the
I
| that he was the big victim of the last
conflict. And he knows that any
! fight will involve new ruin for him.
Called UnimpOrtant.
! As for the Anglo-American naval
dispute, I confess that at close range
it does not seem very important. The
mass of the British people will not in
my judgment back their government
in any provocative policy which could
insure real rivalry and actual bad
feeling. The average Englishman
will not accept new burdens, fresh
taxes, greater hardships to permit
further naval constructions which he
regards as unnecessary.
You find the British press full of
expressions of opinion as to the right
way to deal with America. j. L.
| Garvin, Lord Cecil, Wickham Steed
and scores Of others are to be heard.
There is none of that easy and rather
| irritating dismissal of the whole
American issue as irrelevant and I'M
| important which was characteristic
of other times. Nobody understands
us very well, few like us overmuch
| but the American fact is there, solid,
immutable, and the necessity to I'M
derstand it is conceded. So far from
being closed on the naval issue. the
/ British mind is open, wide open, as
it was not before the Geneva confer
ence.
| have been coming to London year
after year with absolute regularity
during and since the war. But l
confess the England which l see to-
day is astonishingly different from any
L have ever seen, just as what my
friend called the peace panic" was
/ Ii e.
nomenOn. The England of today is
not merely peaceful. but passionately.
violently, almost vindictively peace
| full.
And. as / have tried to make clear.
| this peace panic" is not the conse
quence of any transient emotion.
! 1t is the direct and the ultimate
I consequence of very great and very
! general human suffering, in itself the
manifest result of the last war.
/ tCopyright. 1927