the violence and ferocity of war.

Just as the growing dissolution of Europe is a common danger, so is the renewal of the bonds of solidarity a common need.

Let us all work toward this end, even if at first we may be misunderstood and may find obstacles in our way. Truth is on the march and will assert herself: we shall strike the main road after much of dreary wandering in the dark lanes of prejudice and violence.

Many of the leading men of Europe and America, who in the intoxication of victory proclaimed ideas of violence and revenge, would now be very glad to reverse their attitude, of which they see the unhappy results. The truth is that what they privately recognize they will not yet openly admit. But no matter.

The confessions which many of them have made to me, both verbally and in writing, induce me to believe that my ideas are also their ideas, and that they only seek to express them in the form and on the occasions less antagonistic to the currents of opinion which they themselves set up in the days when the chief object to be achieved seemed to be the vivisection of the enemy.

Recent events, however, have entirely changed the situation.

As I said before, the American Senate has not sanctioned the Treaty of Versailles, nor is it likely to give it its approval. The United States of America concludes separate treaties on its own account.

Agreements of a military character had been arrived at in Paris: the United States of America and Great Britain guaranteed France against any future unjust attack by Germany. The American Senate did not sanction the agreement; in fact, it did not even discuss it. The House of Commons had approved it subordinate to the consent of the United States. Italy has kept aloof from all alliances. As a result of this situation, the four Entente Powers, "allied and associated" (as formerly was the official term), have ceased to be either "allied" or "associated" after the end of the War.

On the other hand, Europe, after emerging from the War, is darkened and overcast by intrigues, secret agreements and dissimulated plots: fresh menaces of war and fresh explosions of dissatisfaction.

Nothing can help the cause of peace more than giving a full knowledge of the real situation to the various peoples. Errors thrive in darkness while truth walks abroad in the full light of day. It has been my intention to lay before the public those great controversies which cannot merely form the object of diplomatic notes or of posthumous books presented to Parliament in a more or less incomplete condition after events have become irreparable.

The sense of a common danger, threatening all alike, will prove the most persuasive factor in swerving us from the perilous route which we are now following.

As a result of the War the bonds of economic solidarity have been torn asunder: the losers in the War must not only make good their own losses, but, according to the treaties, are expected to pay for all the damage which the War has caused. Meanwhile all the countries of Europe have only one prevailing fear: German competition. In order to pay the indemnities imposed upon her (and she can only do it by exporting goods), Germany is obliged to produce at the lowest possible cost, which necessitates the maximum of technical progress. But exports at low cost must in the long run prove detrimental, if not destructive, to the commerce of neutral countries, and even to that of the victors. Thus in all tariffs which have already been published or which are in course of preparation there is one prevailing object in view: that of reducing German competition, which practically amounts to rendering it impossible for her to pay the War indemnity.

If winners and losers were to abandon war-time ideas for a while, and, rather, were to persuade themselves that the oppression of the vanquished cannot be lasting, and that there is no other logical way out of the difficulty but that of small indemnities payable in a few years, debiting to the losers in tolerable proportion all debts contracted towards Great Britain and the United States, the European situation would immediately improve.

Why is Europe still in such a state of economic disorder? Because the confusion of moral ideas persists. In many countries nerves are still as tense as a bowstring, and the language of hatred still prevails. For some countries, as for some social groups, war has not yet ceased to be. One hears now in the countries of the victors the same arguments used as were current coin in Germany before the War and during the first phases of the War; only now and then, more as a question of habit than because they are truly felt, we hear the words justice, peace, and democracy.

Why is the present state of discomfort and dissatisfaction on the increase? Because almost everywhere in Continental Europe, in the countries which have emerged from the War, the rate of production is below the rate of consumption, and many social groups, instead of producing more, plan to possess themselves with violence of the wealth produced by others. At home, the social classes, unable to resist, are threatened; abroad, the vanquished, equally unable to resist, are menaced, but in the very menace it is easy to discern the anxiety of the winners. Confusion, discomfort and dissatisfaction thus grow apace.

The problem of Europe is above all a moral problem. A great step toward its solution will have been accomplished when winners and losers persuade themselves that only by a common effort can they be saved, and that the best enemy indemnity consists in peace and joint labour. Now that the enemy has lost all he possessed and threatens to make us lose the fruits of victory, one thing is above all others necessary: the resumption, not only of the language, but of the ideas of peace;

During one of the last international conferences at which I was present, and over which I presided, at San Remo, after a long exchange of views with the British and French Premiers, Lloyd George and Millerand, the American journalists asked me to give them my ideas on peace: "What is the most necessary thing for the maintenance of peace?" they inquired.

"One thing only," I replied, "is necessary. Europe must smile once more." Smiles have vanished from every lip; nothing has remained but hatred, menaces and nervous excitement.

When Europe shall smile again she will "rediscover" her political peace ideas and will drink once more at the spring of life. Class struggles at home, in their acutest form, are like the competition of nationalism abroad: explosions of cupidity, masked by the pretext of the country's greatness.

The deeply rooted economic crisis, which threatens and prepares new wars, the deeply rooted social crisis, which threatens and prepares fresh conflicts abroad, are nothing but the expression of a status animae or soul condition. Statesmen are the most directly responsible for the continuation of a language of violence; they should be the first to speak the language of peace.

F.S. NITTI.

ACQUAFREDDA IN BASILICATA.

September 30, 1921.

P.S.—"Peaceless Europe" is an entirely new book, which I have written in my hermitage of Acquafredda, facing the blue Adriatic; it contains, however, some remarks and notices which have already appeared in articles written by me for the great American agency, the United Press, and which have been reproduced by the American papers.

I have repeatedly stated that I have not published any document which was not meant for publication; I have availed myself of my knowledge of the most important international Acts and of all diplomatic documents merely as