ONE year has elapsed since the main stress of war came to an end with the signing or declaration of the armistice. On Armistice Day, an hour before noon, in every part of the British Empire, in every latitude, and on every continent, there was a pause in the business and in the pleasures of men, and every member of the Empire ceased from his daily avocations for a brief space of time and devoted himself in silent thought to the great events which in November, 1918, saw their greatest consummation. It is not for me or for any man to try and fathom the thoughts that passed through these countless multitudes when the hour struck, and yet, surely, we may conjecture that among the thoughts that passed through their minds three, at least, were paramount.

The first was the thought for the glorious dead-the glorious dead associated in almost every man's and woman's mind with the loss of some individual or some individuals specially dear whose places were empty never again to be filled. That would be the first thought that passed through the hearts of every man and woman this morning. The second thought I

conjecture to have been one of profound gratitude for the fact that these heroes had not died in vain, but that the cause for which they died was triumphant in the end. I think the third thought, and the one most relevant to our meeting here this afternoon, was the thought that never again should humanity be allowed to go through this terrific trial. Never again was there to be this disastrous loss of life, not in the old-those who are destined in any case to pass away in a few years or months, but in the very flower of manhood of all the most civilized nations of the world. That is the thought that should dominate us this afternoon. That is the thought that has moved you to come to this room, as it has moved me to attempt to address you, for it seems to me clear as daylight that if a repetition of these incalculable calamities is to be prevented for our children and our grandchildren, it can only be through the beneficent operations of the League of Nations.

The League of Nations has had many critics, but I am not aware that among the multitude of criticisms that have been offered, any suggestion

makes its appearance for finding a substitute for that organization which we desire to see entrusted, I admit, with the great task of preserving the peace of the world. Those who criticize the League of Nations have no substitute for the League of Nations. They are prepared, it seems, for the civilized world to go on in the future as it has gone on in the past, oscillating between those scenes of violence and sanguinary disturbance, and the intervals in which great and ambitious nations pile up their armaments for a new effort. To me such an ideal appears to be absolutely intolerable, and I am not prepared, seriously, to discuss with any man what the future of the international relations should be unless he is prepared either to accept in some form or another the League of Nations, or to tell me what substitute he proposes for it.

There are those who think that the horrors of the last five years will cure mankind for an indefinite series of generations from any repetition of those abominations. Well, I think it is true that not in my lifetime, at all events, will mankind willingly plunge again into the abyss from which they have been with such difficulty extricated. But, after all, we have to think not merely of the next few years; we have to cast our eyes forward and think of the fate of those who are now young and the fate of their children, and again of their children. Memories are short. The weight of misfortune once thrown aside is apt soon to be forgotten, and you may depend upon it that if we let the critical moment pass, if we permit the instant at which all mankind is conscious of what it is that war means and that war must mean if we let that moment pass, and if we slide back into our normal condition of indifference, we shall have wasted one of the greatest op

portunities that Heaven ever gave mankind. But we are told that the project, however well meaning, or however benevolent, however consistent with all that is great in morality, has this one fatal disadvantage. They tell you it is impracticable. ‘Human nature,' say these critics, 'never changes; the world has always suffered from wars, what has been will be, the future must resemble the past, and war, which we have never succeeded in escaping hitherto, will dog our footsteps to the end of time.'

Now, I do not, of course, deny that the notion of fundamentally altering human characteristics is only the crotchet of the doctrinaire and the pedant, and that no practical statesman ought to lend his hand to any project which clearly involves a fundamental alteration in our inherited characteristics. But are we, therefore, to give up all hope of amelioration? Grant that the raw material on which statesmen and legislators work remains substantially unaltered, are we, therefore, to say that society is inherently fixed in all its old habits, be they good or be they bad? That seems to me to be a counsel not only of despair, but of foolishness.

I have noticed that the very people who tell you the League of Nations has failed, that war, after all, is a necessity, perhaps in the long run a beneficent necessity, and that in any case it is ingrained in human nature—these are the very people who tell you that we are not as good as our forefathers that in the good old days men were really indifferent to money, and really preferred their country to their private interests, and were always prepared to fight for any cause which they thought to be the cause of right. But is human nature only to go downhill? Then, if we are so much worse than our progenitors in these particulars, it

shows, at all events, that we can change. Must we only change for the worse? I take an entirely different view, not only of what the history of the past has been, but of what the history of the future may be.

It is perfectly true that you cannot change as by a miracle the hearts of men; but what you can do and what you ought to do is to make such changes in the habits of men that that which seemed natural and inevitable to their forefathers should seem monstrous and avoidable to their children. And that you really ought to be able to do. For that you have done that civilization has done in many particulars. We say with truth that, after all, at the root of society there must be the element of force, and there must be a criminal law for criminals, that the peaceable citizen must be protected by the police.

All that is quite true, but just consider the amount of work which has to be done by those guardians of society now, compared with the disorder, the crime, the recklessness, indifference to life which habitually and commonly prevailed among our not very remote ancestors. If you can do that in social life, why can you do nothing comparable to it in international life? What you have to do, and what you can do if you seize the propitious moment and use it to the best advantage, is to create such a habit of dealing with international difficulties by international machinery that the very thought of settling international disputes by the abominable practice of mutual slaughter will seem as truly alien to the views of civilized men as some of the habitual disorders under which society suffered not so very long ago.

But I do not deny that the task is a difficult one. Indeed, I belong to a school of thought which thinks that

progress is difficult to attain, and is not only difficult to attain, but is not easy to maintain. There are some who are optimistically framed, and their outlook on the world is so optimistic that they seem to think that progress is something that comes of itself and by itself without human effort, and that each stage that is conquered by this almost automatic procedure is one that will of itself forever remain. I take a different view. I think society may go back as well as forward. I think it requires, and has always required, the constant effort and the best elements in every society, not merely to improve it but to maintain it at its level. It is on that condition alone that civilization, in my judgment, is possible. But the very thoughtthe very kind of reflection which makes me anxious makes me also hopeful the very thought that without effort we may slide back assures me that with effort we can press forward. All that I ask these critics of the League of Nations is that if they can find no substitute for the machinery we propose, they will, at all events, throw themselves into the task of making it work if they can, and that they will go forward in a spirit of hopefulness and faith, and, while conscious of all the difficulties, and recognizing all the obstacles in their path, will, nevertheless, say that is the path which we must pursue. There lies peace, and with peace an improvement in our international relations which will make this date, which we celebrate to-day, the greatest date in human history.

But there are two conditions at least which must be fulfilled if the League of Nations is to be a success. The League of Nations provides the machinery, but machinery without motive power a body without a soulis utterly useless. Behind the ma

chinery of the League of Nations, if the League is to do all that it ought to do, must be the motive power derived from the wills of the peoples of the world. And their action must be founded on the common conscience. That is the first condition. Another condition is that all the Powers, and more especially the great Powers, on whose action so much in the near future must inevitably depend, should take an equal share of the burden which I do not for a moment deny that the League of Nations is going to throw

upon them.

If the description I have given of what the League of Nations may be has the slightest truth in it, do you suppose results so tremendous can be attained without some risk and some effort? Of course they cannot, and all the great nations responsible for this great undertaking should accept the same risk and be prepared to make the same effort.

If one of us begins to make reservations, I confess that I think the future of the League of Nations is dark indeed, for the reservations that one great nation makes will be copied inevitably by others. The whole sense of equality of effort will be thrown aside, solidarity will be dissolved, great statesmen will look more and more to the narrower interests which influence public opinion; more and more they will turn their eyes away from that common object which all must pursue in common, and for which all must be prepared to make some sacrifice.

Therefore, I venture to say to any friends of mine in any country who are considering their responsibilities at this great moment of the world's history, that they ought clearly to

The Telegraph, November 11, 1919

understand that unless they are prepared to bear an equal share in an equal task they are threatening with ultimate dissolution the whole of that new system which all of us in common all the great nations - most sincerely desire to see work effectually. As you know, I am but one of the speakers this afternoon, and I must pursue no further the general line of argument which moves me in this connection, and which I think has moved you to come here this afternoon and support me. I firmly believe that you are representative. I firmly believe that all the best thought in England is behind us. I believe what is at least as important is that all the best thoughts in the civilized world are behind us, and if that be so do not let us be diverted by small difficulties, technical obstacles, and petty considerations from pursuing the great lines of policy which lie before us.

Let

Now is the appointed hour. If, with the world still staggering under the effects of the terrific struggles of the last five years- if the world now is not prepared to undertake the great task which lies before it, I despair of the time coming- certainly within my experience, and I doubt whether in yours when any opportunity of a like nature will present itself. it not be said that having sacrificed untold millions of untold millions of wealth, untold millions of invaluable lives - after having won in a great struggle, and after having saved Europe from imminent disaster, we threw away the fruits of victory, and from mere carelessness and laziness we let go by that golden opportunity which once lost may never return.

They cultivated the arts and welcomed talent from all the world, so that great musicians, painters, poets, and builders found recognition here, and were received with honor.

They had the finest medical school in the world.

It was the Paris of Middle Europe, with traditions of culture and power a thousand years old in history, and built magnificently under the Hapsburgs, with splendid palaces, parks, churches, monuments, and boulevards. The buildings stand, as evidence of that former grandeur, but a change has happened in them, by the death of what used to live there.

In the Hofburg, where the Hapsburg Emperors surrounded themselves with treasures, a British Mission has its offices, with other Allied Missions, which, under the name of 'Reparation' Committees, are suggesting ways and means to keep the people of Vienna alive-and finding the task difficult.

Now it is a soup kitchen for starving children fed by American relief; and when I went there 1100 of those little ones were having their first meal of the day the only meal for most of them and saying 'Gruss Gott' before they dipped their spoons.

The broad boulevards of Vienna are still thronged by people with their heads bent to-day against the driving blizzard of snow.

The cafés and restaurants are crowded with people who come for warmth, light, music, and smuggled food, for which they pay great prices.

Many of these people are foreigners -Czechs, and Slovaks, and Croats, and Serbians, and Italians - who come like vultures to feed on the corpse of Austrian finance, changing their own money into four, five, or ten times the number of Austrian kronen.

Others are Viennese profiteers who gathered much bulk of paper money while the old empire was dying, and now are eating it up in a prodigal way, shrugging their shoulders at the future while they fill their stomachs.

Others are middle-class folk who, after a breakfast of corn coffee and black bread, a mid-day meal of cabbage soup, and a dinner of boiled cabbage, and other green stuff, come hungry into the gilded rooms of these restaurants to linger over a cup of coffee with a glass of water, while they listen for hours to light music, and under the glitter of the chandeliers get