Page:Paul Samuel Reinsch - Secret Diplomacy, How Far Can It Be Eliminated? - 1922.djvu/19

6 that secret diplomacy and ever-increasing armaments led Europe into the terrible destruction of the Great War and that the continuance of such methods is chiefly to blame for the deplorable condition since the Armistice. There may be deeper causes, but these evidences are so obtrusive that they naturally attract most attention and are given most blame for the evils we endure. It is plain that secret diplomacy is a potent cause for continued distrust, fear and hate. There are few statesmen that would not shrink from deliberately planning and staging a war. Yet they nearly all participate in methods of handling public business from which it is hardly possible that anything but suspicion, fear and hatred should arise. Distrust is planted everywhere. There is no assurance of what is the truth; true reports are questioned; false reports, believed. All motives are under suspicion. The public conscience and will are beclouded; nothing stands out as reliable but stark military force.

It would seem that we have learned very little from the war. The same dangerous and unhealthy methods continue to be used with inveterate zeal. The result is that suspicion has now grown up among those who fought side by side and who shed their blood together.