Public Opinion and the League
The fact that the replies received by the organizers of the Peace Ballot now exceed nine million, and may reach ten million when all are in, is a fact whose sig- nificance it would be folly to under-estimate. There has, it is clear from the evidence of the voluntary workers who carried the Ballot through, been no question in the vast majority of cases of the mere recording of a casual yes or no against the five questions on the paper. The issues involved have been considered and in many cases discussed earnestly and at length. That in itself has been an educational experience of real value. But there is more in the experiment than that. It is idle to say that a nine-million vote in favour of the League means nothing since everyone in this country, of course, desires Britain to remain a member of the League. At least two London daily papers with circulations of nearly four million between them have been ceaselessly deriding and attacking the League since its inception and urging that this country should abandon it. What effect have their attacks had on public opinion ? There is only one way of discovering that—to invite public opinion to declare itself. In the Peace Ballot it has done so, and the result is decisive.
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