CHAPTER XII

WILL IT WORK?

It is hardly worth while to waste time in replying to the objections of those who face every hard task with fear and doubt, who say it can't be done. These are the victims of inertia and their number is legion. Such friends of progress not only never help the world forward, but they clamp a brake on the moving wheels. Forward-looking and forward-moving people always have to ignore critics of this type. If they will not get out of the way then it is their own fault if they are run

over.

Pessimism, a feeling of despondency, not to say despair, must also be reckoned with. This, however, is a very different thing from the mental and moral laziness we have just considered. It is the natural reaction to the horror and enormity of the war upon the human spirit. Faith in anybody and anything has been consumed by curtains of fire. It is hard to be hopeful to-day. The tide of optimism is at its lowest ebb. But in the presence of the

valiant heroisms of soldiers in the field surely civilians should not lose courage and morale. The obstacles in the way of realising the programme of a league of nations to insure and enforce peace are not insurmountable. Some of them that now seem so formidable as we vision them in the distance, may, as we approach nearer, and engage them one at a time, surrender to determined attack.

But there are more matter-of-fact objections from more respectable sources than scepticism or pessimism. These deserve to be frankly and honestly answered.

At the outset it should be acknowledged that in industry no fool-proof machine has ever yet been invented, and that the most perfect machine in nature (the human body) was long ages in building. In municipal and national politics the most efficient machine, the one that will produce, with the least waste of friction, the greatest good to the greatest number, has yet to be invented. If we were to postpone the setting-up of any machinery for the conduct of human affairs until we were certain beyond a shadow of doubt that it could not possibly go wrong, or even until all objections were finally and completely answered, we should never get anywhere and never do anything.

Almost as many objections can be urged against democracy, against woman suffrage, against labour unions, as can be advanced in their support. Ruskin's arguments against railroads are too well known to need re-statement here. The advocacy of a measure, and whether or not it is expedient to adopt it, must be determined by weight of opinion and the possibility of finding a way to initiate the experiment. If it seems at all reasonable to suppose that the experiment which the League proposes will tend to make future wars less likely, then by all means it ought to be tried. This is the only fair and sensible test. It is not a theoretical problem in metaphysics to be debated for the sake of debate, or as an exercise in dialectical skill. The matter is too important for wordy argument.

Many of the criticisms levelled at the League's proposals are due to ignorance of what those proposals really are, or to an honest misunderstanding of their purport and implications. For the most part, these difficulties will be cleared away by careful reading of the earlier chapters of this book, and if there remain some questions which occur to the sincere inquirer, seeking to understand fully and clearly, they will in all probability be answered in this chapter.

The caption which heads the chapter raises the question of the feasibility of the idea, the practicability of the proposals. Will it work? There are several directions from which to approach the problem. Perhaps it will be just as well to come at it from all sides. Let us first look at it from the angle of the name of the project, or rather, the name of the organisation which has conceived the project and is exerting every effort to convince responsible statesmen, and the people that stand back of the governments, that it ought to be put into operation as soon as may be after the close of the present war. A League to Enforce Peacewith the emphasis on Enforce! Some object to the word "League "; some object to the word "Enforce"; and some object to the word "Peace."

The first criticism is on the word "league." Objection is taken to the fact that the programme contemplates a league of nations. This objection is important enough to warrant serious consideration. Analysis reveals the fact that it is a threefold question; at any rate there are three reasons why such a league of nations is by some considered undesirable.

The first reason given is that what is proposed is a world alliance. But this is a mistaken notion.

What is proposed is not a world alliance but a league of nations- a very different thing. Since the outbreak of the present war much has been said about the dangers which grow out of the doctrine of the desirability of maintaining groups or alliances to preserve poise. It is said that such alliances of states have more often tended to provoke than to prevent war. To estop premature action on the part of unscrupulous statesmen, representing ambitious nations, alliances have, time and again, been formed that were calculated to be so strong as to strike terror into the hearts of would-be aggressors. And, it must be acknowledged, to some extent the great European alliances have had exactly this effect. They have certainly served to postpone many and perhaps to prevent some wars. But the claim that alliances are sought in order to maintain what Sir Robert Walpole first called "the balance of power," to insure perfect equilibrium, is a romantic fiction. It cannot be necessary to argue that diplomats move heaven and earth to bring about new alliances, not for the purpose of performing a trick in acrobatics, of perfectly balancing opposing powers, but for the purpose of making the scales tip in one or another's favour in order that there will be a pre