Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1935-03-03

suffocation.
What can the League of Nations do
about this? What the Japa.iese have
done, what the Italians are doing and
the Germans are preparing to do in
wolves the mutilation of frontiers and
even the extinction Of the independ-
cree of various states in Asia, Africa
and Europe. Has the League any
power to protect these states?
Patiently not. Has it any means, moral
or material, to persuade the nations
contemplating aggression to renounce
these programs? Evidently not, as
the Manchurian affair established.
The Manchurian affair was war, the
Ethiopin conquest will mean war, the
realization of German purposes in
Middle Europe can only be attained
by successful conflict. The League
was established to prevent war and
to promote peace, but it Is equally
impotent to do either, since to fulfill
its mission it would have to be able
to coerce an aggressor or convince an
intending aggreSsor to renounce his
purpose. And means of coercion and
capacity for persuasion are both alike
absent.
Performances Identical.
In addition, while it is customary to
denounce japanese and Italian action
and German purpose, it Is plain that
what these nations are now planning
to do in Asia, Africa and Europe are
performances indistinguishable from
those of peoples who are now critical.
France conquered Morocco. Great
Britain crushed the South African
republics. even the United States
took" Panama within the memory of
living man. Now these countries are
striving to set up reign Of law in
place of reign of force, but none is
proposing to surrender what 1t took
by force.
Laying aside the Soviet Union and
considering only the six Western
powers, Great Britain, France and
the United States have created vast
empires, each of them controls huge
areas and utterly disproportionate
fractions of the territorial and ma
terial resources of the planet. These
possessions were acquired by conquest
in wars against civilized states or ma
tive tribes. We-the British, French
and Americans-have acquired all
that at the moment we think we need.
Our concern is, therefore, to prevent
future wars in which we may lose our
possessions in the same way We &C.
quired them.
But consider once more the relative
share of the resources OF the earth
belonging to 2OO,000,oOO Of Germans,
japanese and Italians. on the one
hand, and similar number of British
Americans and French. on the other
Note, also, that under the present
practices of economic nationalism both
Germany and Italy not merely are
faced by the future prospect Of a
declining standard of living, but are
experiencing the first phases Of such
decline. There is no apparent way
out for them save the way Japan has
taken, Italy is just entering upon and
Germany is preparing for.
If peoples are ready to fight rather
than endure conditions which to them
seem not only intolerable but in
equitable, there is no way to prevent
war save as more fortunate peoples
are ready to make concessions. And
what country is? Certainly not
Britain, France or the United States;
none of these countries is ready to
open its markets to foreign goods or
its fields and factories to foreign
laborers. On the contrary, what the
world is witnessing today is the
enormous expansion in ornaments of
all six powers, half preparing to de-
stroy and half to defend the existing
division Of lands and resources.
Peace Requires Sacrifice.
If the six powers held peace to be
the supreme end of policy and war the
browning evil of mankind, the League
could function. 1t could persuade the
powers pursuing dynamic and destruc-
tive policies to abandon these. It
could prevail upon the powers follow
ing static and restrictive policies to
modify these. For only by such mu-
tual sacrifice could peace be assured.
But along these lines nothing can be
done, and all that has been done so
far has been to exert an effort to
prevent war without touching the
inequalities between countries which
are daily rendering war more in
evitable.
ETHIOPIA should be lesson to Amer
lean pacif1cts and Leaguers quite as
valuable as Manchuria, for it discloses
another great power breaking outright
with all the postwar ideas OF peace
and embarking upon a war of agrees
sion which in its own eyes has also
the appearance of a war Of self
preservation. To stop that war it
would be necessary, as in the case
of Manchuria, to mobilize greater
forces, for while Italy may not now
press forward rapidly as Japan did,
she is opening the first stages in a
long operation.
American friends Of the League
continue to insist that if America were
at Geneva all would be different. But
we were at Geneva when the Man
churian affair developed and we did
cooperate with the League as closely
as If we had been a member. But
Europe was even less ready than
America to fight for Chinese unity.
And if we were at Geneva now. we
should hardly be prepared to offer
battalions or battleships, to defend
Abyssinian liberty or to interfere with
Italian lines of communication.
Could Not Prevent War.
Finally, If we should be members of
the League when Germany eventually
follows the example Of Japan and
Italy and undertakes to carve out for
herself a place in the Central Eu-
ropean sun commensurate with her
own conception Of her necessities, we
should be able to participate in the
ensuing war but not to prevent 1t.
We could not prevent it because no
people prefers peace with inequality to
war in which at least the promise OF
escape exists But American pacifists
and Leaguers will not believe that
japanese and Italian actions and
German preparations and policies
mean what they say. They will not
face the fact that these three peoples
mean business. have rejected all the