The Genius of William Hogarth

In 1713, The Treaty of Utrecht closed a series of Anglo-French continental wars and opened for England a period of confidence and of greater national well-being than she had ever known. It left England in a dominant position in world trade, and, France, in chaos and disorder from which an inefficient and bureaucratic government machine was unable to rescue her...

My Country, Right or Wrong!

Tonight I am going to talk to you about war, and how to stop it. That's really a matter of international affairs, Roy Elston's subject.

When I started this seres of talks "Between the Lines", I made an agreement with Elston. Elston would deal with international affairs and I would deal with Palestinian and social affairs. And here am I already invading his territory.

If it was really his territory and I was really an invader, what would Elston do? He'd call for the police. What police? In international affairs there are no police. In international affairs you're like a peaceful house-holder facing an armed burglar. You call for help, no-one comes. There are no police. Your neighbours hear your cry. But they don't come to help you. For the burgler's got a tommy-gun: they only have walking-sticks. Together they could overpower him. But none of your neighbours is bold enough to take the initiative. So the burglar knocks you down and ties you up and steals all your silver. Then he starts on the first of your neighbours, and then on the second, until he has robbed them all.

From this you wisely learn that only a tommy-gun is any good against burglars, so you get one too. Then your neighbour's afraid of you and also gets a tommy-gun. So then you are afraid of him. At last everyone goes around armed to the teeth, with the most powerful weapon each can buy. And you spend half your life practicing how to shoot with your tommy-gun. You're preparing for the fight that nobody wants but must inevitably come.

And, all the time, one policeman would give you enough confidence to live without a tommy-gun, and your neighbour too. But who will be the policeman? Who will pay him? And who will tell him what to do? You won't let your neighbour be the policeman: he let you down the last time. He won't let you be the policeman, you're bigger than he is. You just can't agree and there's no policeman and everyone goes round with tommy-gun, waiting for the fight that nobody wants, but which must inevitably come.

And that, my dear listeners, is what the world is like today, and what it's been like since time immemorial. Only one question interests us at present, and that is, whether there'll ever be a policeman in international affairs. If there'll never be a policeman in international affairs, then we and our children are doomed to go on waiting for the fight that nobody wants but which must inevitably come.

We all know what the next war will be like. It'll be a thousand [missing text] That's why we are all so frightened about the atomic bomb. Nobody knows who will be the next victim, and we all go around suspecting our neighbours.

Neither Atlee nor Truman nor Stalin tell me what they are going to do. Like you, I know nothing about international affairs except what I read in the papers. But it seems quite clear to me that one of three things must happen. The first thing that might happen - the obvious thing - the thing we all want - is the setting up ofsome international police force which would keep the peace between different countries. Such a police force would have to be composed of a navy, an army, and an air-force stronger than those possessed by any single country, whether it be Russia or the United States or the British Empire. If the international police force isn't strong, then any big country can defy it, and do what he wants. The international police force would then be like a policeman with a stick trying to arrest a burglar armed with a tommy-gun.

Now let's assume that a powerful international police force has been built up, with battleships supplied from the major fleets, and soldiers supplied from all the armies of the world and aeroplanes from every country that has any. There's still the problem of who to tell this huge international police force what it's to do. That's easy, you say. There'd be an international council in charge. But supposing the members of the international council didn't agree. Let's imagine that there's a dispute between - say- Italy and Yugoslavia. Each says the other is the aggressor. Some of the members of the international council think Italy is right: others think Yugoslavia is right. Neither Italy nor Yugoslavia will agree to submit the dispute to arbitration. Fighting begins on the frontier. It's difficult for the international police force to step in because there's no one to give it clear instruction. And so war begins once more. Some countries come in

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