1 PEACEFUL CHANGE OR WAR? 13obvious reference to the situation created by threatened Italian aggres-
sion against Ethiopia, a situation which he addressed elsewhere in his
speech, Hoare stated, echoing a point he had already made in the House
of Commons, the following: if ‘the burden [of collective security] is to
be borne, it must be borne collectively,’ thereby begging the question as
to what Great Britain would do should collective action ‘prove impos-
sible’.^38 Secondly, Hoare, having earlier noted in his speech that collec-
tive security was designed to operate in a context in which the possibility
was open ‘through the machinery of the League for the modification, by
consent...of international conditions whose continuance might be a dan-
ger to peace,’ declared that it was not enough to legislate that there shall
be no war and that should war occur then it will be brought to an end by
common action: ‘[s]ome other means than the recourse to arms must be
found for adjusting the natural play of international forces.’^39
In regard to the latter point, Hoare was careful to insist that in order
to meet with a positive response, demands for changes to the status quo
must be ‘justified by the facts and based on the free discussion of those
facts’. In this connection, Hoare observed that the ‘justice of a claim is
not necessarily in proportion to the national passions which are aroused
in support of it,’ noting that it he considered ‘one of the most dangerous
features’ of the modern world to be the ‘artificial excitement of national
feeling’ by means of government propaganda.^40 Having added these
cautions, Hoare went on to cite the current distribution of the world’s
economic resources as an example of a status quo situation that required
adjustment because it contained within it the seeds of trouble. Hoare
acknowledged that problem of the world’s resources was exaggerated by
some and that it could be exploited in order to further other agendas,
nonetheless, he was insistent that
the fact remains that some countries, either in their native soil or in their
colonial territories, do possess what appears to be a preponderance of
advantage and that others less favoured view the situation with anxiety.
Especially as regards colonial materials, it is not unnatural that such a state
of things should give rise to fears lest exclusive monopolies be set up at(^38) Ibid., 44, and Frederick T. Birchall, ‘Britain Demands League Act Against Aggression
and Pledges Her Support,’ New York Times, September 12, 1935, 3.
(^39) LON, special supplement, OJ, no. 138 (1935), 45.
(^40) Ibid.