Security

SECURITY. (The following article is an authoritative state ment of M. Jules Cambon of the French point of view, which is the chief practical factor in the European controversy on this subject.) The question of security dominates contemporary poli tics. After a war which set the whole universe aflame, the nations have only one preoccupation, and that is to avoid its return. The history of the ten years after the war is only the history of efforts—more or less fortunate—to prevent this danger. Sur prising it may well be that it should be so difficult for Govern ments to achieve the purpose though at one in their aim ; and that they have been unable to reach an understanding as to methods. The truth is that though the nations desire to ensure their security, each one of them has its own particular view; and the word security does not represent to them all exactly the same thing. A Lorraine peasant, an English working man, the grand son of an emigrant in the far west of America, may be equally desirous of peace, but in their minds they do not conceive it in the same way ; and the conditions for its realization are different in their eyes.

Different Aspects.

In continental Europe, where the nations have so often seen their fields ravaged by the enemy, and where the frontiers have been incessantly changed according to the for tunes of war, to ensure security means guaranteeing a country against invasion. But England, on the contrary, has suffered no invasion for centuries, and its territorial integrity cannot be brought into question. Security, therefore, in the eyes of the Eng lish people, is the certainty of a naval supremacy which alone can assure the feeding of the country and efficaciously protect its ties with the other parts of the Empire. As for the United States, two oceans protect them from any serious encroachment. Moreover, the vastness of the American continent, and the variety of its agri cultural and mineral products, relieve them from every appre hension as to the subsistence of the population. They will never lack the primary resources and one imagines that the word "secur ity" signifies to the citizen of the United States the protection of freedom of commerce, of industrial output, and of the country's economic power.

Thus, every nation has a different conception of security; and since nations, as a rule, live in a state of mutual misunderstanding of their essential needs, they readily accuse each other of impe rialism, or of blind egoism. Their interests, however, are inter woven, and their community of interest grows with the progress of civilization. The result is that there is no such thing as separate security for any one State, and that no State is assured of living in peace, unless the general security is assured. Formerly it used to be said of the liberty of the individual, that its limit was the liberty of others. So, now, it may be said the safety of each nation is measured by the safety of the others.

The defensive necessities of each nation must, therefore, be compared in order to adjust them, in a general organization for peace, taking into consideration the geographical, the economic, and even the historical conditions of their national life. Some compromises are necessary, and those will entail certain sacrifices, but no agreement is possible amongst mankind without sacrifices. The courage of the statesman consists, precisely, in consenting to those compromises upon which, as Burke says, is founded the gov ernment of nations.

Some sophists, however, have tried to separate the question of disarmament from that of security; and this idea has been sup ported in the League of Nations. To adopt it would mean a dead lock. One cannot imagine England giving up the fleet which she considers necessary for maintaining her overseas communications; nor France—or any other Continental nation—ceasing to guard its territory against the danger of invasion. Doubtless, the possi ble help which other nations can bring to a country unjustly at tacked, is a certain guarantee for that country ; but human nature is weak and it may be feared that, at times, the promises under taken in virtue of the Covenant of the League of Nations may be paralysed by the sudden success of an invader, confronting neu trals at once with an accomplished fact.