Towards an enduring peace : $b A symposium of peace proposals and programs 1914-1916
History
Towards an enduring peace : $b A symposium of peace proposals and programs 1914-1916
Peace; World War, 1914-1918 -- Peace
As for the League of Europe, surely no one here would wish to obstruct
the plan. But if the League is to be based on nothing more realistic than
an absence of governmental thinking, it will be a very precarious league.
Every argument advanced by Mr. Dickinson is based on the assumption of
absolute free trade in the world, yet in his plan of peace he says not
one syllable about how tariffs and discriminations and monopolies are to
be wiped out. The conflict between Germany and England is world-wide, yet
Mr. Dickinson is thinking only of rectified frontiers in Europe.
When he proposes so readily a League of Europe with a police force to
carry out its jurisdiction, has he considered the possibility of civil
war within the League? If Germany and Austria rebelled against the
League, they would presumably be attacked on all sides. But they are
now attacked on all sides. We had on this continent a league of States
with a central government, a Supreme Court, and an army. In 1861 some
of the States seceded, and the struggle which followed, called a Civil
War, was a terrible conflict. Has Mr. Dickinson faced the fact that a
League of Europe would be based on the _status quo_, would be a sort of
legalization of every existing injustice? And how does he propose to
amend peacefully the constitution of Europe if some nation objects too
seriously?
_The New Republic, Jan. 2, 1915._
THE MORROW OF THE WAR
OUR PURPOSE
[Sidenote: In time of war, prepare for peace.]
This country (Great Britain) is at war, and has for the moment one
overwhelming preoccupation: to render safe our national inheritance.
The Union of Democratic Control has been founded for the purpose of
trying to secure for ourselves and the generations that succeed us a
new course of policy which will prevent a similar peril ever again
befalling our Empire. Many men and women have already joined us holding
varying shades of opinion as to the origins of the war. Some think it
was inevitable, some that it could and should have been avoided. _But we
believe that all are in general agreement about two things: First, it is
imperative that the war, once begun, should be prosecuted to a victory
for our country. Secondly, it is equally imperative, while we carry on
the war, to prepare for peace. Hard thinking, free discussion, the open
exchange of opinion and information are the duty of all citizens to-day,
if we are to have any hope that this war will not be what most wars of
the past have been—merely the prelude to other wars._
[Sidenote: The program.]
Our contribution to this necessary discussion are the principles put
forward for consideration by the Union of Democratic Control.
_The Union of Democratic Control has been created to insist that the
following policy shall inspire the actual conditions of peace, and shall
dominate the situation after peace has been declared_:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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