The Peace Ballot and the Public

1981 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 381-392 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.A. Thompson

In 1934-35 more than 11 ½ million adults in Great Britain completed the famous “Peace Ballot” (the official title was A National Declaration on the League of Nations and Armaments) designed to test, and indeed to demonstrate, popular support for the League and “the collective peace system.” The massive response exceeded all expectations and greatly impressed observers. It was, said the New Statesman, “the most remarkable popular referendum ever initiated and carried through by private enterprise.”But what did the Ballot demonstrate? Did it return a “plain and decisive” answer as Lord Cecil of Chelwood, President of the League of Nations Union and Chairman of the National Referendum Committee, claimed?Supporters of the Ballot had no doubt about the national verdict. Britons, said Cecil, had shown “overwhelming approval” of the collective system. They were, according to Winston Churchill, “willing, and indeed resolved, to go to war in a righteous cause,” provided that all action was taken under the auspices of the League. The British people were ready to fulfill their obligations under the Covenant, Philip Noel-Baker later wrote. The country was prepared to stop Mussolini by armed force if that should be required.

1939 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimon A. Doukas

Resort to armed force as an instrument of national policy, though often outlawed and denounced by common consent, seems as inevitable today as ever before. When the Covenant of the League of Nations was adopted, it was agreed “that the manufacture by private enterprise of munitions and implements of war is open to grave objections” (Art. 8, Sec. 5). Shortly after, on September 10, 1919, 28 nations assembled at St. Germain-en-Laye and Paris to sign a Convention for the Control of the Trade in Arms and Ammunition. This was followed by a conference to consider the draft of a new convention which was called by the League and met in Geneva on May 4, 1924. The adoption of the Arms Traffic Convention the following year was hailed everywhere as a signal victory.


Author(s):  
Mary S. Barton

This is a book about terrorism, weapons, and diplomacy in the interwar years between the First and Second World Wars. It charts the convergence of the manufacture and trade of arms; diplomacy among the Great Powers and the domestic politics within them; the rise of national liberation and independence movements; and the burgeoning concept and early institutions of international counterterrorism. Key themes include: a transformation in meaning and practice of terrorism; the inability of Great Powers—namely, Great Britain, the United States, France—to harmonize perceptions of interest and the pursuit of common interests; the establishment of the tools and infrastructure of modern intelligence—including the U.S.-U.K. cooperation that would evolve into the Five Eyes intelligence alliance; and the nature of peacetime in the absence of major wars. Particular emphasis is given to British attempts to quell revolutionary nationalist movements in India and elsewhere in its empire, and to the Great Powers’ combined efforts to counter the activities of the Communist International. The facilitating roles of the Paris Peace Conference and League of Nations are explored here, in the context of the Arms Traffic Convention of 1919, the Arms Traffic Conference of 1925, and the 1937 Terrorism Convention.


1989 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 259-277
Author(s):  
Donal A. Kerr

In the spring of 1848 a number of respected English vicars-general, William Bernard Ullathorne of the Western District, John Briggs of the Northern District, and Thomas Brown of Wales decided that one of them, together with Fr Luigi Gentili, the Rosminian missioner, should proceed immediately to Rome. Their object would be to support, by personal intervention with Pius IX, a memorial drawn up by Briggs, signed by twenty Irish and three or four bishops in Great Britain, which was solemnly presented to the Pope by Thomas Grant, President of the English College in Rome. This memorial ran: we most... solemnly declare to Your Holiness that British Diplomacy has everywhere been exerted to the injury of our Holy Religion. We read in the public Papers that Lord Minto is friendly received... by Your Holiness At this very time, however,... the first Minister of the British Government, the Son in Law of Lord Minto is publicly manifesting in England, together with his fellow Ministers, his marked opposition to the Catholic Religion and the Catholic Church. Another cause of our serious alarm is the very general hostile and calumnious outcry now made in both houses of our Parliament and throughout Protestant England against the Catholic Priests of Ireland, falsely charging them with being the abettors of the horrible crime of murder whilst as true Pastors they are striving t o . . . console their... perishing people and like good shepherds are in the midst of pestilence giving their lives for their flocks.


Archaeologia ◽  
1817 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 340-343
Author(s):  
Edward Daniel Clarke

It is not attaching too high a degree of importance to the study of Celtic antiquities, to maintain, that, owing to the attention now paid to it in this country, a light begins to break in upon that part of ancient history, which, beyond every other, seemed to present a forlorn investigation. All that relates to the aboriginal inhabitants of the north of Europe, would be involved in darkness but for the enquiries now instituted respecting Celtic sepulchres. From the information already received, concerning these sepulchres, it may be assumed, as a fact almost capable of actual demonstration, that the mounds, or barrows, common to all Great Britain, and to the neighbouring continent, together with all the tumuli fabled by Grecian and by Roman historians as the tombs of Giants, are so many several vestiges of that mighty family of Titan-Celts who gradually possessed all the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, and who extended their colonies over all the countries where Cyclopéan structures may be recognized; whether in the walls of Crotona, or the temple at Stonehénge; in the Cromlechs of Wales, or the trilithal monuments of Cimbrica Chersonesus; in Greece, or in Asia-Minor; in Syria, or in Egypt. It is with respect to Egypt alone, that an exception might perhaps be required; but history, while it deduces the origin of the worship of Minerva, at Sais, from the Phrygians, also relates of this people, that they were the oldest of mankind. The Cyclopéan architecture of Egypt may therefore be referred originally to the same source; but, as in making the following Observations brevity must be a principal object, it will be necessary to divest them of every thing that may seem like a Dissertation; and confine the statement, here offered, to the simple narrative of those facts, which have led to its introduction.


Nature ◽  
1942 ◽  
Vol 150 (3806) ◽  
pp. 433-434
Author(s):  
N. K. ADAM

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