When we have achieved a nation where the majority of the people is of this type, then we can hope for some measure of success in changing our procedure when international difficulties arise.
What we have said really means that we believe in one actual way to peace—making a fundamental change in human nature. Over and over again people will tell you that that is impossible. I cannot see why it should be impossible when the record of history shows so many changes already gone through.
Only the other day I heard it stated that there are only two real divisions which can be made between people—the people who have good intentions, and the people who have evil intentions. The same man who made this distinction between people, made the suggestion that eventually there should be in the government, a department where business—the business that wishes to be fair and square—could lay its plans before a chosen group of men representing business, the public and the government. They could ask for advice as to whether the plans proposed were according to the best business interests of the country and the majority of the people and receive in return a disinterested, honest opinion. Immediately the remonstrance was made that this would be impossible because it would be difficult for an advisory group to know if the plans laid before them were honestly stated, and people of evil intentions could use such a group to promote plans for selfish interests rather than for the general welfare. This is undoubtedly true, and we are up against exactly the same situation in trying to obtain peace between groups within nations as we are on the international fronts.
Human beings either must recognize the fact that what serves the people as a whole serves them best as individuals and, through selfish or unselfish interests, they become people of good intentions and honesty. If not we will be unable to move forward except as we have moved in the past with recourse to force, and constant, suspicious watchfulness on the part of individuals and groups towards each other. The preservation of our civilization seems to demand a permanent change of attitude and therefore every effort should be bent towards bringing about this change in human nature through education. This is a slow way and, in the meantime, we need not sit with folded hands and feel that no steps can be taken to ward off the dangers which constantly beset us.
IMMEDIATE STEPS
We can begin, and begin at once, to set up some machinery. Our international difficulties will then automatically be taken up before they reach the danger point. One of our great troubles is that it is nobody’s business to try to straighten out difficulties between nations in the early stages. If they are allowed to continue too long, they grow more and more bitter and little things, which might at first have been easily explained or settled, take on the proportions of a bitter and important quarrel.
We do not scrap our whole judicial machinery just because we are not sure that the people who appear before the bar are telling the truth. We go ahead and do our best to ascertain the truth in any given case, and substantial justice seems to be done in a majority of situations. This same thing would have to satisfy us for a time at least in the results achieved by whatever machinery we set up to solve our international difficulties.
I am not advocating any particular machinery. The need seems fairly obvious. To say that we cannot find a way is tantamount to acknowledging that we are going to watch our civilization wipe itself off the face of the earth.