Arms and Ideas Listeners in the United States were fortunate
in being able to hear on Wednesday both a broadcast talk by Lord Halifax from London and a radio address by President Roosevelt. The two statesmen—unintentionally, since their addresses were, of course, not co-ordinated, but not accidentally, because their thoughts habitually follow similar lines— complemented each other admirably. Mr. Roosevelt was usefully definite on one essential point. Peace through fear, he insisted, was no more enduring than peace imposed by the sword. Yet for the United States there could be only one alternative to wholesale rearmament, and that was " actual discussions leading to actual disarmament " on an international scale. Lord Halifax, going so far as to question whether war could ever be a solvent, explained on that ground the decision to refuse war over Czechoslovakia. But to the question he then frankly put : " But where is all this to end ? " he could only answer that we must work for understanding as basis for a peace by understanding. No one has so far supplied a better answer, but how far does it apply between two nations pursuing different ideals, speaking different languages and thinking different thoughts ? That is the unsolved problem of today.
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