Arthur Henderson

The first condition of success for the League of Nations is, therefore, a firm understanding between the British Empire and the United States of America and France and Italy that there will be no competitive building up of fleets or armies between them.

The Disarmament Conference has become the focal point of a great struggle between anarchy and world order... between those who think in terms of inevitable armed conflict and those who seek to build a universal and durable peace.

Moreover, war has become a thing potentially so terrible and destructive that it should have been the common aim of statesmen to put an end to it forever.

Thus, the struggle for peace includes the struggle for freedom and justice for the masses of all countries.

Another essential to a universal and durable peace is social justice.

As a first step there must be an offer to achieve equality of rights in disarmament by abolishing the weapons forbidden to the Central Powers by the Peace Treaties.

I do not believe that the values which the Western democracies consider essential to civilization can survive in a world rent by the international anarchy of nationalism and the economic anarchy of competitive enterprise.

One of the first essentials is a policy of unreserved political cooperation with all the nations of the world.

The drive toward economic nationalism is only part of the general revival of nationalism.

The nations must be organized internationally and induced to enter into partnership, subordinating in some measure national sovereignty to worldwide institutions and obligations.

On the contrary, the characteristic element of the present situation is that economic questions have finally and irrevocably invaded the domain of public life and politics.

Whatever we do or fail to do will influence the course of history.