Evening star., 1936-05-03
POLICY OF COLLECTIVE
NEUTRALITY EMERGING
Designed to Reassure Peace. of Amer.
lean Republics in Event of Euro.
pean or Asiatic War.
BY BRENT DOW ALLINsON.

~ Gently in Washington and 9TH
er American capitals. prompted by
grave apprehensions of foreign wars
and startling revelations Of the United
States Senate Committees prolonged
Investigation of the munitions indus
tries and their international opera
tions.
The fear of war and the demon
etration of the irresistible influence
of these and other interests upon
the reluctant abandonment OF Ameri-
can neutrality and peace by the VIII
son administration, in favor OF the
allied belligerents in the World
War of 1914-1918, is producing
the outlines of a new American,
and even pan-American, foreign
policy. Designed to reassure the
peace of the American republics IN
the event of European or Asiatic war,
the policy seeks to narrow the liabili-
lies and broaden the support OF a re-
yised and more honest neutrality, un-
der law If possible. But, if mterna-
tional law is too hopeleSsly confused
or vague to be serviceable, then by
mutuality of understanding and COL
,ectivity of action among the Il
American republics, it aims at an
effective defense of reasonable neutral
rights consistent with the Kellogg
BRAND pact renouncing war, and at
AN administration of justice without
benefit of law" in the telling phrase
of Dean Pound. In short, at new
cooperative and continental neutral
ity. instead of traditional and I'M
possible nationalist isolation.
The new policy is slowly emerging
by popular demand, in the face OF
academic warnings and protests Of
! the experts and professors OF inter-
national law. even as world events
have been moving with startling logic
and fatality toward a tragic repeti-
ton of the imperialist crisis of 1914.
Although that was only a European
crisis at the onset, and this is a
world crisis. emerging from world
economic depression, events have been
moving steadily toward another i'm
perialist collision and international
catastrophe.
Incredible as it seems that Great
Britain and italy should find them
selves dangerously close to war, such
Is the fact.
Were Long Friends.
For England and Italy have long
been proverbial friends and English
literature is starred with the glowing
tributes of English poets and men
and women of genius to Italy, in ad-
miration of its beauty, its costly strug-
giles for national unity and freedom
and its cultural splendor. But dc
tators, like munitioneers, flourish in
depression and crises. And most ironi-
cal of all the aspects of this moving
tragedy is the fact that it is not the
real wish of the British or Italian
peoples-nor of the imperial Tory
government of Britain, nor of many
influential men in the City of London,
and even IN the admiralty-that any
such destructive collision of the British
and Italian governments should be
permitted to occur. 1t is, rather.
certain moral enthusiasm for a sup
posed theory and mstrumentality of
peace-the theory of collective Sc
curity" of the League of Nations
which has precipitated the crisis.
Underlying it is the rash colonial ad-
venturing and political posturing of
Mussolini, designed to distract the
attention of the impoverished Italians
from their depressing economic prob
lens, together with certain growing
panic in England arising from a
realization that their frontier lies no
longer in the English Channel and
their safety no longer in their ships,
:. but rather on the Rhine, the Danube
and in the air, where there is no
safety at all.
Desire fof Peace.
Quickened by the desire of the
peoples for peace, despite their un-
certainty as to how to get it, and
by the enthusiasm of middle-class
intellectuals and professors-not in
cluding Mr.. Bernard Shaw-for the
League of Nations and its theoretical
promise. and by the detestation of
English labor and the Labor party
for the various tyrannies of Fascist
rule, the crisis has steadily deepened
as months have passed and inef-
fectual sanctions" have sharpened
the struggle, until war in the name
of peace and international law. justi-
fled as the restraint of aggression"
and the exercise of international
police power" seems now to be Just
around the international corner
Ignoring the fact that aggression"
means any defiance of the inequit-
able economic and territorial status
quo of the world. or any proposed
alteration of boundaries and resources
by resort to violence. when no other
resort has been established, this
naive enthusiasm for the machinery
sof peace" and collective security,
enforced by sanctions against an
"aggressor, appears to be the prin-
cipal cause of the immediate crisis
in the relations of England and Italy.
1t is not surprising. therefore, that at
least one prominent Englishman. with
many years of public service behind
him, and spokesman Of the laboring
masses rather than of the intellectual
classes of England. should have pub
licly repudiated the whole scheme of
the existing League of Nations and
called. as he is now calling. for new
approach to the problem of peace
through permanent international
economic conference for the re-
adjustment of colonial administrations
and the wider opening of international
markets. We refer to the Hon. George
Lansbury, M. p, for years Parlia-
mentary leader of the British Labor
party, now on lecture tour of the
United States.
Ideas and Currents.
It Is these ideas and political cur
rents, superimposed upon the far
flung colonial holdings of the British
Empire - particularly certain rigid,
legal formulae of "peace"-which have
forced the British hand, caused the
sacrifice Of Sir Samuel Hoare, and may