Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-11-11
Continued From First Page

the urgency and reach of its needs may
fasLen such burden of debt upon even
the victorious nation as to leave the
latter paying the tribute of economic
defeat.
The industrialization of war has not
only changed the nature of its activities
it has, at the same time, robbed war of
its original purpose BY making it no
longer a straightforward single, directa-
bic operation. in which the victories of
generals on the battlefield merely secure
the forced assent of defeated enemy to
the will of the conqueror While there
Is still this element of military decision
on the battlefield in modern war. ulti-
mate success or failure must take into
account as we'll the entire economic
strategy and the losses or gains in in
dustrial resources or financial obliga
tons which must be measured up
against gain or loss of few miles of
territory.
Thus modern war reaches backward
as Ii moves forward, and in its involve
ment of the entire economic life of
nation it is incalculable in direction. the
more incalculable the more civilized
and developed the nation is.
Supreme Lesson of War.
This is the supreme lesson of the
World War: that war is no longer
pertinent and disable instrument of ma
tional policy, that it escapes direction
and control therefore its conscious pre-
meditated Use by statesmen for the at
tainment Of national purpose or the
realization Of policy Is no longer JuSti-
fable because no longer pertinent.
War is an instrument of national
policy" This phrase, which goes back
to the military schoolmaster of Ger
many, ClauSewitz, can no longer be
planned or used as in the simple, pre-
machinery days when war simply moved
along the track of marching armies and
diplomacy gathered up the fruits of VIC
tory in the seizure of the occupied land
or the tribute of the beaten foe. And,
as only supreme necessity or assured
success could in any event justify the
use of an instrument so cruel as this
last remnant of barbarism. there is no
longer any justification left for the use
of war as an instrument of national pol
icy among the highly civilized nations
where war would be of the nature that
has just been described.
1t is, therefore, not mere moral ges-
ture when the man who was prime min
loIcA VI IIlc odbIIC Va
Verdun proposals M. BRAND has now
done-that the civilized nations def
nitely proceed to the remuneration of
war as an instrument of national policy.
Mr.. Kellogg'S persistent diplomacy en-
bodies this offer in the multilateral
treaty signed on August 81 last as the
Pact of Paris" 1t is the political state
ment of the fundamental lesson of the
war.
Pact Held Justified.
Viewed in this light. the pact of Paris,
while only a statement of general prin-
ciples, is both justified by history and
valid in POLITICAL theory. Critics during
the EegotiationS-and I have been one
of them-sought at the time to secure
a statement in more definite terms, so
that 1t should not be taken for either
too much or too little by those inter-
preting it. But. in matter of this kind
which affects one way or another the
whole sphere OF international relations.
all that is absolutely necessary is a full
and frank agreement upon the prin-
cipleS involved, leaving the development