The Problem of the Twentieth Century: a Study in International Relationships

Abstract

IT is encouraging to find that a second edition of this masterly book has been called for, and for an estimate of its general content and purpose we must refer to the review of the first edition published in NATURE on January 17, 1931. The three years which have elapsed since then have only added to the urgency of the problem discussed, while they have given Lord Davies the opportunity of urging his solution in the House of Lords, where he spoke with the cordial though guarded sympathy of Lord Cecil and the other friends of the League of Nations and international peace. The three years since the first edition have addfed to the difficulties of disarmament the fresh menace of a now triumphant Nazi party in Germany. Germany has left the League of Nations because she will not submit to gentle control. Is she more likely to return, if it is armed, on Lord Davies's plan, with all the resources of scientific warfare—We allude to these things not in a spirit hostile to the book, which is an admirable summary, historical, political and technical, of the whole question of the international prevention of war, but only to show the extreme and recently increasing difficulty of applying the solution of an international police force. The most hopeful line would seem to be that indicated by Lord Cecil in the debate in the House of Lords. Concentrate on the control of the air, a sphere which is most clearly international and in which our means of action are most modern and scientific. The Problem of the Twentieth Century: a Study in International Relationships. By Lord Davies. New and revised edition. Pp. xvii + 819 + 2 plates. (London: Ernest Benn, Ltd., 1934.) 21s. net.