WAR MEMOIRS OF DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 1917

278 WAR MEMOIRS OF DAVID LLOYD GEORGE
The next serious Peace Move came from the Vatican.
On August 16th, the belligerent Governments received a
Note from the Vatican, in which, after a striking exordium
dwelling on the increasing horrors of this war, the Pope
asks:
Shall, then, the civilized world be nought but a field of death?
And shall Europe, so glorious and flourishing, rush, as though
driven by universal madness, towards the abyss, and lend her
hand to her own suicide?
Disclaiming any special political aim, and heeding neither
the suggestions nor the interests of either of the belligerents,
and stating that he is impelled solely by the feeling of his
supreme duty as the common father of the people, he suggests
terms of peace:
... in order no longer to confine ourselves to general terms,
such as were counselled by circumstances in the past, we desire
now to come down to more concrete and practical proposals, and
to invite the Governments of the belligerent peoples to agree
upon the following points, which seem as though they ought to
be the bases of a just and lasting peace, leaving to their charge
the completion and the more precise definition of those points.
First, the fundamental point should be that the moral force
of right should replace the material force of arms; hence a just
agreement between all for the simultaneous and reciprocal diminution
of armaments, according to rules and guarantees to be
established, to the extent necessary and sufficient for the maintenance
of public order in each State; then in the place of armies,
the establishment of arbitration with its exalted pacifying
function, on lines to be concerted and with sanctions to be settled
against any State that should refuse either to submit international
questions to arbitration or to accept its awards.
The supremacy of right once established, let every obstacle
be removed from the channels of communication between peoples,
by ensuring, under rules likewise to be laid down, the true