The Political Conditions of Allied Success; A Plea for the Protective Union of the Democracies (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: III The proposals here made to meet the political situation of the Alliance are: (1) The transformation of our Alliance into a permanent League of Nations in which two main principles shall operate: (a) That the security of each state should rest upon the combined strength of the whole League. (b) That the League shall offer to the enemy peoples this clear alternative: Admission into the League on equal terms and protection by it, on conforming to its conditions (which may include democratic representation in foreign affairs); or, on failure to conform to its conditions, exclusion from the benefits of the League, and, instead, the penalty of such coercive measures, economic and other which it can employ. (2) The mechanism of such a League should provide not merely for the representation of its constituent states as geographical units and national or political entities but (by proportional representation) of the minority parties therein. It is further suggested that the method of putting that proposal into effect might be the calling of a Public Inter-Allied Conference to draft the definite plans by which the policy outlined by Mr. Wilson could be put into practice. The Conference should show that the things emphasized in diplomatic rhetoric are indeed the things for which the war is being fought, by dealing first and foremost with these objects: (1) Political security for every nation resting upon a League of Nations plan broadly but definitely outlined with the conditions indicated which would permit the enemy peoples to enter. (2) Equality of economic opportunity secured by equal access to raw materials, to the economic development of backward states, to suitable seaports for land locked states, by internationalization of certain railways, rivers, and straits....