The Dominion SATURDAY, MARCH 29, 1919. A DREAD ALTERNATIVE

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 158, 29 March 1919, Page 6

The Dominion SATURDAY, MARCH 29, 1919. A DREAD ALTERNATIVE

Tun mighty wave of British public opinion on whose crest Mi;. Lloyd George and his Coalition Government rose the other month to a unique position of power .-übinergcd several men who possess the high gift of statesmanship,. and whose absence from the House of Commons is a loss to our Empire. One of those thus submerged 'was Mil. Asquith, who in history will live as the Premier who made the right decision in August, 1914, when the civilisation of 'the world faced a moral crisis The last mail from the Homeland shows .that • influential journals" regret the absence of Mr. Asquith- from the House of Commons, and the hope.is-express-ed that he may soon have a place there, and it is added that as a j member. of the League of Nations ho would be able .to use his high mental and moral gifts in a sphere which ho is specially fitted for. ivlii. Asquith accepted his failure at the poll without a .murmur, and, after some weeks' silence, he once more ascended the platform and delivered a most powerful and impressive appeal in favour of an association of nations, formed with the view of ending war. In London on Febru-. ary 1 ho spoke to a gathering of eight thousand people, who represented the Brotherhood Leagues of Britain, whose membership numbers -a million, on this great reform. He found a keynote--for his address in (i memorable saying ofv .Mr. Gladstone: ''The greatest triumph of our.-time will be the enthronement of the idea of public right as the governing idea of European politics." He. urged that this .idea should govern- the politics of the world ; and he pleaded that a League of Nations that would make such crimes as that of 1914 for all time to come impossible was the supremo and urgent necessity of our age. In one place ho so thrilled and awed his great audience with his description of the dread alternative to a League of Nations that one of his hearers said: "He seemed to plunge us into the lowest circle of Dante's '• Inferno, where sinners arc sealed up in ice." With deep solemnity Me. Asquith said: "We have seen terrible things indeed, but we have seen in those four years only the rudimentary application of methods and agencies unknown and undreamt ofin the campaigns of the past. Science has in these matters not only not said her last word; she is still lisping the alphabet of annihilation. If she is to be diverted from her true and humanising mission of recreating our shattered resources, of reviving our waste places, of enriching and

endowing the common life of mankind; if" she is to. be diverted for another twenty years into the further elaboration of the mechanism and the chemistry of destruction, we may as well pray for the speediest uossiblc advent of the glacial epoch. Better, far better, a planet on which human life has' become physically impossible than one on which it has degenerated into a form of organised suicide." ; Civilisation thus, according to Mr. Asquith, is at the parting'of the ways., Science, he says, lias made war suicide. Nationalism, guarded by force, has failed, and in an internationalism based on friendship Mii. AsQumrsees peace secured and science enriching and ennobling the common life of men.. Mr. Asquith's hope to-day is in internationalism. Before the war a German historian made the following gloomy prophecy: "The era of internationalism is past and will never return. It will be replaced' by a period of vigorous and ruthless assertion of national ambition— the struggle of the nations with oneanother." The student looking back on the past certainly sees that, the path of history is strewn with the wreckage of international schemes for preserving peace among nations; but these schemes were either bom out of due time or were so framed as to defeat their own ends and really incite to war. In the sixteenth century Charles V fousht for a union of States' under himself as the one Emperor, but he failed, and in his despair ho laid aside the crown and retired fo_ the cloister.. Diplomatists, philanthropists, and philosophers have drawn up their schemes. One of Henry of Navarre's Ministers «lrcw

up his scheme of a "Christian republic," in which lie asked (he fifteen States of Europe to settle their difficulties at a Council table and to wage no war save against

the Turk. William Penn, tiw Quaker reformer, drew up a scheme of a general European Parliament which would, by war on the State that, declared war, end war. Kant, the German philosopher, in his tract, Towards LnHinr/ Peace, outlined a scheme to enforce peace, butlie excluded monarchies and limited his scheme to republics. Tint these paper Utopias passed away with their writers. Diplomatists in 171H in the Peace of Utrecht sought to find a foundation for a. Society of Nations in a balance of power and a division of resources, but the annexations thus made led to war: yet this principle of a balance of power lias survived to our time. The Holy Alliance of 1811 was one of the next schemes to guard the peace of Europe, and in it Austria, Prussia, and Russia bound themselves in their treatment of their subjects, and in their treatment of other nations, to conform "to the words of Holy Scripture, which command all men to consider each other as brethren." There was no practice accompanying this profession, for each of these Powers became cruel instruments of oppression, enemies of progress, and inciters to revolution. In 1822 the representatives of these Powers met at Verona and drew up a secret treaty in which they pledged themselves' to crush representative government everywhere, and to suppress the newspaper Press, and mus preserve the peace of the world ! • England was asked to subscribe to this disgraceful compact, but she recused. The United States heard of it, and she was induced to proclaim to the world her "Monroe Doctrine," in which she pledged herself to fight for the republic in.South America whose independence was challenged by this Holy Alliance. The German professor says the, day of "internationalism" has passed away, but it is only now dawning. The Leagues of history were not Leagues of Nations, but leagues of Governments or Leagues of Despots, and they failed as they deserved to do. - The German professor can add another failure to his' list. Germany sought

to unite tlic nations under her heel, and they rose and crushed her. Austria,' Prussia, and Ilussia, that stoud for i'orce over their own or over other.peoples, are now crushed by the idol they gloried in. '.The- only hope of peace in _ the future is in a League of Nations based on friendship and yet endowed with force to put down lawlessness and injustice. There is no hope of peace in a mere balance- of power among nations and in an insane competition in building up big armies and navies. The past tells us that in that way madness iies. | Twenty years ago a military strategist argued thill war was no longer possible, because it would mean annihilation to both sides owing 10. its dcstnictiveness. It has' been ■found to be possible,'but the cost in blood and treasure staggers '.he imagination. But what will he the price of future wars'l During the last four years the killing power ■.•£ war,' through, the terrible advance of mechanics y and chemistry, . has been increased a hundredfold. Take the matter of poison gas. -Now Ihat the war is over the :Vc»i York Times reports that near 'Baltimore.there is the. largest poison gas factory 'in the face of the..earth. When the armistice was signed there we've 2500 tons of this gas, the most deadly ever made, v.aitiii" for shipment'. Each one ton container would wipe out a German city. The gas, if liberated properly, could kill every human being :in _ America. _ This poison will find its grave in '.he sea, for it has no value save for . destroying life. War thus in the future must be a haunting horror. The question stares us in the face: If there, be. no League of Nations, what.then? ~