The Peace that is no Peace

The Peace that is no Peace

BY DR. JOSEPH M. TANNER

A man in Wall Street the other day was heard to say, "That

war in the Balkans is ended, and Europe now rests in peace."

The great national treasury departments in the governments of

Europe have relaxed from their policy of hording gold, and are

permitting vaults to open a little so that money might be turned

into circulation for the benefit of the people. The relief which

is felt is rather from the cessation of this hording policy than

from the outward flow of gold. What makes the present situa-

tion so critical is that along with increasing national indebtedness

there is an increasing hording by governments of money, the

world's standard money, gold.

Every actual war, indeed every war scare, increases the

hardships of the great masses whose existence every year depends

more and more upon the free and easy circulation of money. The

farmers are decreasing in proportion to the consumers who prefer

the opportunities of the city to the toil of the farm. Then, too,

it must be remembered that the farmers, like business men in the

commerce of our country, are growing more dependent yearly

upon the free circulation of money. Every war scare, to say

nothing of war, brings its distress upon almost every man, woman

and child in the land. Formerly wars did not hurt us if they were

not close at home. About the cry of war we were not concerned.

That condition is all changed. The interruption of business in

one part of the world makes itself felt all over the glode. We are

our brothers' keepers as we have never been before. The right

of the people in any part of Europe to fight effects materially the

right of the people in this land to enjoy a comfortable existence.

Whether, therefore, war today is carried on in the papers or in

the battlefields, we are all made indirectly to suffer.

The peace of Europe is not lasting. In the nature of things

it cannot be lasting. We are constantly thinking of war, we are

talking of war, and there is an old, old fallacy that somehow or

other war brings good times to those actually engaged in it.

There are many scores to settle, alleged wrongs to avenge.

Russia has not forgotten her humiliations. Russia's monu-

mental effort at this time to make herself the first military power

of the world is not the result wholly of her humiliation by Ja-

pan. When, after that conflict, Russia was comparatively pros-

trait, she suffered humiliation at the hands of Germany and Aus-

622 tkPfeOVfiMENT ERA

tria, which she has not forgiven, and which she is not likely to

forgive until she has tested her ability to avenge herself in a pass-

age at arms. Russia is, therefore, today one of the greatest

menaces to the peace of the world. In the south, Bulgaria is not

satisfied. She entered the Balkan wars the strongest and proudest

of all the allies. She won great glory on the fields of battle. She

was crushingly humiliated by the treaty of Bucharest. If the

Bulgarians have always in a measure hated the Greeks, they

hate them doubly so now. Almost every Bulgarian cherishes the

coming of that day when every particle of dishonor which he

feels shall be wiped out. To wipe out that dishonor, to regain

national respect, means war with Greece. That war may be post-

poned while alliances in southern Europe are brought about. A

curious world is watching the diplomacy of Bulgaria. The for-

mation of new alliances and of strange bedfellows are being

made they will lie down behind bolted doors. One of the signs

;

of the times is the constant happening of the unexpected.

This is an age of electricity.A spark may be swept through

the air. It may be extinguished in the winds of heaven, or it may

be carried to some heap of war material that will explode into one

of the most dreadful wars the world has ever witnessed. His-

torians have now come pretty well to agree that the war of all

wars is yet to come, that human destruction on the battlefield in

the past has been comparatively nothing with what the world

is seriously awaiting. We never know. We lie down at night

to enjoy dreams of peace, and we may wake in the morning to

hear the bugle call of battle.

We are getting ready to fight. It is a part of military strat-

egy to be ready to fight on the shortest possible notice. To be

ready to advance battalions on the battlefield within an hour is

the ambition of every military strategist. We are rapidly being

burdened by conditions that are fast becoming unbearable. These

conditions cannot last forever. From this, human wisdom finds

no escape. The bands of oppression cannot be lifted. It is argued

they can only be broken. To break them means explosion, up-

setting all the stable conditions of society and involving ourselves

in deadly struggle. A break will come, who can doubt it? Are

we, therefore, not concerned more with what shall be done with

the remnants of our broken life, national, social, and individual,

than with the possibility of our present existence? Look at the

situation as you will, there is no escape from deadly perils to our

national and social life from which no man offers even a sug-

gestion of relief.