League or War?
by . New York and London: Harper & Bros. 1923. 8vo. xvi+268 pp. $2.00.
PROFESSOR FISHER presents three essential reasons why the United States should join the League of Nations: (1) in order successfully to wind up the war, (2) in order to prevent competitive armaments, and (3) in order to prevent a recurrence of world wars. He shows that with a true peace league such as there would be with the accession of the most powerful nation in the world, each member-nation would Lave several restraints from attacking any other member, and that with the increasing sense of security there would inevitably be a cessation of competition in armament.
To the cynic who objects that man is a fighting animal and that therefore the effort to abolish war is futile Professor Fisher replies that biology, anthropology, and history all unite to showthat man is not primarily or naturally a fighting animal, and that war has in fact been in process of abolition from the first beginnings of law.
Most effective as indicating what the League with America in it might do is the history of what the League with America out of it has done. It prevented war between Sweden and Finland over the Aaland Islands; it prevented war in Upper Silesia between the Germans and the Poles; it prevented war between Albania and Yugoslavia; it effected a truce between Poland and Lithuania. It has established the Permanent Court of International Justice. It has started hygienic, humanitarian, and educational movements that are already of incalculable value.
Moreover, there can be no satisfactory alternative to the League. The Permanent Court of International Justice settles but does not prevent disputes. International conferences cannot act quickly enough to deal with emergency cases. Nor is the idea that the existing League can be replaced by some other League tenable. Fiftytwo nations are now members of the League, all without reservations; it is extremely unlikely that they will see any necessity to disband and reorganize.
The ‘isolationists’ say that we have always been taught to avoid ‘entangling alliances.’ Professor Fisher’s answer is that the League is not an alliance — that an alliance is always directed against some other nation or nations, whereas the League is a society of nations, for mutual peace among all its members, and not directed against any outside nation, even Germany, still — but probably not always — an outsider.
With the possible exception of England, the governments of Europe are virtually bankrupt, in spite of the fact that the productive capacity of Europe is as great as it was before the war. Not until the expenses of government are reduced enough to make possible a balanced budget can Europe recover economically — and until Europe does recover economically, American trade must suffer. America’s entrance into the League would enable the European nations to get rid of military expenditure by making peace more secure, and would contribute more than anything else to the economic recovery of Europe on which our own prosperity so largely depends.
Professor Fisher presents the case with the utmost simplicity and clearness. One who is already a convinced believer in the necessity of America’s entrance into the League wonders what line of argument an anti-Leaguer who read this book would take. Surely some ‘ irreconcilables’ would be converted. For others the League would still remain their Dr. Fell; and why, after reading Professor Fisher’s book they do not like it, they would find it more than ever hard to tell.
ARTHUR STANWOOD PIER.
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