PREFACE

To the question which has sometimes been asked, whether it is possible to write contemporary history, this survey of international affairs in 1924, composed with a conspicuous mastery of facts and forces by Mr. Arnold Toynbee, supplies an affirmative answer. It is at once a magazine of detailed information of the utmost value to the publicist and the Parliamentarian, and a history of international movements and transactions during a limited time. The plan of the series is professedly annalistic, but Mr. Toynbee has wisely determined to transgress strict chronological limits whenever it may seem desirable to do so in the interests of clarity and comprehension. Thus he supplies an excellent sketch of the problem of security and disarmament from the Peace of Versailles to the end of the Fifth Assembly of the League of Nations, and again in dealing with such large subjects as the movements of population and the history of the Reparation Problem he has composed a narrative the limits of which are determined not by strict consideration of chronology but by the demands of the subject itself.

The design of this series of historical volumes is severely practical. They are intended to provide a 'corpus' of exact information upon the progress of international affairs which may be of service to speakers and writers on politics. These volumes', writes Mr. Gathorne Hardy, introducing the Survey of International Affairs, 1920-3, ' are confined to facts.' Mr. Toynbee, however, does not

wholly confine himself to facts. He is fertile in large historical ideas and suggestive comparisons and does not refrain from political commentary altogether. We do not think that his volume loses in practical value by reason of these stimulating excursions. Mr. Toynbee keeps an impartial mind. While his main object has clearly been to supply a body of hard and well-tested material, which may be used with confidence in any political interest, no matter what it be, and while he has been careful to avoid political judgements which might arouse suspicion, his survey is illumined by analogies drawn from wide reading, and is remarkable for its sense of historical values.

If I have a criticism to offer it is that some stress might have been laid upon the preoccupation of the French Government with their project of going into the Ruhr as a factor determining the attitude of the Quai d'Orsay towards the proposal of Mr. Lloyd George's Government for a defensive pact. The French Government had made up their minds to go into the Ruhr; they were convinced that in this course they would be opposed by the British Cabinet; and while they appreciated the importance to themselves of keeping some kind of British offer alive, they were resolved not to fetter themselves by an engagement to Britain until the Ruhr Policy had been thoroughly tried out. It was, in other words, the shadow of the Ruhr which principally delayed for several years the solution of the problem of security and disarmament. The second course which was obstructive of a settlement has been touched upon by Mr. Toynbee. It was the determination of the French Government, backed by the French General Staff, to obtain from Britain some assurance more definite than that comprised in the Covenant

of the League of Nations that British help would be available for the defence of Poland against aggression. It was only after the Ruhr had been tried and failed, and it had become clear from the discussions in England on the Geneva Protocol that the British Government could not commit its people to military enterprises in Eastern Europe, that the ground was cleared for the arrangements as to arbitration and security which have now fructified in the Treaties of Locarno. The truth is that it became apparent at the First Assembly of Geneva that the French would not be prepared to consider any project for disarmament (by which phrase is meant a reduction of armaments to the limits required for domestic protection and the discharge of existing international obligations) until they had obtained a measure of security at least equivalent to that which would be conferred upon them by the possession of the bridgeheads on the Rhine. On further consideration they became convinced that even this was not adequate and that they needed a further guarantee from Britain of the whole structure of the Peace Treaties. The Treaty of Mutual Assistance and the Geneva Protocol were successive attempts to satisfy this demand, so far as it could be done without entailing obligations which the British Empire would be unwilling to face.

Mr. Toynbee has traced with precision and discernment the successive stages which have led up to the German offer of 1925. He has also supplied a narrative full of vivid and substantial detail of the ill-starred occupation of the Ruhr and of the Separatist movements in Western Germany, bringing out the manner in which these movements were supported by the French, the evils which they occasioned, and the lack of public support behind

them. When the dust and tumult of these deplorable transactions were overpast, it became possible to make an arrangement for the settlement of the Reparation Problem, and here Mr. Toynbee does good service by pointing out the extent to which the operations of the Dawes Committee were assisted by the action of the League of Nations in Austria and in Hungary. The work of the League in rehabilitating the finances of these two impoverished lands afforded a model which, with the necessary modifications, could be followed on a larger scale in Germany. The more the history of this period is studied, the more clearly does it emerge that the existence of the League, standing as it does for ideals of international co-operation, has been of real and substantial service in effecting, albeit by slow and gradual stages, the appeasement of Europe.

H. A. L. FISHER.

NOTE BY THE WRITER

In the planning of this volume, the first object in view has been to carry the survey of international affairs down to the end of the year 1924 in four fields: the problem of Security and Disarmament; the question of emigration and immigration; the relations of the Third International and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics with one another and with the rest of the world; and the relations between the Allies and Germany. Owing to the difficulty of giving an adequate account of the history of four years within the compass of a single volume of this size, it had proved impossible to bring the record up to date in these fields in the Survey for 1920–3; and therefore the present volume, though it bears the title of a Survey of International Affairs for 1924, has had to cover, under these four heads, the history, not of a single year, but of six years under the first, five under the second, and two under the third and fourth.

This necessity, imposed by the purely practical exigencies of space, has carried with it one distinct advantage. It has made it possible to treat as a whole developments which went forward continuously from one year to another. For example, the two United States Immigration Laws of 1921 and 1924 have been presented in relation to one another, instead of being isolated in separate volumes; and the history of the Reparation Problem has been carried from the Franco-Belgian invasion of the Ruhr on the 11th January, 1923, down to the Paris Conference of Allied Finance Ministers on the 7th-14th January, 1925, without the narrative being interrupted at the turn of the calendar year.

The corresponding disadvantage is that, space being limited, the necessity of making up arrears in four fields has involved creating fresh arrears in others. For example, it has been necessary to reserve for the next volume (the Survey for 1925) the record of the numerous and important technical activities of the League of Nations and the International Labour Organization, and likewise the record of international relations on the American Continent (apart from the Immigration Question), although both these parts are already written. Room will also have to be found in the next