Story of International Relations

1 PEACEFUL CHANGE OR WAR? 73

He went on to warn against falling into the trap of conflating the idea
of collective security with the preservation of the status quo, stating that
‘[u]nless collective security is accompanied by some means by which
change can be promoted and rendered safe, it may easily become a men-
ace.’^224 Eggleston’s defence of peaceful change was qualified in that he
insisted on the international regulation of changes to the status quo and
that any sacrifices made in the name of peaceful change ‘must be volun-
tary.’^225 Nonetheless, the majority of members at the conference, while
accepting the importance of instituting means by which the status quo
might be peacefully revised, felt it necessary to urge

the greater importance of organizing an effective system of collective secu-

rity. Unless there is some collective pooling of defensive power, weaker

nations will be unable to resist changes to the status quo demanded by

stronger nations for the enhancement of their national power or prestige.

Without adequate provision for collective resistance against an aggres-

sor, ‘peaceful change’ might in reality come to mean the legalization of

changes previously brought about by forcible methods.^226

According to the conference proceedings, this view was most ‘ably’
articulated by the leader of the French group, namely, Sarraut, who
declared that those present were living in a time in history where peace
was ‘nowhere secure’; having declared this he insisted on the indivisibil-
ity of peace. Sarraut stated that there was both an ‘international neces-
sity’ and an ‘international obligation’ to guarantee the basis of peace,
adding that this necessity and this obligation expressed themselves ‘best
in collective security.’^227 Sarraut advised that the supporters of a system
of collective security were not advocating at the same time resistance to
change, but rather were advocating the view that the fundamental basis
of peaceful change could only be provided by ‘massing a supremacy of
power against an aggressor’.^228 Sarraut’s thinking in relation to this last

(^224) An Australian member (F. W. Eggleston), 1936, quoted in Holland and Mitchell,
eds., Problems of the Pacific, 1936 , 182.
(^225) Ibid.
(^226) Holland and Mitchell, eds., Problems of the Pacific, 1936, 183.
(^228) A Japanese member, 1936, in Holland and Mitchell, eds., Problems of the Pacific,
1936 , 195.
(^227) Ibid., and Albert Sarraut, 1936, quoted ibid.