without regard for the interests and rights of others. Unless there arises in the world a supreme authority overseeing the states as a central government oversees the local administrations, and unless that authority alone has the right to possess armies and equipment so as to execute its decisions by force if need be, world peace will not be realized.

Inquiry into the formation of this world government may be a species of pure fantasy in the present circumstances; yet it is the only road that must be traveled to reach the goal.

And the formation of a world government is, in reality, a fantastic project. For what state in the world would voluntarily renounce its absolute national “sovereignty” and the right to possess armed forces? And it has the right not to renounce them, for individual sacrifice avails nothing. It has the right, because the prevailing economic order — I mean the capitalist order — compels the industrial states to be colonizing states, in order to reach sources of raw materials to feed their industries; to open commercial markets for the disposal of their products; to occupy strategic positions, build mighty fleets, and raise armies to defend their economic position when the need arises. No industrial

capitalist country can dispense with the raw materials found outside its borders, nor dispose of its products within those borders. Competition, which is one of the rules of capitalism, allows survival only to him who lowers his selling prices; and selling prices are lowered only if raw materials can be had at the lowest possible price (so the capitalist imposes his state's authority upon the weak countries and exploits their resources on favorable terms), and if workers' wages sink to their lowest limits (and this sinking curtails the workers' purchasing power; the industrialist then finds himself unable to dispose of his goods within his country's borders, and goes looking for foreign markets).

This is the disease: the causes of wars in our present age are, in their basis and origin, economic causes; and the removal of wars cannot be thought of unless their causes are removed — unless the present economic order collapses, and another order takes its place, treating the problems of production and distribution in a manner built on the foundations of science, justice, and equality.

Wars will not disappear unless a world government arises; and a world government cannot arise unless the capitalist order disappears.

If the United Nations Organization cannot prevent the outbreak of war, will war come within ten years?

Dr. Philip Hitti

No, no, and again no. That is because the intellectual and emotional currents in the entire civilized world in these days have been, and still are, directed toward peaceful aims. Practical activity in Europe, America, and Asia has been and still is devoted to realizing these aims. The greatest proof of this is the birth and the origin of the organization called the United Nations. No weight should be given to the few black clouds that hang over the Russian–Anglo-Saxon atmosphere; it is plain that if there is any possibility of a war occurring, it would be between these two camps. And both of them, by the evidence of present indications, are unprepared, men-tally or practically, to fling themselves into the fray of a new war that might well be the end of the present civilization, if not of the human family.

Mrs. Rose Shahfa

No third world war will break

out within ten years, and for these reasons:

First — because the peoples have not forgotten, and will not forget within that time, the woes and horrors they have tasted, nor will they manage to restore their countries to what they were before; and this keeps them far from repeating the attempt.

Second — because the present excess of armament and con-scription makes the states fear one another, so that none will throw itself into straits where it fears its strength may not suffice for victory.

Third — for fear of the atomic bomb.

Fourth — the victor in the last war is concerned to remain the victor, and the vanquished fears another tug of the rope.

Fifth — because woman does not want a third war, and what woman wants, God and the world want; and she will strive to spread this idea among her children and the rising generation and in the congresses, for all the grievous consequences of wars fall upon her shoulders — as mother, wife, and sister.

Mr. Subhi al-Mahmasani

The answer to this delicate question calls for one who knows the unseen, or a seasoned politician. Even so, I answer that I incline to optimism, and I do not believe a third world war will break out within ten years, for the following reasons:

First — the world today is in a period of convalescence and reconstruction that does not allow it the material prepara-tion needed to wage a great world war.

Second — the atomic bomb is in the hands of states renowned for upholding democracy, or at least for shrinking from bearing the responsibility of kindling a war of aggression that might bring about the extinction of civilization.

Third — the impossibility of the bomb's manufacture becom-ing general within this period.

Fourth — the activity of the United Nations Organization and the growth of the idea of interna-tional solidarity, which has begun to command the attention of many men of politics and thought in the world.