Jasper County Democrat, Volume 23, Number 70, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 November 1920 — INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS [ARTICLE]

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

There are inore Americans today than ever before who understand that international relations are by no means solely political and diplomatis. They never were, of course, but there were, nevertheless, many who could see nothing else in them. The relations are no longer wholly between governments, but between the peoples of the various countries, and even as between governments the relations are -commercial as • well as political. The association will inevitably grow closer and more intimate as the years go by, and people will become more and more dependent on one another. Yet men are thinking of the league of nations as merely a political device, as something that we can accept or Reject without affecting our nonpolitical international relations either favorably or unfavorably. There could hardly be a greater mistake. The New York Times recently said: We belong in it as a peace-loving people, and we ought to be in it in order to live up to our reputation as a shrewd, Yankee nation. For out of the international entanglement into which we have fallen there is no other way of safely and profitably extricating burselves. Good business demands, if the moral argument does not suffice, that as speedily as possible we take the chair left vacant for us at Geneva. It is Indeed a business question, as well as a moral and political one, as is being increasingly realized. Perhaps economic considerations are the

most Important of all. Business is Interested in peace, stability, clearly defined and cordial relations among the nations of the world, and it must realize how bad it would be for trade wefe this nation to resolve to play a lone hand. Today also Ivar itself Is a great business, and one that can not be carried on except at the cost of other business; it is that greatest of economic sins—waste? In the old days nations were hardly more than fighting groups, which had little relation with one another except political. Now they are bound together by many ties, and no one of theni —■ not even the most powerful and selfcontained —-can live wholly to Itself. Political relations must be powerfully affected by these closer contacts and this greater interdependence.—lndianapolis News.