Evening star., 1933-10-29

man populations Of Austria and Czecho-
slovakia.
In the face of such purposes. however.
the League of Nations Is powerless. 1t
can do no more in Europe than 1t could
In Asia when japanese aggression in
Manchuria was diselosed j.. ct,9e 1eiied a1
member nations, and both proved OF
not the smallest avail. II relied also
tries there was an equal desire for peace
and a similar control by the reasonable
| and peace-loving majority. The mac
curacy of this assumption has been
plainly disclosed by recent events.
What Is now going to happen Is that
rectly menaced by German purposes Will
draw together. The status quo on the
Danube will be guaranteed by the COM
mon interest of France, the Little En-
tente and Italy to preserve Austrian in
dependence The status quo on the Wis
tula will be guaranteed by common
interest of France, Poland and Soviet
Russia. which has taken fright at the
Nazi menace to Russian territory. FL
nally the status quo on the Rhine will
be guaranteed by British adherence to
the Locarno pacts and by the Franco
Belgian alliance.
Baked at Each Turn.
Thus in whatever direction Germany
turns at the moment she will be con-
fronted by. a combination of forces
which are beyond her present capacity
to overcome. She must, for the time
is faced by the obvious fact that since
her purposes menace the existence of
her neighbors, they may at any time
resort to preventive war to anticipate
her eventual attack The danger Of war
will thus be constant and, SO far as one
can see, steadily increasing, until such
time as some incident like that of Sera-
jevo fires the powder magazine.
For all practical purposes and pre-
cisely as long as German purposes re-
main what they are, the League Of
Nations Is removed from the picture
1t has lost all moral authority. all legal
influence. Japan. Russia and Germany,
like the United States are not men,
bers. Other nations are likely to leave
it soon because 1t would be absurd for
them to be restrained from action
against the German danger because of
the limitation placed upon them by
League conventions now that Germany
has gone.
Vitality Leaves League.
Great Britain and France will try
to maintain the League in being for
obvious reasons, the former because the
League is backed BY strong domestic
public sentiment and falls in with Brit
ish policy to seek by international ma
chinery rather than by direct alliance
to preserve peace. France Is interested
in the League because it can use it
as moral support for its policy, which
is purely defensive. But neither France
nor Britain will longer rely upon the
League save for purposes Of window
dressing: for them as for all others
the vitality has gone out of the Geneva
institution and only shell remains.
Is Europe on the brink of a new
war? Not necessarily. Europe has
reached q point where all hope Of Or
ganizing permanent peace by interna-
the nation whose purposes constitute
the immediate threat to peace today
lacks the means to make war success
fully and the regime now In control
must have a deadly fear Of any defeat
which would certainly cost 1t power.
Only when Germany reaches the point
where she feels able to attack will she
move. On the other hand long before
1nd those whom hon she
perior forces.
An incident can Of course bring
war from day to day. On the other
hand, no government, Nazi included
wants the war, which all perceive to
be inevitable. at the present moment
without conflict, just as the pre-war
world went from 1905 to 1914 without
that conflict which was possible dur
gter to Serajevo-
Wilson'S Doctrine LOGt,
But what should be understood In
The the Dpitsd oT @ states n Is that ,, the = whole
standing, which was at the basis Of
the League of Nations and the whole
WilSonian doctrine, has been removed
from the sphere of practical politics.
In that situation it is clear that
American foreign policy must take note
OF the European realities. The Old
World is on its way to a new war es-
sentially like the still-recent struggle
a war provoked by the ambitions of one
great people and the fears of Others
war for the balance of power. We
can get dragged into that conflict If
We insist opon messing around in the
conferences and consultations which
will hereafter take place. We cannot
persuade Hitler to give up his plans or
France, Poland and Czechoslovakia to
give up their territory. We cannot per-
suade Germany to stay disarmed or
her neighbors, justly frightened by her
program, to lay aside their weapons
We can be partisans of one side or
the other, We can be pro-French or
pro-German, but we cannot be pro-
peace. because there is no peace cause
to serve The covenant of the League,
the Kellogg pact, the Stimson doctrine
are as dead as Queen Anne for all pres
ent time. at least. European countries
are taking positions for the next war.
Both groups Of countries would like
our moral support and our material
aid, yet neither will now pay the
smallest attention to our moral ex-
hortations. We cannot be a peace
maker, but we can very easily become
belligerent. That is the situation In
a nutshell.