The Causes of War: Economic, Industrial, Racial, Religious, Scientific and Political

Abstract

ONE of the most significant and hopeful features in the international situation is the growing extent to which, in the last ten years, attention has been directed not merely to the prevention of war by such efforts as the scaling down of armaments and the provision of alternative methods of settling international disputes, but also to the discovery of the underlying causes of international friction and misunderstandings. This is a positive contribution to the building of a new world order, and is akin to the method of inquiry adopted in all scientific investigations. Too often in the past pacifist and politician alike have been superficial in their methods and inquiry, too eager to get a vexed problem out of the way to care whether the so-called solution or settlement was based on definitely ascertained facts impartially considered, or whether, on the contrary, it did not contain the seeds of a future and more dangerous dispute. The machinery for examining and removing the causes of war which the League of Nations has brought into being, and of which its expert committees form such an admirable example, has probably made the greatest contribution towards the establishment of what may be justly termed a science of peace.

The Causes of War: Economic, Industrial, Racial, Religious, Scientific and Political.

By Sir Arthur Salter Sir J. Arthur Thomson G. A. Johnston Alfred Zimmern C. F. Andrews Frederick J. Libby Henry A. Atkinson Wickham Steed, and others. Edited by Arthur Porritt. Pp. xxix + 235. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1932.) 7s. 6d. net.