HOW ENGLAND AND FRANCE PREVENTED WARS
Now economic pressure is not a new thing in the world. It has been used before by one nation against another and usually with tremendous effectiveness. When Philip was organizing the great armada the merchants of London persuaded the merchants of Genoa to withhold credit and moneys from the Spanish King. The result was that the armada was delayed for over a year, and then the English were prepared to meet the shock. What could be done three centuries ago for a year to delay a Power so great as Spain then was could be done in this century far more effectively. And it has been employed in this century. When the German Emperor dispatched the gunboat to Agadir bringing on the acute crisis with France, I happened to be in Paris. On the fourth day of the crisis I was having luncheon at the Grand Hotel with a young French banker of the Credit Lyonnais. I remarked on the fact that the crisis was becoming less acute and inquired the reason. “We are withdrawing our French investments from Germany,” was the rejoinder, “and that economic pressure is relieving the situation.” As we all know, it not only relieved the situation but it served as a definite means to prevent a war that seemed imminent. Now I submit that a force which England could use against Spain in the Sixteenth Century and that France could use against Germany in the Twentieth Century—in each case let me remind you a single nation was applying force against another single nation and that nation its enemy—I submit that that force can be applied by all nations collectively against another nation that refuses to settle in a World Court a justiciable issue.