3 CONFERENCES AT PRAGUE AND BERGEN AND THE LOOMING WAR 333of collective security the conference had been ‘in some ways behind or fol-
lowing the various Governments and Foreign Offices of the world which
had been examining this subject from every aspect for a period of years,
in taking the subject of “Peaceful Change” for the Conference two years
hence,’ the conference was ‘leading’ and not ‘following any governmental
initiative’. He further observed that if the coming conference faced this
subject with ‘frankness and courage,’ it would ‘add a real and lasting con-
tribution to world thought and possibly to world action.’^332
In the course of the discussions of collective security at 1935 session
of the ISC and in the course of the discussions of peaceful change at its
1936 and 1937 sessions, many participants demonstrated a willingness to
countenance the idea that changes to the status quo should be made in
order to preserve peace, although there were differences over methods of
procedure and the extent of the changes that might be made. However,
the more fundamental division in relation to the question of peaceful
change concerned how such a policy was to be ranked in relation to col-
lective security. For many, the question of peaceful change was a question
that could only be addressed against a background of international secu-
rity: against a background in which non-recourse to force was guaran-
teed so changes could not exacted through threats of force.
From this perspective, peaceful change is not to be conceived as an
alternative to collective security in a situation in which war threatens:
peaceful change, properly so-called, presupposes the general accept-
ance of the proposition that there shall be no war or threats of war. As
noted in chapter one, in December 1935 Toynbee gave an address at
Chatham House entitled ‘Peaceful Change or War?’. In the course of
that address, Toynbee declared that on the one hand, collective secu-
rity is needed in order to ‘safeguard the international order against
attempts to change it by violence’ and that on the other, a ‘method of
peaceful change’ is needed ‘as an alternative to the violent method of
change’.^333 In discussing this address in chapter one, I called attention
to the criticism aired by Salter to the effect that Toynbee was treat-
ing peaceful change not as a supplement to collective security, but as a
substitute for it. In the discussion which followed Toynbee’s address,
Salter stated that he ‘understood Dr. Toynbee to suggest that, having
(^332) ‘Address by Mr. Allan W. Dulles,’ in Bourquin, ed., Collective Security, 462.
(^333) Toynbee, ‘Peaceful Change or War?,’ 27.