ENDS AND MEANS
interests are menaced by a foreign power, intervening on
behalf of its investing minority. The interests at stake
are the interests of the few; but the public opinion which
demands the protection of these interests is often a genuine
expression of mass emotion. The many really feel and
believe that the dividends of the few are worth fighting for.
(x) Remedies and Alternatives.—So much for the nature
and causes of war. We must now consider, first, the
methods for preventing war from breaking out and for
checking it once it has begun and, second, the political
alternatives and psychological equivalents to war.
It will be best to begin with the existing methods of war
preventions. These methods are not conspicuously success-
ful for two good reasons: first, they are in many cases of
such a nature that they cannot conceivably produce the
desired results and, second, even when intrinsically excel-
lent, they are not calculated to eliminate the existing causes
of war or to provide psychologically equivalent substitutes
for war. Accordingly, after describing and discussing the
methods at present in use, I shall go on to outline the
methods which should be used, if the causes of war are
to be eliminated and suitable alternatives to war created.
The hopes which so many men and women of good will
once rested in the League of Nations have been dis-
appointed. The failure of the League of Nations to^secure
the pacification of the world is due in part to historical
accident, but mainly to the fact that it was based on entirely
wrong principles. The historical accident which stultified
the League's ability to do good was the refusal of the
Americans to join it and the exclusion for many years of
the 'enemy powers* and Russia. But even if America,
Germany and Russia had all been original members, it is
still as certain as any contingency can be that the League
would not have produced the good results expected of it.
The League admits to .membership any community, how-
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