p. 9 | Note and Comment

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 24, 1911

Note and Comment

Peace Among Nations

Speaking of the efforts of Mr. Carnegie and other peace advocates to bring about national disarmament, America of August 5 makes the following sensible comments:—

While we admire the zeal of those behind the world's peace movement, we must recognize that universal peace is not among the feasible things the world's condition to-day allows us to hope for. We have not reached that stage of national development where, much as the thought may appeal to one, war is impossible or out of the question. Perhaps men may come so to love justice that the dream of a permanent court for the settlement of international disputes will be effectively realized—but it requires no deep study of the selfishness of nations to satisfy one's self that the happy day has not yet dawned.

Much point is being made by the peace advocates of the peace treaty which has recently been proposed between the United States and Great Britain; but Great Britain by no means proposes to maintain peace at a sacrifice of national prestige, nor does she anticipate cutting down her naval appropriation or equipment or abating her naval program one iota. Mr. Lloyd George, chancellor of the exchequer, in a recent address at the Mansion House in London, said:—

I believe it essential in the highest interests, not merely of this country, but of the world, that Great Britain should at all hazards maintain her place and prestige among the great powers. Her potent influence has been many times in the past, and may yet be in the future, invaluable for the cause of human liberty. It has more than once in the past redeemed Continental nations, who are sometimes too apt to forget that service, from overwhelming disaster and even from national extinction.

I would make great sacrifices to preserve peace. I conceive nothing that would justify the disturbance of international good will except questions of the gravest national moment; but if a situation were to be enforced upon us, in which peace could be preserved only by the surrender of the great and beneficent position that Great Britain has won by centuries of heroism and achievement—by allowing Great Britain to be treated, where her interests were vitally affected, as if she were of no account in the cabinet of nations—then I say, emphatically, that peace at that price would be a humiliation intolerable for a great country like ours to endure.

America truly adds that this “is not a message that will give much cheer to the enthusiast who looks for the speedy realization of universal peace in the world.” That there might be universal peace every child of God might devoutly wish. But when the Scriptures of truth plainly declare that such conditions will not prevail, and that the nations of earth will move steadily forward in preparation for the battle of the last great day, and when the conditions before our very eyes indicate that they are doing this, and that the Scripture is meeting its fulfilment, why be deceived by the siren song of peace and security? Better indeed to open our eyes to the realization of whither we are drifting and the times in which we are living. Thus only can we be prepared for the events which are coming upon the earth.