WAR
of which these Have-not States might be placated. Being
militarists, they want to make friends with other militarists;
being jingoes, they cannot accept the conditions upon which
such a friendship might be formed—the conditions upon
which, incidentally, it might be possible to get rid of
militarism altogether. The machinery of the Mandate
System is there, ready to be used; but nobody is willing
to extend its present operations and, even in the existing
mandated territories, the mandatory powers are tending to
disregard their international obligations and to treat their
mandates as plain unvarnished colonies.
Machinery has been devised by the League for the
purpose of securing the elementary rights of individuals
belonging to minorities, racially or linguistically distinct
from the majority of the inhabitants of their country.
From the first the governments in control of countries
containing such minorities have shown themselves reluctant
to make use of this machinery, and recently the reluctance
has been transformed, in a number of cases, into downright
refusal. It is known by all concerned that maltreatment
of minorities begets bad feeling, both at home and abroad.
Nevertheless, the governments concerned refuse tcxuse the
machinery of conciliation and obstinately persist in oppress-
ing those of their unhappy subjects who have noses of
the wrong shape or speak the wrong language.
The machinery for peaceful change is ready and waiting;
but nobody uses it, because nobody wants to use it.
Wherever we turn we find that the real obstacles to peace
are human will and feeling, human convictions, prejudices,
opinions. If we want to get rid of war we must get rid
first of all its psychological causes. Only when this has
been done will the rulers of'the nations even desire to
get rid of the economic and political causes.
By definition and in fact the League of Nations is, as we
have seen, a league of societies prepared for war. That
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