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INCE the great conflict began we

have heard much of those matters like secret diplomacy, violent treatment of the claims of nationality, unjust tariffs and the like, which have been the causes of war. Like seeds planted in good ground, these seeds have germinated and a crop of international jealousies and hatreds has been produced. These years of bloody struggle between Christian nations afford plenty of time for those who are not on the fighting front to reflect and perchance to revise their economic and political philosophy. Many of the old aphorisms and prognostications have been upset. What we were led to accept and believe before the war has been largely relegated to the scrap heap. Very well. Let us be careful not to enter upon courses that will either tend to stiffen the resolution of the enemy and so

prolong the war, or incite him, if peace is declared, to continue arming for another war.

The referendum issued by the United States Chamber of Commerce to ascertain whether commercial bodies in the United States would unite in promising to institute an economic boycott against Germany after the war, in case she refuses to reduce her military establishment, must be regarded as a questionable if not dangerous proposition. While it may appear quite plausible to minds fed up on the war spirit, it will hardly bear close analysis.

First it is a threat that after terms of peace are settled, the allied nations will try to throttle Germany while she is seeking to recover her economic balance. Is it good psychology to threaten a foe, that when he is ready to acknowledge military

defeat we will proceed to initiate economic war? With such a prospect in view will he not resolve to keep on fighting even though hunger and distress are affecting the entire realm? Again, as suggested by a member of the Foreign Trade Committee of the Merchants' Association in a recent conference, the proposal of a boycott seems to assume the continuance of the German autocracy and therefore would be an admission of our defeat. Autocracy and militarism must go down together. All are agreed upon that. It ill behooves us to tell what we will do if Germany is triumphant. We may rather ruminate upon what she will do to us.

President Wilson has declared for "the removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance." Can the United States Chamber of Commerce, in the face of this declaration, propose an economic boycott either for our own advantage or as a means of coercing Germany? The New York Times in a recent editorial suggests that, "those who think that the war of armaments sprang from the war of commerce certainly will wish that both wars may end together, so that the ending of this war may not lay the foundations for another." No nation or group of nations can, except as a war measure, afford to resort to economic pressure, for it means a continuance of the business disturbance now affecting the world at a time when every energy should

be applied to rehabilitation. Professor John Bates Clark has stated the matter quite fairly as follows:

"The policy announced at the Paris Conference is entirely fitting, as a war measure, but the sole way in which it can benefit mankind after the war is by so menacing the Central States that they will not initiate a like policy and, therefore, will not call out retaliation. The plan should never be anything else than a menace. If it were put into practice, even though Germany were helpless and compelled to submit to it, the Allies themselves would feel its injurious effects and the neutral world as a whole would feel them; and the fact that the Middle European States would feel them more keenly would not remove the evil done elsewhere. It would be chiefly efficient in making peace insecure."

It is likely that commercial leaders will follow the President and will see that however bitter the economic warfare may be during the war, when the great hour comes for a peace conference to adjudicate the world's troubles, all barriers must be swept away, the decks must be cleared and all nations must have an equal opportunity to be heard. There has been no better statement of this principle of equality than that contained in one of the resolutions presented to the United States Senate on January 31st by Senator Borah as follows:

"That if the coming peace is not to be illusory it must be inspired by justice alone and not by strategic consideration of the selfish, economic interests of the few strong powers; that the terms of peace should exclude all provisions which give any nation an advantage, privilege, or concession not equally shared in by other nations, and that hereafter when outside assistance is required by any country for the development of its potentialities the opportunity to share in this development shall be free and open to all other countries on equal terms."

SAMUEL T. DUTTON.

B

Y calling them war aims, governmental diplomacy among belligerents continues to discuss peace terms, prior to any military decision in the war. Chancellor von Hertling's reply to President Wilson, point by point, summarized in parallel columns on pages 124-5 is the chief current exhibit. It has taken a long time to get even this kind of a statement of war aims from the German Imperial Machine. The speech in which the Chancellor incorporated these specific replies held to the old tactics of insisting that "the enemy" should revise his terms some more first.

What stands out is that Germany proposes to deal separately with countries where she has made either military or economic conquest. As for the rest, a general principle like limitation of armaments is entirely discussable; yes, and when all other pending questions have been settled examination of the idea of a "bond of nations" may begin. Former Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg rather approved the idea of a league to enforce peace, we believe, with Germany as leader. In short, von Hertling makes it clear enough that not covenants or mutual guarantees, but power to get, hold, and defend is Imperial Germany's basis for war and for negotiating peace. On that basis of course there is only war, not peace. Government is still in the hands of the reactionary, military clique, who can learn only by defeat from without or within or both.

Continued parleys at Brest-Litovsk revealed the same type of feudalmilitaristic diplomacy in action. The general principle of no annexations and no indemnities having been declared acceptable ground for peace negotiations, the Germans pointed to the "war map" of territory occupied in the Baltic region and suggested that the people there shall pass upon German evacuation after the war is over. No wonder Trotzky boasted that his open policy had unmasked the real German purpose of grabbing 120,000 square miles of Russian territory.

Count Czernin, Austria's foreign minister, made an address on the same date as von Hertling. We have been unable to find in the press reports enough variations from the German diplomatic formulas to warrant the conclusion that AustriaHungary has any independent peace policy. Czernin says that to some of President Wilson's points joyful approval would be given by AustriaHungary-freedom of seas, removal of economic barriers, no economic war-after-war, reduction of armaments. A league of peoples would hardly be opposed. Other points should be qualified. It should be understood that Austria-Hungary stands by her Allies. But there is sufficient identity of aims, Count Czernin continues, on which conversations with the United States might be begun and so lead to conversations with others in behalf of general lasting peace.

Meantime the newspapers report disturbances and political strikes in many cities of both Germany and Austria-Hungary, with a consequent régime of martial law. What the

psychology of the war may be tomorrow no prophet may say. President Wilson's diplomacy has rallied the Entente Allies to a common standard clearer than ever before.

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INCE the Russian revolution broke into the course of the war, nothing done in the name of labor interests seems able to create much of a sensation. Nevertheless, when the British Labor Movement assumes to state England's war and peace terms, and not only virtually puts them up to the Lloyd George government, but plans to get an international labor conference together to discuss such terms, whether diplomats like it or not, another factor has come into the war with which Imperial militarists failed to reckon.

The British Labor Manifesto, which we reproduce on pages 120-3 of this magazine, is one of the biggest batteries brought into action during the world war. It calls for democratization in all countries, open diplomacy, abandonment of imperialism, abolition of conscription, limitation of armaments, establishment of supernational authority in a League of Nations with court, mediatory and legislative institutions, self-determination of peoples, no economic warafter-war, provisions against unemployment, an international court of claims for extraordinary individual damages in this war. On the concrete war issues in Belgium, AlsaceLorraine, the Balkans, Italy, Poland, Palestine, the Turkish Empire, and

Colonies, definite applications of such principles are declared to be necessary conditions of peace.

After this declaration Premier Lloyd George restated the war aims of the Government, January 5, in terms which reenlisted the hearty support of the Labor conferees. President Wilson's war-aims address of January 8, however, was even more strongly welcomed as British Labor's war creed, by Arthur Henderson of the Labor Party, Bowerman of the Trade Union Congress and May of the Co-operative Societies. These labor leaders issued a declaration rejoicing that Mr. Wilson had so decisively proclaimed the only kind of diplomacy that the democracies of the world can tolerate. They found in Mr. Wilson's 14 points of a peace program none upon which there is likely to be any disagreement among the allied democracies. Mr. Wilson's reference to "freedom of the seas" they praised on the ground of its lucidity and breadth of definition, saying:

"It embodies the doctrine of freedom of navigation both in peace and war, except in so far as it may be necessary to close the seas in whole or in part by international action for the purpose of enforcing international obligations violated by any nation.

"With that interpretation of the doctrine of the freedom of the seas to which the Central Powers attach such importance we are