The publication of this little book was interrupted by an incident which made me realize how easy it is for one who spends much time in trying to study sincerely a political problem to find himself out of touch with average opinion. The discovery has made me re-read what I have written. But re-reading has not led to any weakening of my expressions, rather the reverse. I wish only to make a brief general statement about the point of view from which I write. I start from the profound conviction th

A friend of mine was recently travelling in Germany in a third-class railway carriage. The engine was slow and in lack of oil. The carriages, once so clean, warm, and well lighted, were unlit, dirty, and bitterly cold. There was an air of broken nerves and misery among the passengers, and one woman was still sobbing from some indignity offered to her by a foreign official in the occupied area. Presently an old gentleman, apparently a lawyer of some eminence, broke out: "A reckoning must come. My

But the world is not merely threatened by the prospect of future wars. It is filled with wars at the present moment. There are quarrels and bickerings between most of the newly liberated states in eastern Europe; there is a war, sometimes avowed and sometimes underground, between Communist Russia and all her neighbours and rivals, a war whose tentacles reach far throughout Europe and Asia; and there are wars against the British and French in various parts of the East. Let us briefly touch upon a

Another group of wars and threats of war has its centre in Moscow. All the States on the borders of Russia—Finland, Lithuania, Poland, the Ukraine, Hungary, Rumania, the new republics of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, and the kingdom of Persia—are either at war or in fear of war or just recovering from war with Russia, or from civil war fomented by Russian agents and propagandists. Inside Russia itself, civil war has never ceased since the first outbreak of the Revolution in 1917. It is true

The war has left behind it a great number of small wars or guerrillas. Most of them have their explanation in some ordinary excess of nationalism or revenge or greed. The Serbs, intoxicated with their new greatness, are still causing war in Albania and Montenegro. The Rumanians recently invaded Hungary, in spite of all the thunders of the Peace Conference, because they had been robbed by Austria-Hungary and wanted revenge and reparation. The Hungarians have alarmed all their neighbours and force

We have considered many parts of the world and many aspects of the present world settlement to see what seeds of future war may now be germinating and what means we have of making them harmless. And in every case we are brought back to the one great creative idea which this war has produced, the League of Nations. The earlier notions of the League, as issued, for example, about the year 1909 by certain American bodies, centred upon the development of compulsory mediation or arbitration and the s

The Series published by the American Association for International Conciliation, 1-150, comprising the text of all the most important official statements, treaties, agreements, etc., dealing with International Affairs. The League of Nations Union pamphlets for Study Circles: The League and its Guarantees , by Gilbert Murray; The League in the East by Arnold Toynbee; The League and Labour , by Delisle Burns; Economic Functions of the League , by Norman Angell; Mandates and Empire , by Leonard Woo