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Fm Corer ka Sita ST ile £ “an ominous background full of shadows and uncertainties,” and that con- fidence between nations was more lacking than ever. There is something mov- ing behind the footlights — it is the inevitable forces of national life which ©. ~~ often elude detection until they have begun to write their decrees. 1fi TESPect international Matters, Wie Word nas not changed, the rient has not changed, Europe has not changed. The nations were never so heavily armed in peace times as in the fifteenth year after the signing of the Armistice. Nearly five billion dollars are annually extorted from impoverished peoples in ~ preparation for another war. National frontiers in many instances areineffect se attle-fronts. The issues between certain leading Powers are as inexplicable --.--- --*- and irreconcilable as they were before the conflict began. The old system of the =~ «7 balance of power is again coming to dominate the European continent. ~~ Diplomatic moves bend to its delusive assurances. The Corridor, the City of Danzig, Upper Silesia, the problem of the minorities, Manchuria in the Orient, the vindictive judgments of the peace treaties, the inequality of nations, now the cornerstone of international law in Europe, all these problems, truculent and inexorable, serve to keep Europe armed and vigilant, and to warn us again and again that the reign of internationalism has not yet arrived. They . —- . -—- are European problems arising out of conditions centuries old. The outside world cannot reach these problems. To make an attempt to do so would oe ignite the powder mine. \ The answer to nationalism, it is insisted, is the nearness of all peoples by reason of modern invention and improved methods of transportation. Europe is now at our door, it is claimed, and Asia just around the corner, We therefore cannot be indifferent to their problems. We must have a part in all that con- cerns them, nearness makes their affairs our affairs. This matter of nearness seems to play strange pranks sometimes. It has certainly run counter to the expectations of many in the last twenty years, although we might have been well advised, since it had been doing the same things in crowded Europe for a thousand years. Nearness has not begotten there a common interest or a com-. mon purpose or even friendly relations. It has not mellowed the individuality of nations or fostered and strengthened the spirit of codperation. It has not induced the belief that because of nearness there should be less of the national spirit. It has not put an end to war or rendered it less likely to occur. On my father’s farm, with no other dwelling nearer than two miles, and in soine directions nearer than twenty, the doors to our home were never locked. If there was a key on the place, I never saw it. In our great apartments of today, with a multitude of families within easy reach, we have locks which lock themselves, and it is my feeling that even if these families were Japanese, Chinese, Italian, French, or Russian, instead of America'ns, we would still keep the self-locking locks on the doors. Familiarity does not necessarily breed respect and propinquity does not ordinarily beget confidence. Europe is as far away today, likewise the Orient, in everything which makes for the community spirit, for social understanding, for political accord, as it was when the greatest of political philosophers, the most profound student of Europe this country hae ever known. inined with the wisest of nolitical leaders nm warning the has ever known, joined with the wisest olitical leaders in warning the American people against entangling alliances of any kind. It is one of the crowning glories of the world that we have different peoples