Safeguarding of Peace

Abstract

“COLLECTIVE Security” is a problem which to-day is thrust upon the notice of every newspaper reader. Few of them are aware that to the scientific investigation of this same problem in international relations two whole years have just been devoted by a score of national groups and institutions affiliated to the Permanent International Studies Conference. At the London session of the Conference, held last June, the investigations culminated in a discussion directed more particularly to four essential aspects of the subject: the notion of collective security, the prevention of war, determination of the aggressor and sanctions, and the question of neutrality. The major portion of the deliberations was devoted to the principle of the organisation of pacific systems destined to eliminate the causes of war to the fullest possible extent. In connexion with the repression of war, the discussion turned on regional agreements and the relative value of various forms of sanctions, notably economic and military. There followed an examination of the notion of neutrality and the different forms it may assume when the collective machinery set up for the safeguarding of peace has to be put into operation. The subject chosen for the next Study Conference to be held in 1937 is ‘Peaceful Change’, with special reference to questions of (a) population, migration and colonisation, and (b) markets and the distribution of raw materials. The proceedings of the London session are summarised in Appendix 6 to the Report of the International Committee on Intellectual Co-operation (League of Nations Publications, 1935, 12, A2. Allen and Unwin, 2s. 6d). The same report outlines definite proposals submitted by M. Jean Gerard, secretary-general of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, for establishing closer collaboration between the International Committee on Intellectual Co-operation and the International Council of Scientific Unions. The proposals are to be laid before a special committee of this Council, appointed to deal with the subject.