REFLECTIONS
Mistakes are paid for. by Georges GUY-GRAND

Are social cataclysms, wars or revolutions, definitely of the same order as natural cataclysms, volcanic eruptions or earthquakes, and will man remain eternally as powerless over these as over the latter? This, it seems, is the question that inevitably arises in our minds in the times in which we live. Depending on whether we respond with an act of trust in humanity or an abandonment to fate, we will have more or less taste for being a man.
Mr. Romain Rolland, commenting in the magazine Europe on the exclusion of Germany by the Belgians from an “International Meeting of Writers” founded in London by John Galsworthy, wrote these despairing lines: “Let us not speak of justice in the house of iniquity, in a Europe soiled even less by its crimes than by its self-righteousness. The only justice is death which will equalize us all.” Certainly the wholesale exclusion of the German section was an unfortunate measure; there are Germans with whom we must get along and work, for the salvation of Europe. But if there really is no other justice, no other equality than in death; if it is being a Pharisee not to want to compare Belgian or French responsibility to Germanic responsibility in the Great War; if this nihilism is the last word of wisdom all that remains is to resign from being a thinking being. It is not possible to love humanity if we cannot act on it any more than on the elementary forces, if we do not believe, as M. Maurras writes, "that the will or the virtue of men can change the nature of ideas”, “intellectual mirrors of realities”.

The same thoughts come to mind when faced with the sarcasm with which the League of Nations is currently being covered. Certainly some of these criticisms are likely to provoke useful meditations. It is too certain that the League of Nations, disarmed, a simple spiritual power, would not have had the means to enforce its verdict. We would not have to notice this weakness today if we had listened to France in 1919, and we can see the imperfection of Wilson's work. But the remedy would be to arm the international body instead of demanding its destruction, as we see it supported even in France. No disarmament possible without judicial discipline, supported by executive force. Certainly we could still rightly suspect the impartiality of some of the arbitrators, Lord Robert Cecil would have had more moral authority if the recent policy of England towards Greece did not make disinterestedness very problematic. with which today she embraces the cause of small peoples. We have not forgotten the recent Memoirs of Mr. Asquith, from which it clearly emerges that Great Britain would not have intervened in 1914, if it had not seen its interest in the little Belgian people. There is no doubt that today, behind the small Greek people, she sees above all the balance of the Mediterranean. And we also realize that his proposal to have the question of reparations decided by “international experts” is inspired by completely other considerations than justice. We did not fail to recall these facts. Mistakes are paid for. But it is no less true that in 1923 as in 1914, whatever imprudence was committed, it was the rights of small peoples that found themselves threatened by a surge of imperialism. The matter is settled, it seems, by diplomatic means, by political balance, and we should be happy about the threat. war is averted. But there is no cause for congratulations, for the future of a Europe disciplined by reason, that political skills have prevailed over law. Empirical force was opposed to force, prudence knew how to deviate, we believe we can cry out against the international order. If prudence and present interest are sufficient to conduct human affairs, all is well; but if it became necessary again to appeal to the noblest, the deepest feelings of the human being - to those feelings that we flout when we believe we no longer need them - we would perhaps realize that certain sarcasm , which we believe to be elegant, reach the heart of the homeland.

Georges Guy-Grand