Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/755

 NOTES AND ABSTRACTS.

Business Men and Peace. Nothing is more striking in the history of peace than the way in which business men have of late come into the arbitration move- ment. It is not many years since business men sneered at arbitration as the dream of millennium mongers, cranks, faddists, and other people whom practical men are in the habit of steering clear of as long-winded time-wasters.

What is at the bottom of this change? In this city a few days ago an eminent Bostonian, Mr. Wadlin, librarian of the Boston Public Library, made a remark in a speech before the State Board of Trade that often good came out of conflict, and I believe that this change which has come over the business world, this readiness to co-operate in methods which have not hitherto or, at least, until recently appealed to business men, is due essentially to business men having been latterly confronted with the fact that diplomacy, clubland, statecraft, parliaments, executives, and other political agents and machinery are no longer alone to be trusted with the destinies of their countries. Twice within a very few years the United States, Great Britain, and France have been so near an armed conflict that the only issue was just to " climb down." Nothing is more painful for nations than to " climb down " or " cave in," and nothing is more disastrous sometimes for the future and really more menacing for peace than to have to climb down or cave in. This is not the place to go into particulars about that.

It is my belief that the change which has come over our business world in its attitude toward arbitration is due to the impending conflicts which were avoided ; and thus conflict can, in fact, occasionally claim the function of a power for good.

The one instance I refer to was the Venezuela question, in which President Cleveland " put his foot down." The other case was the Fashoda question, in which the British government " put its foot down." In both cases an armed conflict would have been the result, if it had not been for the real patriotism ot the governments which yielded, and the certainty that the business world of both countries would have disapproved of fighting for unessential things. If there is anything that distinguishes business methods from other methods, whatever they may be, it is that the business man tries in his mind to reduce every question to its just proportions. The business man has what very often is lacking to the politician the right sense of proportion. Thus it seems naturally monstrous to the business man to employ a sledgehammer for the execution of a fly, but that sort of consideration does not always appeal to those who are not trained in the world of commerce and industry.

No better instance of the way in which business men can do good by putting their foot down was ever seen than when the Association of the Chambers of Commerce of the United Kingdom took the relations between Great Britain and France into their hands in 1900. At that moment the hostile feeling between the two countries, so far as the press appeared to echo it, was so strong that on the slightest provocation the guns would have gone off, by themselves.

At the danger of being charged with egotism, I must refer here to my own agency in the change of feeling which began at that time. I had the privilege of being at that moment chairman of the British Chamber of Commerce in Paris, and in that capacity was able to take a public attitude toward the subject of Anglo- French relations which I could not otherwise have assumed. I believe that my appeal to the French nation at that time had the effect at least, it is credited with having had that effect of bringing to an end a perfect epidemic of cari- catures of our late great queen. I believe that the assistance which was given to me by Mr. W. L. Courtney, the editor of the Fortnightly Review, in that great

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