The Great War was ended by the Treaty of Versailles (1919), but it was a very troubled � peace � which came after it.
At different times in history men have been moved by the destruction caused by war to make attempts at pointing the way to peace. While the Thirty Years� War, which made a waste of the earlier
Germany, was going on, Grotius had, in his great book (1625), put forward the bases of International Law. Again and again others, after other great wars, gave voice to the deep desire of serious men for unbroken peace. A further step was taken when, after the bitter wars by which a number of nations made themselves free in the eighteen hundreds, meetings took place at The Hague (1899, 1907) for the discussion of ways of smoothing out troubles between nations by � arbitration,�, or the decision of independent judges. This was the first serious attempt to put � the rule of law � in operation among nations as among persons.
The price of the Great War was the loss of more than seven million persons and forty thousand million pounds ; and one of its most serious effects was the very great damage done to international trade. It is not surprising that men�s minds were again turned to ideas of uniting the nations to put an end to war.
The outcome of this desire for peace was that the Covenant of the League of Nations became part of the Treaty of Versailles (1919). History gives support to the belief that some such organization is possible and wise. In early times Rome was the ruler of all the countries round the Mediterranean ; and in the Middle Ages Christian nations were to some degree united under the Pope. A League of Nations is at the same time a natural development and a very new and untested step. The present League of nations has done good work in sometimes getting agreements between countries on questions which in earlier days might have been the cause of war,
and in getting better working conditions and helping the fight against disease all over the earth. But the League is still young and in need of adjustment, and unhappily some of the greatest and most important nations have little or no part in it. Today the chief hope of man is in an international world, based on the free development of nations, which are, however, increasingly conscious that they are responsible, not only to themselves, but to the wider society of whichthey are a part.
After about ten years of troubled peace, the Versailles Treaty System seemed to be coming to an end. There were the older States with no further need for expansion (for example, France and Britain) ; and there were the newer, less well-off States (such as Germany, Italy, Japan) which had come late into the competition for overseas colonies and markets. The newer States, and the � minorities,� made protests against the Treaty. To make things much worse, trade had become bad a short time after the War (from 1920 on), and between 1930 and 1934 it went down at a rate without parallel. The blow to industry was most serious, and all countries went through very hard times. Everywhere there were thousands of men out of work, thousands of families in need, while at the same time produce was being wasted because there was no market for it. It has been said that the value of the loss to the world�s trade in those four years (1930-34) was equal to the amount of money wasted by all countries on the Great War.
(Etc.)
( pages 273 - 275 )